MrsDan

When I hear songs that seem to take a page from and Dan's life. Boys workin on empty Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat? I just think about my baby I'm so full of love I could barely eat There's nothing sweeter than my baby I never want once from the cherry tree Cause my baby's sweet as can be She give me toothaches just from kissin me [Chorus:] When, my, time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her That's when my baby found me I was three days on a drunken sin I woke with her walls around me Nothin in her room but an empty crib And I was burnin up a fever I didn't care much how long I lived But I swear I thought I dreamed her She never asked me once about the wrong I did [Chorus:] When, my, time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her [Chorus:] When, my, time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her My baby never fret none About what my hands and my body done If the Lord don't forgive me I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me When I was kissing on my baby And she put her love down soft and sweet In the lowland plot I was free Heaven and hell were words to me [Chorus:] When, my, time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her [Chorus:] When, my, time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her

I opened Facebook to see my face; someone posted a picture of me from about 14 years ago. She said she was going through pictures and found this one and misses my face. And I bunch of people I no longer have contact with liked it. I basically stopped talking to this person because I frankly didn't want to hear shit like, "I hate to see you so...." The others basically disappeared, you know the story. Um, yeah I miss that face too. But that girl is dead. Thanks for the reminder that I didn't need of a reality that was so precious and ripped away from me. Before death, before infertility, before abandonment, before losing the only person whole had ever made me feel like a real person, one worthy of love and respect. A reality that in many ways seems false and delusional now. Fuck. To add insult it was from a brief period in my life when I was kind of fat.

I mean seriously, I cannot roll my eyes far enough. I'm so sick of stupid pettiness.

Fuck people's attitudes. If one more person is needlessly bitchy to me for no reason I am going to completely lose my shit.

Standing behind you, along with so many of us here.

My offer was accepted. I'm a little freaked out about the price, but I think its a good house for us. Nice neighborhood, big yard for the dogs. It's a bilevel and you can see the living and family room from the kitchen so I can see what everybody's up to all the time. Attached garage. 30 minutes from work. It's a great house for our life now. I hate that I need this, a house that makes taking care of them by myself easier. But I do. So thank you for all the positive thoughts.

I put in an offer on a house tonight, but there's another offer in. I really hope mine gets accepted. I'm so sick on asking so much of my BIL and this house is perfect. I told my realtor to play the widow card, is that gross?

Someone once told me that the odds of securing a position as a university professor are basically the same as becoming a rock star. So congratulations, you're both rock stars! For multiple reasons. That's one of the things that sort of set me away from academia and towards museum work. I'm just saying I know how hard the field is, how competitive; it's not the type of field where you can just go get a job anywhere.

Here's one that Dan taught me. Every few months, call your cable company and renegotiate your bill. They have specials going on all the time, and sometimes they'll even throw in some premium channels for a few months as well. I've been bad about keeping this up, but am working on it now.

You know I almost posted this exact same thing today.

I have to prepared answers when people ask how he died, depending on how polite I'm feeling (or have to be). One is, "It's not my favorite subject," or "Horrifically." Both convey, I think that the question is not appropriate and it's none of their business. The way I see it, it's no one's business how my husband left this earth except mine, our daughters', his parents' and his siblings'. You don't owe anyone an explanation. It's not your job to satisfy their morbid curiosity. It's not even your job to single-handedly chip away at the stigma associated with suicide. It's your job to take care of yourself and your children. That may mean speaking out against the stigma, it may mean keeping it to yourself, it may mean blurting it out to a stranger at the bus stop, it may mean it changes over time. You are negotiating a trauma most people could never begin to imagine. Put your energy into that, not what people think or what they think they have a right to know. Now, sometimes, if people ask and they seem to genuinely care, I will tell people that he died from alcoholism. I've told other people, for various reasons. But that was my choice, and I still feel conflicted about it. The was I a good enough wife stuff, I get that too. But that's my shit to sort out, and I don't need other people clouding it up with their opinions. It's complicated because I do believe Dan suffered from a disease, and the stigma contributed to his death. But that stigma is there, and Dan worked with children. There is a legacy that I want to protect. I wish everybody would understand, but I know they won't. How can I make them when I can't even myself? So it feels like a betrayal to tell, and it feels like a betrayal not to. I was speaking to my former boss about this. She said, she thought Dan would want (which I normally hate, but she apologized if she was being presumptuous, and I think her point was valid) me to do whatever I needed to do to protect myself. In some cases that means telling, in others it means keeping it to myself.

Oh no! I hope you are feel better and keep improving.

No. The obligation to your FIL is your SIL's, to treat his DIL with respect and model good behavior that merits contact with M. If continuing that connection is important to your FIL, it's on your SIL to do what needs to be done to make that happen. Not you.

I'm so sorry you went through this/are going through this, on top of everything else. Sending positive thoughts for your brave little girl.

So I have a neighbor who completely decks out her house for every holiday. Back around Valentine's day, I was sitting in my driveway with a friend who is the only person I confide all my afterlife stuff to, that I felt like I had been seeing hearts everywhere and maybe they were from Dan. She pointed to the Valentine house, and said, "What, you mean like that?" We had a laugh. No I meant I see them in things on the ground, shapes on puddles and things.

I'm sorry you're having a hard time, and I hope your pup is okay. Next to fall, when he died, spring is the hardest for me. We started dating in the spring. That made it my favorite season before. It always brought me back to those heady days of falling in love.

Hugs A, that picture is beautiful. I don't think I have anything like that. I saw a couple holding hands the other day, and he pointed and something, taking her had with his as he did. And I thought, I miss that, the physical sensation of holding hands with someone and they gesture like that, and your hand goes along for the ride. It's something so nuanced, so granular that I don't think anybody who hasn't gone through this would understand. And yeah, the whole, I might get through this day, this hurdle but so what? He'll still be dead? I get that too.

BIL has one. He says it's good for regular cleaning, as in if you use it often it does a pretty good job. They have two dogs and I guess it handle the hair pretty good. I don't know which model he has, but it does have a tendency to get itself trapped in certain rooms sometimes maybe because of the configuration of the house.

I have no place to live in less than four weeks when I start my new job. I've been offered one place, but I got the lease today and I just can't sign it. It's just too much money. I know I am desperate and I should just do it but it's like twice my mortgage. I can't do it. So now I have to write them back and say no. What if this is my only shot at housing? I'm screwed. I can stay with BIL in the short term, but I think that will exacerbate the difficulty of the transition for DD.

Thank you. It was weird, I was standing in my kitchen and suddenly all the other stressors got sucked away, and I left there with only one thought consuming me. And I sobbed. I just sobbed.

I'm not crying ....because I still have no place to live in a month ....because my kid has a stomach bug ....because it doen't look likely that my friends will be able to rent my house ....because of all the stupid demands on my time I'm crying because this is the date we celebrated our first date. Seventeen years ago.

I am moving 300 miles for a new job in less than a month. I have to find a place to rent before then, to make what I anticipate what will be a very difficult transition for DD easier. Trying to find a house that will rent to you when you have two dogs is not easy, and I'm scared they will not want to rent to someone with a new job and is carrying a mortgage. If I had a signed lease from tenants it would make things a lot less stressful. In addition to finding a place for DD to live, worrying about DD's transition to a whole new place, packing up my life and dealing with the triggers inherent in that, and learning a whole new job I have to worry about my house. Getting one of them off my shoulders would allow me to focus on those other difficult things. All of this is happening because my husband died. All because he needed alcohol more than he loved me. I'm not using his death to get a new handbag, or even get out of a traffic ticket. I didn't play the widow card to get the job; no one knew. Because I sat in a room full of esteemed professionals and hid the unrelenting agony I'm in every second of the day. I have to deal with the situation his disease left me with, all to raise an innocent child.

I hate everyone who acts snarky when I drop one of the millions of the balls I have in the air when they only have a handful (tee hee, handful of balls). Seriously, it's like someone playing pong criticizing someone who's playing Call of Duty on expert.

His name is Dan. Danny. B. shoe. Fists. Moobear. His name is Dan and he is still my husband, and I am still his wife.