sakeraki

I feel like in order to do something out of myself I need to practice forgiveness. Its not something a lot of people seem to understand. I don't want to just not think of the man who killed with his car. I want to actually forgive. Its an internal thing. I won't contact him or see him again. Someday though, this rage and hatred that keeps me from feeling alive needs to turn into something better. It needs to set me free.

I'm not sure of how to evaluate his need to be seen by therapist. He'll be four on April, do therapists see people this young? I imagine they do, but it seems strange. Most of the time he seems very happy and carefree. He did blurt out facts about his mom's death to other kids, but they are too young to feel intimdated, so they just looked on and said nothing. My son seemed satisfied by just announcing to others that his mom had died. It did stop abruptly, but nothing bad came after that... save for this "where is its/his/her mom?" stage, which bothers me more than it seems to bother him.

I didn't have it in me to visit my mother and relatives overseas. My sons are 1 and nearly 4, I had the passports and the credit card sitting next to me as I looked for tickets and thought "no, this is not going to happen". I don't think it is going to happen in a long while. I'm not so much scared, as I don't find the "need" to pack myself and the kids on a high pressure tube accross the Pacific, while braving airports, crowds and jetlags. I've surprised myself with that. I've always been adventurous and we travelled obroad when the boys were even younger, no problem, it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. Now? It seems like a huge drag.

My oldest son is obsessed with grouping things and living things into families. He looks at a three rocks of different sizes and decide that one is the dad, the other is the mom, and the little one is the baby. Cars, books, crayons, balls, everything has to have a mom, a dad plus one or two babies. He didn't do this when his mom was alive, but it didn't seem strange when it started. Since last week he began to add a new angle to this. He asks where everything's mom is. We saw a couple of squirrels run by the yard, and instead of getting excited as he always gets, he makes a strange expression and asks in his little whiny voice "but, where is their mom?" He was greeting a toddler at the park and he comes running to me asking "where is the baby's mom?" (she was sitting three steps away from the child). I don't know. Its just a question, but its not a good one. He asked a thousand times where his mom was, for the first three or four months, and then nothing. No more questions, no more mentioning of his mom to me or to the preschool teacher, no more truisms like "my mom was in an accident" and "my mom was hurt and then she died". It was all gone. Now I've got this. A mild freak out every time he sees something, anything, and has to know where the mother is.

Thank you for understanding. I guess -this- is the best that I can do. Now that life is obviously not a nightmare that I can wake up from, the prospect of existing like this makes me sick, but I can life this sickness, for our sons.

I don't know if existence should feel different or improved. Some of my life, the part that involves logistics: taking care of my children, working, keeping the house in some sembkance of order, faking it for people who constantly ask invasive questions, remembering information and dates, is back under control and running. Its kind of a new routine and my personal goal every day: Just get it over with. The spirit that inspired this life and made a difference between surviving and living? Not here yet. Will it ever come back? I don't care at this point. I miss her constantly. There are few tears left in me, but I miss her as deeply and truly as I did when I finally realized this is all true.

The flashbacks I get have changed. For a while they were messy, nonsequential memories that completely paralyzed me. Every time a flashback assaulted me I felt nauseous, confused and truly, genuinely scared. I was afraid of the moment or the situation that would remind me of the scream, the scents, and the sight of her on a pool of blood. It was torture. Over the last few months, as I started to piece together moment by moment what happened, I still get those odd flashbacks but I'm no longer afraid. Its just something that happens. I close my eyes, shake my head, bite my lips, clench my jaw, and wait for it to be over. I even talk to myself outloud to get past it quickly. The nausea is gone, the fear is mostly gone, but the sight is still vivid and I won't forget it for as long as I live. I don't think there is something worse after that.

When and how am I going to enjoy my sons again? I was able to enjoy them when they kept waking up every hour and a half as infants, when they projectile vomited on me, when they discovered the power of the word "no". Right now my sons are a chore, and I don't remember it being like this. The small victories are not rewarding. The shit moments, of which there are plenty, frustrate me more than one ought to be frustrated with a toddler and a preschooler. The good moments that should bring me some satisfaction feel no different than unloading the dish washer. And this is not how it was before. I became a father with the full intention of being a good one, hopefully a great one, I can't find that inspiration anymore. Maybe because I became a father fully intending to share this with their mother. Doing this alone is all work and no fun. I feel horrible. If she were here without me, she would have continued to be an involved, sweet mother, as always. Now instead of coming home eager to be with the kids, I just sigh and go through the motions until they fall asleep.

I've never cared for the however many stages of grief there are, but the new emotion that has taken the place of indescribable sadness is anger. At nothing and no one in particular. I just don't want to be approached or bothered, because the amount of patient responses I can give feel very limited. Everything bothers me. Nothing pleases me. I've given away tons of our stuff because I couldn't stand to have it anymore. It was either donating it or destroying it. What gives? This isn't really "me".

I applaud everyone who is getting things done, decorating and preparing for Christmas. I am about to declare myself incompetent on this year's holidays. I feel like the biggest failure when my kids point at decorated houses and bring holiday themed stuff from daycare, but I contemplate the prospect of it and I forgive myself. I grew up without Christmas, Santa, and all that, and I was fine. I'm not saying we won't have a tree and dinner ever again. Just this year, maybe just this year...

Recently I also find myself wondering why everything just got more difficult and painful. I thought there wouldn't be longer nights than the first nights immediate to her death. Those were a new depth of pain I had never experienced before, and somehow almost five months later, I feel worse than on the first days. It is not that people have steadily left me alone. I wanted that all along. It is not that the sentence on the worthless being who killed her was light and meaningless. I knew all along there was no punishment big enough to do us any justice. It is not that the winter holidays are here. I've always been a grinch. It is not that our oldest son has suddenly stopped asking about her...well, it is a bit of that. Its just somehow got worse. I can't even describe it or link it to something specific, and I'm running out of stamina. Feeling this sad is exhausting.

I'm thankful that my children are too young to be aware of holidays and the marketing around them, so if in the end nothing happens around this winter season, they aren't going to notice or even remember it. Chances are I am going to ignore most, if not all, the holiday season because I don't feel thankful, cheerful, generous, inspired or motivated, and I'm going to let that be, and the kids will be fine. If they were older I would have to fake it, but they aren't, so silver lining!

Thank you for your replies, and yes, it is terrible and fortunate at the same time that we're here. It seems to me like things are getting progressively worse the more I believe that this is going to be permanent, she's not away or a phone call away. She's really gone. This is really the rest of my life, and I'm not sure I want it.

My wife and I were married for 10 years, dated for 15, and had known her for 21. I could not imagine the world without her, and thought I would never have to. After all we promised to grow old together and forever was supposed to be a long time. On July forever ended. We were biking together on a trail we knew like the back of our hands, and then out of nowhere a speeder came and hit her. She died on my arms before anything could be done or said. I relieve those sudden, violent last moments every day. I close my eyes and see it. She was at the core of everything I dreamed of, wanted out of life. Every plan, every vision for the future was shared with her. Now that I exist and she doesn't, nothing motivates me or moves me...not even our children. I live out of duty to them, but I do everything on auto mode. The world holds no appeal if I can't share it with her. I don't know what to do with myself without my wife. There is no direction to move towards, it is all the same since she won't be there.