The Receipt

Dearest Trick~

As I fill box after box with our items I find myself sifting through all our papers. Among them simply folded in fourths I found a receipt. The colored paper stayed folded as I ran my hand very slowly over the corners. My mind drifted to the one and only time I had touched that paper, signed that paper, made choices on that paper. It is the receipt from your … how shall I call it… celebration.

Ever so slowly I found my fingers pulling back and flattening the creases of the sheet, the last sheet I ever had to fill out as your wife. The first time I ever had to write widow. And then the greatest thing happened… my heart filled with joy. The sides of my mouth turned up, as I could not stop the smile from forming on my face. As my eyes scanned the receipt I felt pride in every choice I made, every penny I spent, every decision that came together for the best farewell party I can think of. There may be many things I do not do right in life, there may have been a ton I could have done better…but, that day… that day I put YOU and the essence of who YOU are into every piece of the celebration.

Here I stood completely alone laughing out loud as I saw “periwinkle velour “ casket listed. I giggled when I read Beastie Boys for visitation and Spiderman theme for opening of service.  How odd it is that a receipt from the hardest moment of my life could not just bring tears but a laugh and comfort. I love that we loved so hard. I love that my love for you was bigger then my sadness for myself. I love that a piece of paper, a receipt can remind me of the joy one can feel when they honor another with happiness, laughter and love.

As a tear slowly ran down my face I placed that receipt carefully next to your death certificates. And now the certificates that rip my heart apart are covered with the receipt of … well LOVE. So often in life we have receipts that drag us down. We have papers to remind us what money we just spent, or what show we just saw. We toss then to the side or shred them.  There will never be a receipt for the fun and mazing life we lived together, but this paper reminds me of the amazing man I got to call my husband.

Around the world and back again~

Inch by Inch

Dearest Trick~

You always use to say to me, “inch by inch it’s a synch, yard by yard is awfully hard”.  I have given that advice many times since you left and went to heaven. But here I find myself having lacked to follow your amazing words of wisdom.  Today it hit me…. Practice what Trick preached.  With this advice I have been able to:

~Pack 9 boxes of memories

~Go through EVERY file and paper you and I kept ,and release those that I no longer needed

~Take a walk even when I thought I had more to do then there are hours in the day (the walk was important for my mental health)

~Laugh… yup I laughed today

~Filled out papers for my new job

~Embraced the change that is happening in my life

~Stop and actually smell the flowers (on the tree outside)

~Drink a cup of tea in pure silence

I still have a ton to pack. I still have more paperwork to fill out. I still have a scary new life and move ahead of me. But for now I feel okay, I feel accomplished, I feel like each inch I take is a win. You were right, you have always been right. It is much easier to tackle life a little at a time. Maybe that is the key to all of this … to this life I live. Maybe all I need to do is live in the present moment, accomplish what I can in that moment, and be proud of even the smallest of steps. So I shall take life inch by inch but I miss you yard by yard because my love, it is beyond hard!!!!

Around the world and back again~

BOXES

Dearest Trick~

Boxes…  I never thought about how often we are put in boxes. How others and at times even ourselves close four walls around who we are and what we are. We allow life to box us in, to be determined by others and simple. We are boxed into roles we play and labels we put on ourselves. But somehow those labels never seem to “ship” us anywhere; often they keep us collecting dust in the same spot in our lives. And now, I am surrounded by boxes! I am packing all of OUR belongings and heading to a new city, a new life, a new me and part of me wants to stay in this box…this box of pain that I have created for myself since you were taken from me.

I never thought it would be so hard to fold and pack the physical pieces of our lives. That the simple and yet overwhelmingly horrific act of putting the sweatshirt you wore to the hospital that day would bring me to my knees. It is not just filling these boxes with items but filling them with memories. And I know when they are delivered to the next place you will not be there to unpack them, to share in this new adventure, to put everything in its place. And so I am left facing cardboard, facing a new life, facing a new step to take and I am paralyzed with fear, with sadness and with a task that seems impossible ~ moving… moving on!

I can let this box I have placed myself in as a young widow be where I live. I can let the sadness crush the sides and tatter the tape closing me in. I can allow myself to be stacked on top of with piles of anger and pitty. But I know that staying in a box, living in four square walls conforming to a lable I placed on myself, on the outside of myself, is not authentic. It is time for me to seal these memories with love. It is time to place our history, our dreams and what I thought was our future in bubble wrap and carefully hand it over to the movers next month. It is time for me to pack.

The wall in the far end of the apartment is beginning to be lined with boxes. Each numbered and inventoried. Each box containing things YOU helped me pack weeks before your passing. My hands run along items knowing you had touched them, knowing my hands will be the only ones to touch them from now on. And through the tears and fear I pack on. The stack of boxes gets taller, I get stronger and this life I am left to live becomes clear. The boxes of life were never meant to hold us back, they were meant to hold our things so we can MOVE forward. I am moving love, I am moving forward and I hold YOU in the best container I have ~ my heart!

Around the world and back again~

Hands

Dearest Trick~

There is so much I miss about you. At this very moment it is your hands. I miss the way they held mine, interlocking fingers~ your thumb embracing the top of my wrist. It was as if your thumbprint helped to keep the pulse of what ever adventure was going on in my life flowing. I miss the freckles that painted the canvas of your skin between your two knuckles. The little specks stretched as you gripped your bike handles bars and framed the band on your left ring finger.

I miss the grip you had when your held my hand as we walked the dog, or down street, or around the city, or on the sofa, or my favorite~ in bed as we ever so slowly slipped into slumber. These hands were strong, capable of building and fixing many things. They were soft, gifted in touch and holding my heart. I miss the way the dirt lined the outside of your fingers not your nail beds when we went camping and did not come clean even after a dip in the river until we were home, and a bubble bath was drawn. I love the scar that graced your right hand reminding me of the wild side in life you lived. How I long to run my fingers over that raised mark once again.

I miss how the palm of your hand was the perfect size to hold my head as you hugged me. Each long finger stretched out to caress my cranium in a way that felt safe and protected. I miss the coldness that graced them all winter long, even when you would run them up my bare skin and freeze me and stop me in my tracks. I miss the wrinkles that recently graced your hands from building sets, carrying trays, and most all from holding me.

And now as the year mark is days away I close my eyes and long for your touch. I reach out but fear there is no hand reaching back. I squeeze my eyes really tight trying to remember what your embrace felt like… I fear I have forgotten how it felt, how it fit perfectly. But somehow I know that years from now when we meet again my hands will find their missing piece, they will find yours. Until then I long for your touch my love.

Around the world and back again~

The Month

Dearest Trick~ It seems odd how just the act of it being April can send me into a spin. A downward spiral into the abyss that is widowhood~ that is my life without you. Tears have become the water that washes my face daily. Pain seems the be the clothes I put on each morning but somehow lack to come off at night. And that lost feeling I felt a year ago, that emptiness that last April brought consumes me. I see you in each date this month that covers newspapers, TV, calendars... as if just having the month of April printed is a piece of you being lost again. April showers bring May flowers, but for me the showers bring a turning point. It marks THE 1st YEAR. How did that happen? How in this world did I make it 11 months without you by my side? How did I watch the sunrises turn into sunsets and not find a way to make it all stop? Something so simple, a month, a word APRIL ~ now holds a new meaning to me. And this is just the first of many Aprils when my heart will long for you. Aprils when my soul aches for your embrace. Aprils when my spirit craves your laughter. A month... a month that marks a year, a month that is the line in the sand of time I call my life. There are the rare moments this month when I let the sun shine on my skin and I close my eyes, and for a brief moment I can remember what April used to be. It was once a month when the air in Chicago changed and spring fever was in the air~ so exciting. It was once a month when I got a week off from teaching and we tried to make up some mini adventure to take together on beyond a shoe string budget. It was once a month when we dusted off the flip flops and splashed in the puddles. It was once a month that we planted flowers and veggies to watch blossom and grow. It was once the month that you got on one knee and asked me to marry you. It was once the month that we dreamed up a life together. And now this same month, this same April rips to the core, pulls apart who I am, who we were! A month, a word, a space on a calendar has become the marker that will follow me into the rest of my life. Until the April we get to see once another again, I will miss you. Around the world and back again~

In Limbo

Dearest Trick~
There is this state of limbo that consumes us when we lose someone. It is not like the limbo we do below a stick to funky Caribbean beats. It is more like being stuck in a permeant rut that lacks to move forward or backwards. It is going through daily motions with out a vision of what we want, where we should go, and endless groundhogs day that repeats itself over and over again.

The land of limbo has taught me to take life one day at time, hell one minute at a time. And in limbo there are moments of one second at a time. It is an empty land with big open spaces that once were filled with dreams, with you! In limbo one is waiting, and waiting, and waiting. But unlike the CTA trains this line never seems to come into the station. I stand here on the platform of life waiting for a train that somehow is not on the track. Learning to stand and wait knowing that transportation is nowhere in sight is beyond hard. But here I stand, here I wait, here I hold the ticket that was my life in breathless anticipation that one day, someday, somehow I will get picked up and taken out of this space we call limbo.

The weird thing about limbo is that we all have stood here at some point. Maybe for different reasons, but none the less~ at some time each human has been waiting for life to start, something to begin, something to move forward... and there is comfort in knowing that at some point my ride of life will come and I will move from this dreaded land of limbo. I keep looking down the tracks thinking I hear the whistle blowing in the distance, that I will have a life again, love again, breathe again... but it is a phantom sound. And so here I stand. Each day a simple repeat of the day before, dreaming of you and the road ahead of me. The land of limbo is my address for now~ please forward all mail.
Around the world and back again~

Up, Up, Up In The Air

Dearest Trick~
Do you live in the clouds now? In my mind you live in a beautiful space up in the sky... your carpet is fluffy white cotton, your lamp is the sun and at night the stars twinkle just enough so you can see your way to the fridge for an evening snack or to lighting the way to the bathroom. How silly, but this is what I picture. Each step is softened by the wind and you float in a comfort that could not exist here on earth. So my love is it true? When the night falls and I look up to the moon and talk to you, do you hear me? Are you up, up, up in the air? I like to think so.

Now on a plane I find myself so close to you. The bright light shines in the horizon and I can't help but think that maybe ~ just maybe it is you lighting the way for me. I feel closer to you here thousands of feet off the ground then ever. As we climb through the clouds I feel like I am soaring towards you. But like all trips I will land soon and once again leave this closeness, this magical place in the sky, this heaven as I see it. I wish I could walk among the soft cotton I see outside the window. I look desperately for any sign of you. The shapes of the fluffy white puffs change and shift. The sun rises and beautiful orange and reds fill the sky. It is you painting a picture for me~ I know it. I can feel you you up here. It is as if this cramped seat has become the most comfortable furniture I have ever known.

For a brief moment when we fly we are able to cross into this magical space where we get to dance among the heavens. We are shown the most beautiful of visions in the distance. There is peace and silence and if I squint really hard as I look out the window I see you... playing among the horizon, laughing with the angels and welcoming the new souls sent your way.

I now love to travel, love to be on a plane where the miles are erased and you fly with me my love. If you look Trick, if you look really hard you will see it is me waving to you through the window of the flying machine that brings us so close I can almost touch you. Up, up, up in the air is the place where WE are still US. Flying with you in my heart always.
Around the world and back again~