Learning To Say Goodbye

Hi Sweetheart,

Just writing to you today because I thought it would help to deal with all of the emotions that are garbled up inside of me. This is so hard to get through. Tomorrow will be 11 months since God took you home to be with Him and while I should be happy that you are in such a beautiful place it doesn’t help me being here without you. Today is just one of those days that if my tears had a spigot to stop them I would be trying to turn it off. But there is none so there’s just like a contant flow.

You’d be so proud of what I did yesterday. I actually drove across the lake, across the causeway - which gives me the ‘willies’ just thinking about driving over all of that water - all 24 miles of it. Remember how many times I asked you to slow down just because it always made me so nervous riding over there? We didn’t go too often, just mainly when Corey had his every 3 month doctor’s appointment. You always did the driving and I wasn’t always the most patient passenger in the world but it had nothing to do with your driving abilities - it was just me and that vast amount of water. I’m a wimp when it comes to that which makes what I did yesterday a major accomplishment for me. Just one more thing I’m learning to have to do without you. But I have to tell you that driving across the causeway and into New Orleans is nothing in comparison to learning to live without you. Even at this point in time - 11 months later, you are still constantly on my mind, in my heart…and it’s not getting a whole lot easier to accept it all. It’s not like I’m not trying because I am, or at least I think I am to the best of my ability. That wound that they talk about that is left after you lose someone who you loved so very much is still there though, wide open. Not bleeding so much anymore but still wide open and not closing or healing yet. I guess it just takes a very long time.

I was having a conversation with Donna yesterday. Okay, yes, I admit it - I asked her to come along for moral support and she graciously obliged as she always does. I don’t know what I would do without her sometimes. Anyway, about that conversation we had - she basically asked me if it gets any easier over time, not having you here? The only way I could think of to answer her is that although overall it doesn’t feel as if it’s getting easier that each time you go through the ‘hard’ - that gets a little easier, the ‘hard’, simply because I’ve been there so many times in the past since you’ve gone away. I’m not used to you being gone yet but everytime the ‘hard’ hits, the meltdowns, the crying, the aching, the wishing, the hopeless hoping that’s it’s not really true, all of it - that’s the ‘hard’, then that part gets a little bit easier each time to get through. It only gets somewhat easier because it’s happened so many times and I’ve been there so often that I know how it starts, I know how it feels and I know how it ends, well it doesn’t really end, it just subsides for the time being.

This is how it’s been all morning…yes, dear, this is still another ‘hard’ that I’m trying to make my way through. I’ve noticed that they are happening more frequently now but what can I do about them? Nothing really, except just take them as they come and deal with them one by one until it’s over. God, my heart is still full of so much love for you - that’s never going to change. And I’m not going to lie to you, it hurts like hell. But I can either let it knock me down and keep me down or just feel the pain until it’s over and get back up and start over - over and over and over again. It’s almost become like a way of life for me now so it’s not like I’m not used to it. I’m not allowed to say that sometimes I just want to give into it but I’m not going to lie to you about that either - I have come pretty close to that recently - in my thoughts only though. They always pass without actually doing something stupid though. The ones who think I have no right to feel this way can’t possibly know this kind of pain so I try not to let their opinions bother me as much as they first did. This is my ordeal and until they have been in my shoes they have absolutely no idea how truly hard this year has been for me. Those are one of those things that I tell myself that I cannot change so I need to just accept their ignorance of the whole situation. That’s not meant to be a mean statement just a factual one. Probably if they took the time to keep in touch they would understand my thinking a whole lot better and not be so judgemental of me the way they have been. But like I said, I can’t change their way of thinking so it’s best to just let it all go - I have enough to deal with besides trying to pacify them and how they ‘think’ I should be handling all of this.

There’s not alot left to say to you, my sweetheart…wherever you are - you already know all that’s in my heart. You know how much I love you, how much I miss you, how hard this all is to get through, how I’m coping from day to day. In the beginning, I said I wanted to make you proud by finding a way to do this with my head held high but you know what? I don’t care about that anymore, it was never meant to be that way. There is no way to do that - this is too painful a journey to worry about dignity, or doing it right or wrong. The only important thing, seems to me, is to just get through it - period! And all I can say is that I’m giving it my best shot. I can’t do any more than that. I’ve learned to accept that in this kind of situation, you can only do what you can do, no more, no less, so that’s what I’m trying to do and I’m finding peace with that - not with losing you, not yet anyway…just with finding my way through it all.

I love you, baby, forever and always…