grief

Blur

Posted on December 3, 2012 Written by Tonya

I almost bought my father, who has been dead for five years a Christmas present today.

A book, but not just any book, a $75.00 coffee table book: Fenway Park: 100 Years: The Official, Definitive History of America’s Most Beloved Ballpark

He would have devoured it.

He loved the Red Sox.

His last e-mail to me, the e-mail that will forever stay in my In Box was about recording the 2007 play off games (he and my mother lived overseas and could not watch the games live). The Red Sox were victorious that year against the Colorado Rockies in the World Series, but my father died before he even knew they were going to the Big Show.

I was actually standing in line at Barnes & Noble holding this beautiful 12 x 14 shrink wrapped book in my arms thinking how on earth am I going to wrap this thing?

And then it hit me.

I no longer buy my father Christmas presents.

“Dad” isn’t a name on my Christmas shopping list.

What the hell am I doing?

On one hand, I felt like a total idiot and on the other, it was so incredibly sad.

I put the book back where I found it and couldn’t get out of the store fast enough.

Why does our brain do that to us? Trick us into thinking someone is here that is definitely not, lets us get all the way to the check out line before reality sneaks up and reminds us of the harsh truth. So bizarre. So cruel.

As I rushed off to my car to have a good cry, I thought I should have at least looked through it. So, what does my dumb ass do? I returned to the store, picked up an unwrapped copy, found a quiet corner, thumbed through the pages, let the words and photographs blur and was careful to keep my tears from landing on the pages.

Five

Posted on October 14, 2012 Written by Tonya

Today is an anniversary but there is no cause for celebration.

Today marks five chances to ring in a New Year,

five missed Mother’s Day brunches,

five Father’s Day barbeques,

five World Series games,

five Christmas mornings,

one very special birth.

Birthdays, holidays and other milestone days are painful reminders of who is missing from my life and there is no distraction grand enough to avert my attention.

In the days and weeks following a loved one’s death, people tend to say things like, “give it time, it will get easier.” Five years later and I don’t think people will ever know exactly what to say to me when it comes to losing my parents. There truly are no magic words that I know of, except perhaps “you can wake up now, it was all a bad dream”.

The ironic thing is that it actually does get easier with time. Time is a gift for those left behind. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it helps.

Five years later, it’s not a constant, overwhelming, all consuming grief, but within the little things, where grief hides, that hit me when I least expect it. These are the moments when I realize I am slowly forgetting things I swore I never would and it scares me. I make a conscious attempt to replay poignant moments in my mind in an effort to hold on; anything to hold the memories close.

My mom and dad live on in me, my sister and Lucas but the hole in my heart will forever be present. Forever gaping and raw.

After five years I am still grieving.

Ripped Away, Ripped Apart

Posted on September 19, 2012 Written by Tonya

A wonderful supporter of Letters For Lucas, Robbie of Fractured Family Tales is my Letters For You guest star today.

They say death is hardest on those left behind and the what if’s can completely take over your brain. Here, Robbie writes a letter to her cousin who was taken far too soon. It is as you can imagine filled with sadness and wonder.

Dear JB,

I can’t celebrate my oldest son’s birthday without thinking of you because it is yours as well. Or was yours, though you left us a week before you turned eighteen.

You would have been twenty-nine this year and I can’t help but imagine how differently life would have been had you not been ripped away.

I imagine you would be married by now with a sweet wife, and a few children. I like to picture a little girl with your amazing black curls and shockingly beautiful blue eyes. You would have a career…not just a job. You were always a smart kid. You would have gone to college. You would move away from home, but not too far from your roots…close enough that you could go back and help your parents. You were always respectful and responsible.

Hannah, your oldest sister…well her life would have turned out differently too. She wouldn’t have felt the pressure to help parent your baby sister, to be the “husband” that your dad could no longer be. He was so lost by your loss. She did finish college but she never moved on.

She never got to leave. She never experienced freedom. I’d like to think she would have found a teaching job…maybe moved around a little bit…had some life experiences…traveled. Instead Hannah waits tables in a small town where she is trapped by her responsibility to Aunt Kay and Sadie.

By some miracle your sister Maddie made it out. But maybe too far out. She went to college and has a job. But from what I’m told she left and never looked back. By all appearances she was the least scarred by your death which means she may be in the most pain. Maybe she wouldn’t have cut all ties if you were still around.

I don’t even know your youngest sister and she didn’t really get to know you. She was only three when you died. I wonder if they even talk about you? If she gets to hear stories about you and look through pictures of you. Their pain was so deep, so raw and they shut down.

She would be 14 now. If you hadn’t died, she would have grown up with a family. She would have had two parents and a house full of older siblings to tease her and teach her and protect her. Instead she grew up in a hollow house of pain and sadness. She grew up in isolation and a cloak of fear. She doesn’t know her aunts and uncles who live a few miles away or her cousin who teaches at the local school. She doesn’t go to school. I’m told she barely speaks.

I don’t pretend to understand what went on in your parents’ marriage. I just know they never EVER recovered from your death. It broke them beyond repair. I’d like to think that if you hadn’t died they would still be together, living in their white house on top of the hill with it’s peeling paint and collection of old cars and trucks. Your dad was always fixing something up.

I’d like to think your dad would still be alive if you were. He would have taken care of his mind and his body. It would have spared my mom and her sisters the pain of burying another brother. Instead Uncle Lewis died alone in his car this spring.

When you were ripped away so many lives were ripped apart.

I wish things had happened differently but they didn’t. I will always cherish the memories of you, my sweet, smart, hard working young cousin who was taken way too soon.

Love,
Robbie

Follow Robbie on Twitter.

Making A List

Posted on August 27, 2012 Written by Tonya

Just days after my parents died, I made a list of all the people I knew that had also lost a parent too soon.

It seems like such a strange thing to do, right?

I suppose it made me feel a little better and not so alone.

These were friends that will understand what I’m going through, I thought. They will be able to offer me some magical healing words of comfort for surely they know something I don’t.

My grief was fresh and I was searching for answers to questions I had not quite been able to articulate yet.

There were 12 names on my list.

12.

12 friends that share this unending sadness.

13 souls gone.

Some of friendships became stronger because of this new awful thing we had in common, or at least I felt closer to these people and even got a few of them to talk with me about their grief.

For some, I believe the pain was (and is) buried so deep and is too raw that there is no conversation about their loss, let alone mine. I respect and love them regardless.

There was one name included on the list, a friend of Todd’s that I had never even met. Karen. She was the only other person I knew of that has lost both of her parents tragically and at the same time.

Karen became my hero that first year I learned to live in a world without my mother and father, spending hours on the phone with me talking me through the unbearable pain and trials and tribulations of being an executor of an estate. She was a year ahead of me in the process and eons wiser in my mind. I will forever be grateful to her.

As odd as it may be, I continue to add names to my list and recently there was one more.

We are all related in sorrow.

Since You’ve Been Gone

Posted on August 22, 2012 Written by Tonya

One of BlogHer’s 2012 Voices of the Year and big believer in what goes around, comes around, Jenny of Karma (continued) is my Letters For You guest today. Jenny’s letter to her deceased mother-in-law is both gut wrenching and loving.

Too many times we let things go unsaid and with this letter, may we all be reminded how precious and short life is.

Five months since you’ve been gone.

Five months and six days, actually. And that feels like forever, and like no time at all. It’s longer than we’d ever gone without talking, shorter than the time that had passed between your last visit and the last time I saw you.

I still do not believe you are gone.

You remain, everywhere. On my cell phone under “favorites,” even though I rarely called. In my Amazon.com address book, for when we ordered you things you needed, or things we thought you’d like. Scribbled on the Anthropologie gift card you gave me for my birthday, just like you did every year. I can’t bring myself to buy anything with it, even though I was just there, shopping for things to wear to a conference. I used my own money instead. Last year, you flew in to help your son watch our kids while I was at the same conference. Instead of being grateful, I was mad at you for finally coming to visit when I wasn’t even here.

I almost used the gift card to buy a dress for your funeral. I didn’t have anything to wear. I stood in the dressing room, tear-ravaged mascara streaked everywhere, wearing this A-line black shift, very chic, very timeless, just right for a funeral, and thought God she’d be mad if I used the money for this. So I kept the gift card and went to H&M and spent $20 and felt you would have approved. We had very different styles, you and me, but we loved clothes the same way—hungrily, passionately, endlessly.

Sometimes I’m still mad at you. I’m mad that your visits were so infrequent, that we never bonded the way I thought a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law were supposed to. I’m mad you never seemed bothered by it, when I would stew over the gap between us for days. I’m mad that we didn’t ever understand each other. Mad that you let me be self-righteous and standoffish and so very immature, sometimes, when you knew better and you could have told me. But you didn’t.

Mad that you loved me so much more than I ever knew.

Mostly, though, I’m mad at me. Mad for not sitting down to write you this letter when you were still alive, when you might have read it and understood. But then I flew there, to be by your side, and saw you looking so alive. I heard you laughing and made you a cup of tea and thought, “Of course she knows, how could she not know?” Because I felt it, then, watching you laugh with the veils stripped away. A blurry watercolor painting in focus for the first time. I have always loved her this much. Of course she knows that. I talked to you about my babies, your grandkids. I was always waiting for you to ask about them, to remember that E was taking ballet and that Baby N hated avocados. I was too busy being hurt by your silences, by the unasked questions, to stop waiting and just start talking.

Instead of writing the letter, I curled up near you on the couch and read my book and watched the news and measured out your next dose of medication. I brushed aside your thank-yous. I pretended it had always been like this, and that it always would be.

She always talked about what an incredible mother you were. Your cousin Linda told me that, in the confusing, shattered days afterward. She thought you were exceptional. You never told me…never!…and now I have to believe those words I’d have given anything to hear from someone else’s lips while yours are forever silenced.

It’s pointless, of course, all this madness. And you knew that too. You always knew it. It is only now, as I look back and miss you and try to hold the pieces of my husband together while he endures the agony of your loss, that I can see all those silences for what they really were. You understood. You could see forwards and backwards with a clarity I will forever envy, forever seek to find.

You loved me anyway.

So this letter is for you. Too late, of course, though I would not trade that cup of tea for a hundred letters like this one. I can only pray that you felt what I did. That those last moments (though we didn’t know they were the last) were enough to seal the cracks and make us whole again. This is letter is to tell you that we are fine, that we love you and miss you and think about you every day. We are trying to make you proud. We are trying to live in a way that is exceptional, and carry on the legacy of what you believed we were capable of. I promise to stop waiting, to just start talking, in the moments I have left in this world with the people that matter most.

And this letter is to say I’m sorry. For all the silences, yours and mine, that slipped away before we could understand them, for all the words I didn’t say that I should have. I whisper them now and hope that wherever you are, you can hear me.

Thank you for giving me the greatest gift I’ve ever known.

I think you were an incredible mother, too.

Please follow Jenny on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

God & Angels

Posted on August 7, 2012 Written by Tonya

Tori writes Kindergarten Stole My Zen and is an amazing human being. We are connected through both grief and joy and I am grateful to have her here today with a bittersweet letter to the powers that be.

To God and the Angels,

I thought You’d explain the mess.

I thought You’d teach me before I’d have to ask.

I thought You’d speak directly to me so I didn’t have to struggle to hear You.

Where were You the day my body failed our baby?

I took my vitamins, wrote my affirmations daily, meditated, and prayed for a well baby.

I thought my children would be two years apart and in matching clothes, maybe even sharing bunk beds.

As the needles punctured my abdomen, the anguish my heart felt was far worse than the pain.

Watching the black and white screen with a baby who barely moved crumbled my spirit and made me wonder what I could’ve done to make this happen.

I blamed myself. My hormones. My distrust.

My faith was truly shaken to the core.

I wanted only to blink and see a thriving, moving, active baby with a great heart rate and perfect anatomy.

Not one with cysts in his brain, transposition of the great vessels, and a multitude of other problems.

“I’m sorry, but your baby has a slim to no chance of survival.”

I took a deep breath as the perinatologist gave me his card and told me I could go to another hospital to be induced for a terribly sick baby who would never survive.

I decided against a different hospital and went to my hospital. To the birth center I work at.

And I saw You there. I saw You in the way the sun shined through on my face during my long labor.

I saw You in my husband’s face.

I saw You in my friends’ faces.

I saw You when I delivered our stillborn son in all his peacefulness.

As we held him I felt Your love surround us.

I knew there was a bigger plan for us, but I struggled with what it was.

Then the grief impaled me.

I tried to trust You.

I tried to believe.

I cried. I took out my anger on my sweet husband and toddler.

I struggled with everything. The simplest things made me lose patience and strength.

I didn’t dare dream of anything. I was so afraid You’d steal it away.

Then, the day I fell to my knees when I found out I was pregnant again.

I told You I couldn’t do it.

I told You I wasn’t ready. It had only been a little over a year.

I couldn’t do it again. Not again.

You told me to just trust You.

I told you you were on crack!

I felt like I was trapped, but had nowhere to turn.

Except to You.

I did turn to You.

I did my best to believe.

There were many tears.

There was much anxiety.

And then, he arrived.

Safe and sound.

In my arms.

Screaming.

And part of my broken heart healed.

It trusted again.

It believed again.

I have to say, it hasn’t been the simplest of times, but it’s what You allowed.

You must have known something about me.

I must be stronger than I thought I was.

And I am reminded of the fact that I was given this life because You must have thought I was strong enough to live it.

So for that, I thank You.

Follow Tori on Twitter and Pinterest.

Six Handwritten Pages

Posted on July 16, 2012 Written by Tonya

When our parents died, my sister and I kept many of their personal items; we divided up family heirlooms, knick knacks, books, photos and letters.

Some of the things I brought home with me have been incorporated into my own, such as their Christmas tree ornaments, which now adorn my tree. Many items have been donated after realizing I didn’t need or want them and some have simply tucked away until I’m ready to look at them or have a house big enough in which I can display them properly.

While rummaging through a closet in our loft last week, I found a stack of letters my father had written to my mother.

How ironic that that very day for Fat Mum Slim’s Photo of the Day for July, the topic was “letters”. I grabbed them, took a photo and posted it on Instagram with the following message:

A handful of letters my father wrote my mother. I haven’t been able to read them because the sight of my father’s handwriting is almost too much to bear.

I meant every word.

Seeing his handwriting is hard.

Harder than I ever could have imagined.

Plus, these aren’t my letters so I’m not even certain I should read them.

On one hand, it’s tantalizing to read something addressed to someone else knowing it was never meant for my eyes and on the other, I wonder what clues they can provide about my mother and father’s relationship and do I really want to know? They were written a long time ago, back before my parents were married.

For now I’ve decided they will stay tucked safely in the closet.

Within the stack, there were also a few other letters; letters my grandmother had written her daughter, letters my other grandmother had written her soon to be daughter-in-law, letters my aunt had written her soon to be sister-in-law and a notepad. Clearly these were precious to my mother, stacked and kept together with a piece of red string.

The note pad was the most intriguing. Inside I discovered mostly blank pages until the very back where there were six handwritten pages.

Both sides.

Page one begins: “It all started…”

With those three words my heart skipped a beat as I foolishly believed I was about to gain some insight into my mother’s young mind and personality.

She refers to wanting to “this to be her story” and a “manuscript”. It seems she was attempting to document her life.

Growing up, I did not have the type of relationship with my mother that I had hoped for. She was distant and indifferent and I was always searching for ways for us to be closer. Could these six pages hold the secrets to my mother or a special message just for me?

In the end, the pages held no clues and were nothing more than a school girl’s account of a family that moved around a lot. Clearly this was just the beginning of something she had intended to write and share someday.

Once again I had learned nothing of any great significance about the woman that raised me and as so many times before was left with an incredible amount of sadness and disappointment.

How can a person no longer here still make me feel this way?

A Letter To The Dearly Departed

Posted on July 10, 2012 Written by Tonya

Greta writes Gfunkified and today is sharing a touching letter to her first husband, who was tragically killed by a drunk driver while she was seven weeks pregnant. Her post, Ivy describes that dark period of her life with nothing but heart and strengthen.

Greta is truly a remarkable and courageous woman, wife, and mother and I am pleased to have her here today.

Dear J,

Ivy will be five in a couple of short weeks, so that means it’s been six and a half years now. I wish you could have met her, seen her precious little face and how much she resembles your mom and sister.

She’s a little firecracker. She’s got my personality and our blue eyes. She tries to hide a sneaky smile when she knows she’s been caught. This girl will be the source of many a sleepless night, I’m sure of it.

Henry is, well… your little clone. The older he gets, the more he looks and acts like you. I wish you could have seen his school programs, or his endless supply of ever-more-intricate drawings (another trait straight from your genes). He has your enthusiasm and lack of rhythm.

We talk about you, a lot. They know who you are, who you were, and where they came from. As they get older, I know they’ll ask more and more questions. As hard as it is to answer them sometimes, you know I’ll always do my best.

I hope you can witness all of this from where you are. I hope, so much, that you haven’t been completely robbed of that.

I don’t hate the woman who killed you. I don’t have anger for her anymore. I don’t have energy to spend on that, and I know that’s not how you’d want me to spend my life with your children.

I will never, EVER forget her name, though. I’ll never be able to drive over that spot and not think about what happened.

I hope you know that I’m happy, and that we’re well taken care of. I hope you can see that your kids will never feel that they aren’t loved every single day of their lives, and that I’m loved. Because I know in my heart that you want that for me, and I will always have the inkling that you had something to do with how my life has played out since you left it.

Love,
G

Follow Greta on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

Memories Of Daddy

Posted on June 24, 2012 Written by Tonya

With Father’s Day just a week ago and mine and Lucas’ birthday this month, my dad has been on my mind a lot lately. There are so many big and little things that remind me of my dad, the time we spent together and what a great role model he was to me.

My dad and I had a very special bond and I was a Daddy’s Girl through and through. I miss our conversations, his genuine thirst for knowledge and his hugs most of all, but here’s what has been rising to the top of my memory bank and making me miss him a little more than usual (in no particular order):

1. Hearing my dad drop the F bomb the first time. It was directed at traffic and made me giggle like crazy.

2. A mortifying incident in which he yelled out the car window to a classmate of mine riding his bike after darting in front of us, “That’s the kind of thing that will get you killed.”. That was 18 years ago and recently my husband yelled the exact same thing as a biker crossed our path. I nearly peed in my pants.

3. My dad loved to dance, especially to 80’s music. Sadly, my dad was a terrible dancer, but you just had to admire his enthusiasm.

4. His roots. My father was born and raised in a very small town in Texas and while he grew to appreciate it, he did everything he could to leave that life far behind him. I wonder if he knew at 10 that someday he would work and live in Africa.

5. His loss. My dad lost his father when he was just six years old, his step-father when he was 21 and his mother at 32.

6. His steady grip and childlike humor as he walked me down the aisle. Twice.

7. Blue. His eyes were kind and the brightest shade of blue.

8. My father lived in Dockers and plaid button-down shirts, in varying degrees of blue, his favorite color. As a family, we lovingly referred to his shirts of choice as “Mike Adams” shirts because you could spot one a mile away.

9. His strong, capable rough hands. He was a nail biter and always wore both his wedding ring and his class ring (seen below).

10. His chicken scratch handwritten lists. He made lists for everything; things to do, movies to see, books he’d read, bills he paid, phone calls to make, etc., etc., etc. My love of lists comes directly from my father.

My dad on my wedding day – August 4, 2007.

Linking up with Stasha’s Monday Listicles, a meme right up my alley, because I LOVE lists! Thanks to Kim of The G is Silent for coming up with this week’s topic: celebrate your father with 10 happy memories. I could have gone on and on and on with this list.

Something’s Missing

Posted on June 13, 2012 Written by Tonya

Sometimes I feel as though I’ve misplaced my keys. I’ll empty out all the contents of my over-sized purse, crawl on the floor of my car and remove all the cushions from the couches only to discover them in the laundry room on shelf between the bleach and the OxiClean, right where I left them. How they got there I haven’t a clue.

Other times it’s like I forgot to purchase something on my list at the supermarket, the MAIN reason for my trip. I walk out clueless with three bags of stuff and get all the way home and chastise myself for missing the word MILK written in bold at the very top of the page. How does that happen?

Many times, it’s more of a sinking feeling, you know the kind when you could almost guarantee you left the iron or stove on, forgot to lock the front door or neglected to reach out to someone on their birthday?

It’s a nagging, uneasy, uncertain, something’s-just-not-right feeling.

It never subsides.

There is no escaping.

Sure, there are good days and bad days. Days without incident. Days when my keys are right where they should be, in the middle drawer of the bar in our kitchen. There are even days filled with so much joy my heart feels like it might burst right out of my chest and there is no way anything can bring me down. But, I am not naive, I know it’s only temporary because missing someone, or in my case two someones is a feeling I always possess. I carry it with me every day.

Anniversaries, birthdays and other special milestones and occasions are always the hardest. We just celebrated Lucas’ third birthday, Father’s Day is this weekend and my birthday is just around the corner. It’s summertime too and I have the fondest memories of my parents and family being together during the summer. I wish they were here.

Thoughts of my parents used to be the very first thing I thought of when I woke up in the morning and the last thing I thought about each night before closing my eyes, but now and I am so ashamed to admit this; several days will go by and they won’t even cross my mind. They are always in my heart, of course, but recalling them is growing more difficult and it is as though I’m reviewing my grocery list to make sure I have purchased everything I came for and I’m frantically checking and rechecking to make sure the door is locked. Ah yes, there it is, that persistent and familiar something’s missing feeling.

And I am acutely aware that it is.

Blur

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