How many times have you tried to do something you’ve done a thousand times, and then wake up one morning and doing “that thing” for some reason has become the most challenging thing you have ever done? It’s as if you forgot how to ride a bike.
The last couple weeks have been like that for me. I open the blog, then I sit and stare blankly at my keyboard… nothing connects from the synopsis of my brain to the tips of my fingertips. I open the file folder on my desktop called “future blogs” (these are blogs I started writing but then tend to lose steam somewhere along the creative process). None of these spark anything in me.
The fire in my belly is cold ash, a reminder of a fire that burned warmly weeks ago. Food tastes bland, and overall the world is draped in sepia tones muted from contrast.
That’s what it had been like for me with respect to trying to write. The rational side of me says this is what healing feels like. My emotional side, however, is furious. Furious because I am learning to live without David.
It’s inevitable, but it’s something I never will truly forgive myself for. If I am learning to live without, then I imagine those around me who did not share the same bond are also moving on. And that enrages me. What was his life cut short for if not to remind us that we are alive and to honor every breath we are awarded?
Little symbolic things have been happening these last few weeks, which support the time that has passed. While this may sound weird, bear with me for a moment, but for instance, a few gifts that David and Mom bought for me gave up a few weeks ago. The truth is we can find meaning in anything we want to find meaning about, but like all things in life, everything has a lifespan. My mom bought me these PJ bottoms the last Christmas we spent together. They had these little polar bears on them, and she thought it looked like the polar bears were snowboarding (it was actually just a shadow below the bear, but I could see how she thought it was a snowboarding polar bear, and quite frankly that is what made my mom my Mom—she could see what others could not and was always thinking about me and David even if she had a funny way of showing it). But anyways, the point was when I got them out of the laundry, the entire leg had ripped beyond repair.
And I was sad.
It was a testament to the time that had passed to me, and perhaps that this is the time to stop grasping at the past and to start looking toward the future. The same thing happened with some of David’s stuff where things that I am able to wear—which remind me of him and keep him close to me—are just disintegrating. It’s as if they both are reaching out and saying, “Enough of this, it’s time to embrace who you are.” That, of course, is if I was so inclined to believe in such things.
I still cannot look at the videos. I scroll past them quickly when my impulse is to open them up. Maybe that is what I need. Maybe I need to shift gears and focus on those that are suffering right now and help the living instead of mourning the dead.
Maybe it’s a speed bump, and I am just numb to the last two months. I spend about half a year battling sorrow: From September 28th through February 22nd, I am bombarded by ghosts of memories’ past. Is this my springtime, the rebirth, the reminder that while we suffer loss there is spring right around the corner that allows us to come out of the dreary, where we blossom again?
Whatever it is, the crisp vividness with which I think about him is blurring. Some of the relationships that were so strong immediately following his leaving us have faded. Back to their respective corners, reminding me that I am only a footnote in some of the stories and time he shared with other people I never really knew. Others have grown to new levels and have allowed me the ability to establish some new roots. In thinking about this, maybe this is where those people are becoming what I have tried to be for others and are providing me the warmth and strength to begin my healing process by leaning on them.
Whatever it is, I think it’s becoming that time of the season where we step away from the fireplace and out into the sun, relying upon the warmth naturally provided and seeking alternative fuel sources to drive the engine within.
I don’t miss him any less—I am trying to figure out what to do with those feelings and how to put them to use in a positive manner. How do I rally the people who have been so supportive of me and the Foundation, take our sad story to the masses, and really begin helping those who are with us but wavering in their resolve to live?
So I guess now I am asking all of you: How can you help me? What can we do to help explain how our loss was avoidable, and how collectively can we help others in seeing the same?
I’m glad I was able to write today.
