Happy thoughts...

Today I have happy thoughts to share.
I made cookies with your daughter today.
She is so much like you, in her newly 5-year old little mind, sharp as knives.
She is so sweet, and will not grow up having to hide that, as you did.

I have started a character on your WoW account...I like seeing your guy there because I know you loved playing.
I'm sorry for all the times I teased you and my husband for your supreme nerdishness--
in fact, I take it all back! haha

I told your brother/my husband that if the mormons can blame everything good on Jesus, then we can blame everything good on You.
...how does that sound?
I figure you have a lot more personal concern for our lives than He would anyway.
So...thanks, man.

I also want to thank you for helping B so much lately...
proof positive that you are 100% softie.
And especially thanks for telling me to stop being so sad...
it worked.
I still miss you, and hate that you have to miss out on hugging your daughter or other things that only happen while Living, but...you're happy, aren't you?
It feels like you are.
I will continue to try to find balance between not wallowing in grief and not living in denial...it's a fine line to walk.

Random Thoughts

It's so strange to be past the point of disbelief.
I believe that he's gone, now.
And I can't seem to find the words for how it aches.
I don't want to pass a whole day without crying, but the sadness goes so deep that it's hard to let the tears come.
That first week, he was still here--he was so present in our thoughts that it was like he wasn't gone at all.
There is a marked absence now.
His room is empty, the door always open.
Offering a jarring reminder that he isn't in it.
The truck...growing dusty in the driveway.
I have thoughts of being close to him by sitting in it with a CD of his playing,
but it seems too...romantic in nature.
And that was never what we were.
Good friends, who respected each other's intelligence.
I can't stop wishing I had spent more time getting to know him.
More time seeking him out--
less time being concerned with boundaries.

He's really gone.
He really is.

He shouldn't be!
There are so many people who miss him.
How do you live with grief?
I have been so busy this week that I have neglected my grief, and I feel it welling inside me like an uncashed check--urgent and growing moreso.
So here I am.
Connecting with the thoughts and the memories...
hoping it'll alleviate the build-up.

I can't stand talking about it lately--
I cringe at the words "funeral", "death", "grave".
It's like I have put it aside.
I do want to visit the grave, though.
And soon.
And I guess I could watch the DVD slideshow.
I grieved so hard that first week that I think I am afraid to grieve more...
afraid it will consume me again.
I felt everybody's sadness, not just my own.
The look on a brother's face, the smile on his daughter's face--
anything that gave me a glance into their soul brought me to my knees.

I keep feeling like my thoughts will bring him back...
that can't be healthy! haha.
I feel like I'm just thinking about someone who's not here right now.
And then, when I do talk about him it's in a very distant manner...because I can't face the truth of it.
The reality.
He's gone.
Forever.
Sure, he's out there.
Sure, I'll probably see him when I die, etc.
But fuck that.
Who cares???
That does no one any good for right now.
I miss him for the empty space he has left in the lives of his 5 brothers, my husband specifically, and D & D next.
And oh, how I hate the enormous rip in the fabric of his daughter's life that this has left.

I hate it all.
He should be here.

I think...I will try to write here whenever I need to think about him.
Maybe I'll share this log-in info with the rest of the family so we can all have a place together...
or maybe I'll just keep it for me.

written to Karstin, August 15, 2006

Here's an interesting thing; something you may enjoy as a student of the mind. Today I discovered that I have progressed to a new state of mind. So the first couple of days it was like all I could do was think about him, in my conscious mind when normally he mostly exists in my subonscious mind: he's around, I'm aware of him, but I don't spend much time at all thinking about him actively, ya know? But these past two days he's about all I could think about, and every time he entered my mind it would send this shock to me, reminding me of what happened and I would instantly start bawling again. Well, today it's like my mind has finally gotten used to him being part of the conscious thought pattern and it doesn't shock me anymore to be thinking about him. I have to dwell on it a little more before the tears will start gushing. I thought you may dig on that--if it came out in a coherant fashion, at least! We cleaned out his room today, all the brothers here together. Which, by the way, fucking SUCKS ASS because it's NOT fucking ALL the brothers. One is so obviously missing. Anyway, I got myself into this frame of mind like we were just helping him move. I didn't allow my thoughts to go to that sappy place, which was more than I could do yesterday, so that's an improvement. I have talked myself right through this to a point where I'm doing pretty well in general. An occasional laugh (it can't be helped; the brothers are all such smartasses) or even a little bit of consideration for what I'm doing next week (starting school!) or the next (kids starting school!) or whatever. So, yeah. Just blabbering away helps me tons, so thanks for reading this. :) Can't wait to catch up and get my mind off this. After the funeral.

Written August 14, 2006

I think the strangest thing is how severely it interupts my daily
routine....that sounds selfish, and I should rephrase it but I don't
have the energy, but I don't mean it like that. I just mean it's
weird...you go along, doing your thing and then something like this
happens and nothing else really exists anymore. I have these passing,
shadowy thoughts of other things and other people, but I keep
forgetting things--like what day it is and stuff. I have to remember
to get up tomorrow and take my boys in to school for their pre-first
grade screening. I already forgot to go to my newspaper meeting on
Sunday and I keep forgetting that my classes start next week. Which
means my newspaper writing resumes. And I'll have to learn stuff.

Really just talking about it is what helps me the most, so it means a
lot to me that you'd be willing to listen.

I think it's bizarre how hard it is to believe it when you get news
like this. It's like your brain has all these cruise control
modes--everything is normal and fine and goes a certain way, it's
predictable. But then, a knock on the door, policemen standing there,
and one tiny little phrase that just rips a hole through everything.
I don't want to keep thinking about this every day for the rest of my
life. But I don't want to stop thinking about him. His smile, his ego!
god, his huge ego--and the softest, most tender part just underneath
that. He was a good man. I am so glad that I got a chance to get to
know him better during this year that he stayed with us. I am so glad
we were able to provide him a safe, happy home. I kind of felt like he had
never had a stable home: their parents wouldn't have exactly won the
parents of the year award, let's put it that way, and his marriage had its
good times, but it ended so it obviously had its share of bad times. That
stability was short-lived. And then he hooked up with this
girl...I could spend a lifetime describing her beauty--she is a broken
little spirit, and he held her together. It was too much for him, and
they had more ups and downs than the elevator in the empire state
building, but he was pretty much everything to her. Anyway...staying
here was stable and good. He and I were pretty good friends by the
end of it. It hurts so much more because I am used to having him
around, but I would have felt awful if I had never gotten to know him.
I don't want to stop hurting.

One of my friends dated him for a while as he was getting divorced and
they've remained on friendly terms. She said her first thought was,
"He's too tall to die." We agreed that it both sounded silly and is
TRUE. Someone 6' 8" should not be able to die. He's larger than life,
so he should be stronger than it, too. The tree that killed him is
pathetic. It's like 4 inches thick. A baby goddamned tree took down a
giant.

This girlfriend that he had...our whole family thinks they broke up a
year ago, but they didn't. I knew. But no one else did, not really.
So I've taken on the role of ambassador for her. It's so hard knowing
that they just don't get how much he meant to her and that he was
still a part of her life. Because he lived here, I know that he
didn't spend a lot of time with her, but from talking to her this week
I have learned that she was just as committed to him as ever. I
know he was lying to her to save his own --fuck, I was going to say
"save his own life". Guess that didn't work out so well, did it??
SAnity. He was tyring to save his sanity. He had to keep distance
from her or he would get sucked in. She has Borderline Personality
Disorder--much worse than it sounds. It's like a mad cocktail of
bipolar disorder and manipulation and some other stuff...can't
remember. It's pretty brutal. She is so beautiful and so loving that
I can see how it would be impossible to leave her--especially when she
needs you so much. So, he never fully left her, but he couldn't stay
with her, either. I hope that all made sense. Anyway. It's a
complex situation because in her mind she lost the man she was sharing
her life with--and planned to be with forever. She told him she would
wait a lifetime for him...and yesterday she said she's only waiting
until her children are grown and settled, and then she's joining him.
I hope she makes it through this. I ache for her.

I figure if I can get through the next few days, I should be getting
back into the swing of things pretty soon. I still can't quite
believe that he's gone forever. He's always gone for a couple of days
here and there--it seems like he'll walk in the door any minute with a
twelve pack of diet mountain dew, or come out of his room and start
talking about some girl he's going to nail. Our last conversation, in
fact, was about my hot lesbian friend who he wanted to hook up
with--she was dumped for a guy, so she's been dabbling; she had to
find out what all the fuss was about in Penisville. Heh. It was a
light-hearted, quick conversation and then I was out the door; off to
meet Jasmine at the dog park, remember? I heared him come into the
house that night, and I thought he was still here when the doorbell
rang. I thought maybe he had locked himself out or something. So
many what-ifs....but I won't dwell on them; they do no good.

Loss For Words

(originally posted August 13, 2006)

I'm still in the denial phase, I guess.
The police came to my door last night and told me that my brother-in-law had been killed.
The one who's been living at my house for the past year.
I haven't slept much, nor stopped crying much, but as always I felt the need to put something into words.
I keep seeing his smiling face and everytime I do, I shake my head a little--
cuz it's NOT true.
It can't be, it shouldn't be.
I will not be around much for a few days, obviously.
I am ok.
But he shouldn't be gone. He just shouldn't.
He was here.
I heard him come in and thought fleetingly of going upstairs to chit-chat a bit;
my usual thought.
But, I didn't.
No, I won't beat myself up with the "what if"s, but jesus.
Another fantastic "what if" concerns the police themselves.
He had been riding his bullet bike fast, up and down our small street and there had been complaints called in by a neighbor or neighbors (we're assuming).
They were on the scene one minute from when they were dispatched, so they were obviously already on their way.
So...what if they had made it there sooner?
He would have had a ticket, possibly an arrest for mouthing off or something stupid like that.
No helmet.
There are 5 brothers where there were 6.
There are people who don't know yet; friends of his that we don't know how to contact without his cell phone, which is at th Medical Examiner's office with him.
So we all sat up last night planning things and his poor mother is such a Mormon and he was just not, but we are all making sure he gets his wishes.
She wants to cut his hair.
We will not let that happen, and she will as always, refuse to accept that her wishes are not the only ones in existence.
She is doing well, though.

If I don't believe it, will it be untrue?
yeah. I know it won't.

Twelve days

I wanted a place to put all the things I've written about you since you left us.
Somewhere all together, somewhere secure (ish).

So this is the place.
Ha!!
I just hope I don't forget the username and/or the password.
I plan to give out the log-in info so others in the family can post things, and read, but we'll see.