recovery

They say death is a lot like birth - a new beginning.
Like springtime when the dead tree manifests a bud- a ray of hope dangling from her branches.

But your death was not like that at all.
That sky was black and filled with hate and no matter how hard I try, I cannot recall a single flower suspended from those ghastly, skeleton branches.

Since that day, I have wrestled with my demons, made decisions about faith, my lack of which has only become only too apparent.

I know now that I do not want to claim a God who is apathetic to the pleading screams of his children.
I know now that I no longer believe in magic.

Losing you, has been the most painful part of my existence.

I always thought it would get easier, but the grief never changes its shape and its thorns still claw and rip at my heart just as they did the very first day it happened.

The only thing that is different now is the time lapse in between 'episodes' and these days I have figured out how to stave them off for longer.

This episode was triggered by a dream, the one before - a bottle of Braggs, the one before that a random person on the street who wore your perfect shoulders.

I do not know all my triggers yet and even if I did, there is no way I could prevent them all, because a look, a smile, a kitchen door in a movie can send me reeling back under. That is what I call the experience now, I call it going under. It happens so often that I have given it a name.

Last week someone told me that they thought I was scared to have another relationship, but I'm not scared of anything. What is the worst that could happen to me now, he could cheat on me?

Break up with me? Beat me?    No.

After losing Chance the way I did, just three months before our wedding day, nothing scares me anymore. 

This is the letter that he wrote for me a day before he died.....

'()
misha, 

you are my heart, 

i hope you know, 

forever you will possess me with your love.

never will your presence pass or fade,

you are and always will be my true love.

i am sending this with all of me, and as your man,

your husband, i will be all that I truly can be.

may I never fail or disappoint.

I shall stand by your side strong and faithful, and sound in spirit,

for all eternity.

I love you.

Chance

()

And so the reason I will not have another relationship has nothing to do with fear. I know now, just as I knew then that I could never love anyone the way I loved him.

And so really - what's the fucking point.

Anything now would just be going through the motions.

On Chance's headstone are the first three lines of a poem he wrote to me. But I have never seen the headstone and no one will send me a picture. How I ache to see that headstone....

If this wasn't my story, I swear I would think it romantic. But it isn't romantic.

It's painful and tragic and bleak and it will be like that forever.

But I am okay, truly. I am. Okay. I am. 

I am getting better at keeping things simple and I take pleasure in the most important things these days....my kids, my dogs, the ocean, the sky...... 
and its been months since I have touched alcohol.

While I know I will always feel this way, it does bring me great comfort to know that I am not alone and that through my writing, I can reach you all, in some small way. 
It is something.