Friday, February 18, 2022

One Thousand and Ninety Five Days



One thousand and ninety five days, that’s how many days I’ve had to live without you.

I’m having a lot more good days, than bad days now. But when those bad days hit, boy do they hit hard. I found your pamphlet from your viewing and funeral in my desk drawer at work, earlier this month. I, mistakenly, decided to read it. It’s been a rough month since I read that pamphlet and for some reason, I realized that the entire poem we picked for your pamphlet was missing the last 2 lines of it due to a miss print, or a miss alignment of the poem when they were making them and that irritated the shit out of me. I never noticed it the day of, obviously, nor did I notice it weeks after your funeral. It took me till year 3 to finally see that mistake. Obviously, there is nothing we can do about it now, but it made my blood boil, as if the meaning of your viewing/funeral was now lost to everyone because of these 2 simple verses.

“For part of us went with you,
the day God called you home.”

              Those were the words, those are the simple words that didn’t make it onto your pamphlet, now symbolic to how I feel my grief will never end. How those words will never be printed on your pamphlet is how endless my pain always feels.

One thousand and ninety five days, that’s how many days I’ve had to live without you.

              Next year I turn forty! FORTY years old. I don’t even know how that’s possible when I still feel stuck at 35, the year you will always be. I expect next year to be a hard one for me. But I could be totally wrong, I’ve been doing so well and then this month my grief has been so hard that I feel like I just buried you, AGAIN. I’m trying, trying to live for you too. Do the things I think you would have done, if you just had enough time, enough time to get help, stay clean, and live…not only for the love everyone had for you, but for your damn self, too.

              I try to imagine what our lives would be like, if you were clean and living today. Spending so much time together, making up for all those years I pushed you away because of your addiction. Taking so many photos, because your gone and I just don’t have enough photos of us together. Going on vacation together. Spending the night at my house and swimming in the pool Shane and I just bought last year. There is just so much more I was supposed to be able to do with you. I just need so much more time with you. I sometimes feel like, why wasn’t I the one taken first, because I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to live without you.

One thousand and ninety five days, that’s how many days I’ve had to live without you.

              I made a video for you today; the song makes me cry every time I hear it. These are the lyrics:

Tell me, what does it look like in heaven?
Is it peaceful? Is it free like they say?
Does the sun shine bright forever?
Have your fears and your pain gone away?

'Cause here on Earth it feels like everything
Good is missing since you left
And here on Earth, everything's different
There's an emptiness

Oh-oh, I
I hope you're dancing in the sky
And I hope you're singing in the angel's choir
And I hope the angels know what they have
I'll bet it's so nice up in Heaven since you arrived

So, tell me, what do you do up in Heaven?
Are your days filled with love and light?
Is there music? Is there art and adventure?
Tell me are you happy? Are you more alive?

'Cause here on Earth it feels like everything
Good is missing since you left
And here on Earth everything's different
There's an emptiness

Oh-oh, I
I hope you're dancing in the sky
And I hope you're singing in the angel's choir
And I hope the angels know what they have
I'll bet it's so nice up in Heaven since you arrived
Since you arrived

Oh, oh
(What does it look like in heaven?) Yeah, yeah
Oh, oh, oh-oh
Oh-oh, oh

Oh, oh, I
I hope you're dancing in the sky
And I hope you're singing in the angel's choir
And I hope the angels know what they have
I'll bet it's so nice up in Heaven since you arrived
Since you arrived




Thursday, February 18, 2021

We Push Forward

              


             It’s been a long 2 years without you my dear twin. Time has moved on, the world has moved on, people have moved on and slowly I moved on. But my heart remains partly in 2019 where you will forever be. Where the last time I felt whole. So much has changed, new people have come into my life, and others have left it. But still things continue to move forward.

Turn Again to Life
By: Mary Lee Hall

If I should die and leave you awhile
Be not like others sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust and weep.

For my sake, turn again to life, and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort weaker hearts than thine.
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine,
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you.

              This poem means so much to me, because I mourn your loss so physically, as a twin does, but I also know you wouldn’t want me to sit here and soak in the pain that it causes me. The fact that I want to do so much to fight the disease that took your life. It is comforting to me., every time I get to talk about you, every time I get to tell your story. In hopes that it may save someone else’s life. A piece of me feels whole again. Like I have you with me, pushing me forward.

              Tomorrow is our birthday, funny how many times I wished I wasn’t a twin, how many birthday’s I wanted alone. Now, on my third birthday without you I would give anything to celebrate them with you. I always loved celebrating my birthday, I loved when people sang to me (even at the restaurants), and now I find that most of the time I just cannot wait for it to be over.

              I think the hardest part in grief is the words that are left unsaid. The I love you’s that you wonder if they heard, the stories that you wanted to tell them, the exciting news you wanted to share with them. Even the sadness that you wanted to share with them. I have come to accept your death, but I have spent a lot of time in regret. Regret that I spent so much of your living life angry at your addiction, angry enough that it kept me away from you, angry that I didn’t speak to you, and angry that I didn’t get to share all my memories with you. 

              In our darkest of times we must remember, there was light where you went once, there is light where you are now, and there will be light where you are going, again.

              I will end this with a quote I heard on Call the Midwife. It struck me, because it is so true. It was oddly comforting. “We flicker on a screen; we fold and unfold upon the mind’s eye. Brittle as wings, eternal as a heartbeat and even when the heart falls silent, we do not cease to be, because in the end, we all become memories.”

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

See You Later 2020

        2020 is ending and along with everyone I am ready to put this year behind me, but not for the same reasons as everyone else, I believe 2019 taught me how to live through devastation and 2020 humbled me. If 2019, also known as the year of hell, gave me anything, it gave me the ability to see 2020 differently than most people did. I do not mean this insensitively, because my heart breaks for the job loss, the financial troubles of those I see, but mainly my heart breaks most for those who lost loved ones this past year. While the first of those things are temporary, a life is not, and that is what 2019 gave me. The ability to realize that I can give up my job, my financial stability, if it meant the person I love most in life would be standing here today and because of that loss, I think that’s why I was able to live through 2020 in a different mindset.

              So, let’s start at the beginning, I started 2020 ready to put the worst year of my life behind me. I was sitting in a great place emotionally. Grief therapy helped me tremendously and I was ready to conquer the world. I joined a gym to get my health back in order, was waking up at 5am to work out every morning, work was great, school was great, and I was slowly inching my way to the one year anniversary of Aaron’s passing. We were hearing the whispers of the COVID-19 virus at this point in other parts of the world, just hoping that it doesn’t reach our shores. February came, I survived Aaron’s anniversary, with some hiccups, but I survived it, and Shane threw me a birthday party to help me get through it as well. It would be less than a month later that work would send me home to work because the virus did reach our shores and I would not return for the remainder of the year. I thought I would hate it, I thought I was going to lose my mind working from home. But I found, that even though I am an extrovert, the energy sucking life, that is office drama was easy to let go of. What did suck, is my newly purchased gym membership was worthless as they were closed to help slow the spread. But nevertheless, my awesome sister-n-law got me into Beachbody, and I started to workout at home instead.

              2020 gave me more than I thought it did, looking back, it helped me to find friendship and family, it helped me to realize what is truly important in life. I have stronger relationships with friends because of 2020, and found out that I don’t need to dim my sparkle for anyone, and if you think I am too bright for your taste you can put a pair of sunglasses on or leave the damn room. It helped me to see that memories are more important than material, and to truly be happy in this world all I need is an experience rather than a tangible item. If there is one thing, I miss in 2020 is the ability to hug someone, something I will never take for granted again. I did do a bit of traveling in 2020, spent the 4th of July in Jersey with my in laws, went to the OBX with my sister-n-law, brother-n-law, their family and friends, and also spent a week in the Smoky Mountains with my friends.

              The biggest thing to come out of 2020, for me, is the fact that I graduated college. So, with 2020 only days away from being behind us, I cannot wait to push forward into the new year. I’m excited to start a new year fresh, to continue to learn about myself, my strengths and to continue to grow.

              So Happy New Year everyone, I hope 2021 brings you joy, brings you happiness, and brings you all your dreams.


A New Year Poem 

By: Joanna Fuchs

Happy, Happy New Year!
We wish you all the best,
Great work to reach your fondest goals,
And when you’re done, sweet rest.

We hope for your fulfillment,
Contentment, peace and more,
A brighter, better new year than
You’ve ever had before.

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

I made it a year...barely.


Well, I did it, I made it a year without you, barely, but I made it. It’s been one full year since everything changed, one full year since I started to question everything, one full year of learning how to exist as only half of a person, one full year of fighting to stay above water, one full year without your laugh, one full year without your smile, one full year without hearing you say I love you, one full year.

Breathe.

I learned so much in that year. I learned how strong I am, how when faced with something that should have killed me, I pressed on. I silently cried, where no one was, alone, where I picked up my own broken pieces and put them back together.  I learned to stop, to stop giving so much of my peace of mind and happiness to everyone and saving none for me. So, I learned to take it back. I learned what was important in life, the mindless office gossip, or the endless complaints of traffic, or getting upset over something I can’t change, became so small, so pointless to be involved in, because I learned to live through the worst thing that will ever happen to me, and I fucking survived. I mean that truly, losing you is the worst thing that will ever happen to me. The bereavement process for a twinless twin is so much different than anything else. I was reading in a blog about bereaved twins and the author stated, “When we lose a twin it feels for many of us like the literal end of our lives. That is true, in that it is the end of life as we have known it since the moment of our conception.” I had to learn who I was again, who Brandy was, without Aaron. I had to learn that wasn’t actually WE and I had to learn how to go on with life as just me. (Read More Here: http://www.whengriefcallsforththehealing.com/the-bereavement-process-for-twinless-twins/)

Breathe.

I stopped caring what people expected from me and started to care about what I expected from myself. The only thing I’m in control of in life, is myself, my reactions and how my life turns out. So, I took back control of that. If I didn’t want to do something, I didn’t do it and for brief moments in my life I felt like I was breathing again, without having to think about it. That’s another thing other, nontwins, don’t understand, the fact that you need to learn to breathe on your own again. That every single breath that has been taken since your death I’ve had to carefully calculate, because I never felt like enough air was entering my body, because every breath taken since conception was taken together.

Breathe.

I’m still learning though, and it’ll probably take me another year to learn how to live with the loneliness. A fact that no one seems to understand, that even though you aren’t physically alone, I still feel very much alone, like a missing part of my body is gone. A limb I needed to keep me balanced is missing and that loss is a very real thing for me, like left always needing right. I still feel you, very close to me, and that hurts sometimes too, because I want to physically reach out and touch you, to hug you, but it’s just a feeling of you, it isn’t solid, it’s unreachable.

Breathe.

I’ve changed so much in this past year, I won’t lie, your death hardened me, in places I wished it would have softened. I agitate quickly when I listen to people constantly complain about stupid stuff. I think to myself, I could slap you, because you are here, breathing and complaining and Aaron isn't here, breathing and complaining and I want to scream, WELL AT LEAST YOU ARE ALIVE.

Breathe.

It seems foreign to think that you have been gone for a year. Like as if the months that have passed were only a few days long, because it can’t be a year already. It couldn’t have been a year ago that I was getting the call, which let me tell you, mom’s voice still plays in my head like a broken record telling me you are gone and the scream that escaped my mouth at that very moment seems like it is still lingering in my hallway where I fell to my knees. I still remember the smells of the day, the feel of the tears on my cheeks as if it was happening right now. Every sensory from that day is very vivid, very bright and very present.

Breathe.

I feel like I’m a Phoenix, about to burst into flames and soon, so soon, I’ll emerge from those ashes more beautiful, even stronger, and more determined. That the ashes from my past will forever be marked on my skin like freckles, like a trophy, showing the world, I survived. I read an article the other day about an Australian bush that came back to life. A bush that been burned and presumed dead from the devastating fires, rose strong and bloomed this beautiful pale pink against the black ash that laid around it. I want to be that bush, that phoenix. I want to rise, I want to stand tall and I want to survive the pain of missing you.

…breathe.

Before she became fire, she was water.
Quenching the thirst of every dying creature.
She gave, and she gave
until she turned from sea to desert.
But instead of dying of the heat,
the sadness, the heartache,
she took all of her pain
and from her own ashes became fire.



Thursday, September 5, 2019

An Open Letter (The Recovery Method)

During my grief therapy, my counselor had me do, The Grief Recovery Method’s Relationship Graph. There are three parts to this method. First you will make a timeline of your relationship with the person you are grieving. Second, you’ll make apologies, state forgiveness’s, and finally write down significant emotional statements.  Third, you will write a letter to your loved one. This blog entry is going to be very personal, it’s going to be hard to do and I’m going to be putting myself, my emotions and my life out there for everyone to view. While some of this is not completely accurate (as I’ve been told by my mother lol) it is how I felt as a child and how I viewed the situation at the time and age I was at. I’m doing this in hopes to not only help myself grieve, but also help someone else. Maybe, if someone sees the struggles that have gone on in my home, my life and in Aaron’s life with drugs, then maybe it will be a small wake up call for them. So, let’s begin with my timeline.

You’ll notice that the positive relationship items are listed on the top and the negatives on the bottom, I’ll go into more depth with them in my open letter. While doing this timeline, it was gut wrenching, I ugly cried through the entire thing. It is very emotional to see our life, or what stands out in our lives, wrote out on paper. (Click the photo to enlarge)



Below is the breakdown of apologies, and there are probably more, along with my statements of forgiveness and my emotional statements. You’ll probably judge me on some of them and that is fine, but I needed to be completely honest or this wouldn’t have worked. (Click the photo to enlarge)


Let’s begin with what is going to be hard for me to do…

Dear Aaron,
               
I want to first tell you, I miss you, I miss being your twin, I miss fighting with you, I miss hearing you tell me you love me. In the 35 years you were mine we shared many things. Some of them positive, unfortunately, a lot of them negative. You always remembered things in greater detail than me, and I was always jealous of that. You remembered the bottles we drank out of as kids and could recall places and activities with better clarity than me. But, there are some things that I do recall in our brief time together.
               
Being born your twin is now the proudest badge I wear, but it wasn’t always like that. I know mom said she had recorded us as babies talking, because we had our own language. I’d say something, in what was gibberish to mom, and you’d get up and go get a toy and bring it back to me. Then you’d say something, and we’d laugh and laugh and laugh. It was our own little world where no one else was invited and only we knew what each other wanted. You were a troublemaker from the start, learning to pinch the nipple on the bottle just right that you were able to squirt the contents out. As mom heard our giggles, and much to her surprise, found us in her bedroom with you squirting grape juice all over her walls. Every first that was had, was each other’s first. We learned to walk together, we learned to talk together, we started school together. As we grew older though, we grew apart. But I do remember what a miser you were with money. You would stash away your allowance and were afraid to spend a dime. I remember going shopping with mom and you’d ask for a quarter for the machine, she’d always tell you she’d give you one, but you’d have to pay her back when we got home. You’d decline and state you didn’t really need it anyways. Even though you were a cheapskate, at such a young age, I remember you surprising me with a get-well gift when I was sick. Although, the contents are fuzzy and I’m probably wrong. I remember a baton, coloring books, candy and a stuffed animal.  Although I know this bothered you into adulthood, I always loved this memory with you. But we use to have this toy room that mom made us clean, and you were such a good cleaner. I would pick up a toy, sit down and play with it, and mom would have to yell at me. All the while you are busting around the room putting stuff way. Mom thought she was getting smart and divided the room in half with the broom and mop and said you had to clean one side and me the other and while you busied yourself cleaning, I’d toss toys over the line when your back was to me.
               
As time went on, we changed, mom had to separate us in classes because we became so competitive on who was the better student and it wasn’t but a short few years later when we started to physically fight each other. It seems from 9 years of age and on, a lot of our relationship was negative. At 11, Jeff left us, on Labor Day, I’ll never forget that day. Him telling us he was leaving, you freaking out. You broke your glasses in half and flipped out thinking you were going to need to get a job because who was going to help mom out. Jeff decided it was better to be your friend and not our father, so at 15 he thought it would be cool, to just drive around with you and drink beer in the car. This was the beginning of the end.
               
Your drinking led you to be violent, mean and just hurtful. You’d come home drunk and throw punches at me, call me and mom every name under the sun. Your addiction gripped you fast and it gripped you hard. It led you to start experimenting with other drugs, now I know you were numbing your pain, but I hated you so much for your addiction. We had to come find you at times, get calls all hours of the night telling mom you were strung out and needed picked up. At the time, I was very resentful of how mom coddled you. I remember coming out in the middle of the night to get you at a A-Framed house and you were passed out on their couch. Mom kept say, “Come on Aaron, it’s time to go” She was softly speaking to you and I was ticked off. I just grabbed you by the neck and lifted you off the couch and was like, “Get the fuck in the car.” You just stood up and walked to the car. I always felt like I had to grow up so fast, because mom was so busy with your problems, I didn’t want her to have to worry about me. At 16 years old, I ended my relationship with our father. His alcoholism and abusive nature was something I didn’t want in my life anymore, and you just yearned for him to be in your life, so you continued on the emotional roller coaster and until your death you always tried to get Jeff and I to have a relationship. I listed that in the positives, not because I feel it was positive, but because I knew your heart was in the right place.
               
During our teenage years you spent a lot of that time going down the wrong path. You fought constantly with mom and I and it caused a lot of tension in the home. You stole from me and you would embarrass me in front of my friends. You came home one night, drunk, and my friends and I were swimming in the pool. You jumped in and lost a contact and you wanted us to find it, in the pool. I kept telling you we aren’t going to be able to find it and you just kept getting angrier and angrier. In the end you ended up chasing me through the house with a knife. I ended up throwing a computer chair at you to protect myself. You were arrested, and spent time in jail, and you received several DUI’s. None of this seemed to deter you from the choices you were making.
               
The connection of twins is undeniable. At 22 I was spending the night at a boyfriend’s house and I had this insane need to go home. I felt like someone was standing on my chest and couldn’t breathe. I left his house and when I got home, you were passed out clutching grandma’s heart medicine. Mom didn’t even know you were home. While we always tend to remember the times we were hurt, or the negative things that happened in our lives. There were some positives in our relationship.
               
You were such an awful gift giver. I mean, really the worst. But I always found it kind of endearing. It became a running joke wondering what you were going to buy us for the holidays and I remember our one birthday you asked me what I wanted, and I told you I wanted round cake pans in different sizes, so I could make tiered cakes, and some baking utensils. I even sent you photos of what I wanted, and you replied, “I’m not a fucking retard, Brandy.” But that birthday came and what I received was not round baking pans, but rectangle Pyrex. I remember laughing the whole way home over this gift. But I do use my Pyrex often. You did always stick up for me though. Even to Jeff, when someone mentioned to him about how exciting it must be for him that I was getting married, and you just laughed in his face and was like, “Yeah, he isn’t even invited.”
               
I wish I could just relive the last 6 months of our 35 years. When we found out you were doing heroin it completely devastated me. I felt so broken. Wondering why I turned a blind eye to your addiction for so long. How did I let it get this far? I felt this need to just help you with everything. Mom and I cleaned your house, it was so freaking filthy. I knew then how bad of a problem you had. We found so many used needles and it made me sick. Sick that you were living like this, sick that I hadn’t seen it, sick that I stayed away for so long. I was so happy when we repaired our relationship, when we started talking every day, you spending the night at the house, spending NYE together. Making jokes with one another.  Even during the sad times when we had to have Spencer put down, you, mom and myself were all together at the vet and even though it was heartbreaking saying good bye to him, we were able to see a little light in that day and we nervous laughed, probably inappropriately while in the vet office. You gave me those six months. I selfishly want more.
               
There is so much I need to apologize for, so much I need to forgive you for. But I barely made it through the list at the counselor’s office and I can’t tell you how hard it was to read the statement, I never realized how much I loved you, until I couldn’t tell you anymore. It’s true, you never realize what you have until it is gone. I took you for granted, I took our relationship for granted, I took our life together for granted. I’m so sorry for that. I’m sorry I didn’t realize how lonely you felt, how hopeless you felt. I wish I would have showed you that you were everything to me. I’m such a fool.
               
Now that I’m older, and at the age mom was when she was at the height of dealing with your addiction. I don’t know how she handled it all. Working 3 jobs, going to college, trying to feed two kids, keep them in school and deal with one who was an addict. She is the strongest person I know. That hits me hard you know?

                I have been battling loneliness myself lately. I was so sad that I had to face that speech alone with just Shane, that no one was showing up to support me. It broke my heart. Thankfully, I did have two people show up for me, and I don’t know if they know how appreciated I am to them for that! Someone told me something the other day and it kind of put it in perspective for me, they said, “Brandy, you’re so strong on the outside that I think people forget how broken you may be on the inside.” But I’m a survivor, it’s what I do, even alone and at that moment I realized I need to stop expecting me out of other people, because I’ll just be disappointed.

                Aaron, I love you, I love you so much that the grief of losing you seems so consuming. I forgive you Aaron, for everything, for your addiction, for the hurt, for the pain. I FORGIVE YOU.

                                                                                                                Your twin for eternity,
                                                                                                                Brandy

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Half a Year


Today is 6 months…6 bloody months since you have gone. I think about you constantly, but not so much with such despair as I used too. I still feel the emptiness where your life once resided within me, but that’s something that will never go away. The anger has slowly dissipated, and unfortunately, I’m moving into acceptance. Acceptance that I’ll never hug you again, acceptance that I’ll never speak to you again, acceptance that I’ll never buy you a Christmas gift again, acceptance that I will no longer share a birthday with you again, acceptance that I’m a twinless twin.

Reaching acceptance is vital, for me, for my life, for my sanity. I replay that moment every day, I hear mom's voice telling me you are gone, I hear myself screaming, it's a constant loop inside my head. It doesn’t mean I still don’t cry myself to sleep at night sometimes (or the fact that I’m crying as I write this). But I had to accept the choices you made, and I have to accept that there is absolutely nothing I could have done to save you. Though, I have wished a thousand times to bring you back and I’ve bartered and begged to make this just a nightmare that I can wake up from instead of this now being my life, I have to accept that it is.

6 months….

So much has happened in 6 months (half a year), yet I still feel like I just got the call saying you were gone. My life has changed, I’ve changed, my relationships have changed, my heart has changed. I’m no longer the girl I was before February 18, 2019 at 11am. Your death taught me life is just too damn short, too short to be wasting it on people who use you, too short to waste it on materialistic stuff, too short to not make the best out of every moment, too short to not be going on adventures and too short to be worrying about where you stand with people and their opinion of you. It’s insane to think how in one second a simple phone call can change the trajectory of your life. In one little second my entire life changed, right there and I didn’t even realize it at the time.

--------------

You have visited me, I know that. In dreams mostly, especially in the dream with the eagle, I know it was you and I know you knew I needed you then. I’m sorry I don’t visit your grave often, but, it’s very hard for me to stare at your name on your stone and it feels like someone has this grip around my throat and I can’t catch my breath and I need to run and the further I get away from your grave the less the grip has on my throat and more air that is reaching my lungs.

I’ve dreaded today, more so than any other month. For some reason 6 months seems monumental to me. Like, how the hell have you been gone for half a year already and also, DAMN IT, in only a short 6 more months I’ll need to deal with it being a year. In another 6 more months I’ll need to remember your death and try to celebrate turning another year older without you. Why did you have to die the day before our birthday? Like, of all the fucking days! It feels so cruel, like a joke that’s being played on me, that for the rest of my life I’ll need to remember your passing and then pretend to be happy I’m growing old without you.

I started grief counseling, because, well, to be honest, because I cannot understand how to disconnect my life from yours/ours. The connection our souls had, being twins, is so unimaginable to those who are not. But I have never had just my life, it is always ours and I honestly don’t know how to be just me. It’s weird that my entire life I’ve always been addressed as Brandy and Aaron, oh the twins, etc. Now it’s Brandy (with pity), the twinless twin.

Pastor Lee spoke about dashes at your funeral, the dash that is in between our birthday and our death day. The importance of filling that dash with great memories, with great love and with kindness. To lead a life you are proud of.  I hope that I’m doing just that, spending my dash with a life that makes you proud. I have loved you since conception…I’ll never stop loving you, I’ll never stop missing you.

The Dash Poem
By Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on his tombstone
from the beginning to the end.

He noted that first came the date of his birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that he spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved him
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not how much we own;
the cars, the house, the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Grief has made me different

On this third month of learning to live without you, I’ve realized; it’s May, the fifth month of the year. While it seems like it is flying by, it also feels like it’s only the 5th month of the year and yet an entire lifetime of stuff has happened, in such a short amount of time.

I created this blog, so I could share your story, share my grief. But also, for honesty, and for myself. So, if I’m being honest, I absolutely hate existing without you. I’ve become so good at pretending I’m fine that I’ve begun to fool myself.

I’m so bloody angry, at everything, all the time. I hate that. I hate feeling so outraged over everything. In just 3 short months, I’ve been on an insane roller coaster of emotions. I’ve learned so much as well. So much about who truly cares about me, and surprisingly Aaron, family doesn’t guarantee that. I’d say probably about a handful of people still ask about you or ask about me. The rest have moved on, they’ve forgotten I’m hurting, or they just don’t care that I am. I’ve checked out though, emotionally. I’m done catering to others when they weren’t there for me when I needed them. Maybe I should have learned that lesson a long time ago.

They never tell you how lonely grieving is. How incredibly invisible you feel in a crowded room. Like, here I am completely shattered inside, and no one can see it any more.

Your house is nearly empty now, and it’s up for sale. It’s a double headed sword, I’m so exhausted from spending almost every weekend there cleaning it out, but I know when it’s sold that’s when the shoe is going to drop, and my world is going to come crashing down again. It will be the last material thing I have that connects me to you, and it will be gone.

I’m still planning on doing something in your name, I just haven’t figured it out yet. I need to sit down, do my research and figure out where to even start. Mom wants to start some form of grant in your name for drug awareness. She wants to make sure no other family has to feel as broken as we do. Cause no one deserves to feel the constant pain we are in on a daily basis.

Oh, I’m in pieces, it’s tearing me up, but I know a heart that’s broke is a heart that’s been loved.