Your Voice In My Head

I've gotten so used to talking to you that sometimes I forget I am not.

I whisper words in empty rooms and always, always the air whispers back. It tricks me by doing it in your voice. It wears your puzzled expression. It laughs when you laugh.

I hear it say all the things you would say. Running through the back of my mind is the question - is it saying these things because you would say them, because you ARE saying them, or because it's what I want you to say?

Sometimes I ask you what you think of my dress, how I look, do you like my hair this way? You never saw my hair this way. I wear dresses now. You would love them.

Other times it is just the same phrase, muttered over and over, each time more urgently than the last. Why did you leave me?

Sometimes it changes.

Why did you me here?

Why did you leave me like this?

Why did you leave me with these people?

Why did you leave me behind?

They are not questions, really. Just statements.

They are the only things you never answer. I just feel you looking at me, so sadly. Like you pity me. As if you want to tell me an answer that you know I want to hear. An answer you can't give me. Because I know it anyway and there would be no point. There is never a point.

I wonder if I'm going mad. If I already was.

It is an indulgence. To think these things. To imagine you in my head. But is my own and so I allow myself this one small thing. When everything has been taken it is only the things left in your mind that can comfort you.

I feel that I must explain myself. Justify everything. Why I did this, why I did that. But you know. You already know. You could have predicted my moves down to the letter. We loved each other that way. I'd like you to get mad, just to see your expression change. But you won't. You never do.

Maybe it is not you, then, that I need to explain things to. Maybe it is me. To make sense of the absurdity of what has happened. It is like taking a house torn apart by a tornado and trying to put it back together with eleastic bands. I never get further than the door handle. It falls off in my hand.

I imagine you there, sitting, always sitting. Waiting. Watching. You seem bemused. I don't know why. They made your face so weird in that casket. They failed to miss the spot you always missed when you shaved. I hated them for that. It made you not real. And that's the face I see you in. Smirking. Not unfriendly. Just slightly confused, slightly amused.

Do you wonder too? What has happened?

I hope at least one of us can make sense of this. Although I'd rather it be me. Is that selfish? I want all the answers. You would never have needed them. If there is a way to make things make sense, I need to find it. You were much better at accepting things just as they are. I like this about you. Liked.

You make a very frustrating ghost. No hauntings or special tokens. You just hover, saying little. Poking up from time to time when I summon you. It's not very much, you know. Perhaps you could do better? Probably not. You aren't really real.

What more can I say? I miss you. I love you. You forgot some things. Make sure you stop by to pick them up.

Crying In Cars (And Other Inapropriate Places)

If there's one thing I've learned (and it probably is the only thing), it's that you should cry whenever the moment hits. Saving that shit up just makes you hemorrhage tears while snot dribbles down your nose because you just can't hold it in anymore after seeking the pink pig gummy candy on the floor of the grocery store. For reals.

I'd like to blame this week's episode of Crying In Random Places on hormones or a special anniversary. But the truth is, it's basically just my fault. I haven't had a good cry in almost three weeks (stop judging me... lots of people cry more than that... probably) and was getting a little too cocky about it.

And really, this week was the perfect shitstorm of tear inducers. My nephew finished school and brought home his in-class journal featuring a nonsensical child's viewpoint of his uncle Craig's death (I want to be someone's favourite because I play with them and because I'm their favourite just because). I wasn't sleeping very well and work was kind of stressing me out. Oh and did I mention I'm on a stupid diet that makes me hangry 24/7 to the point where I actually thought to myself like some kind of sicko the other day, hm, maybe this salad will taste good without any dressing on it. You see? I was out of my mind. Clearly.

Somewhere around Thursday my brain gave up and on the drive home, when some a-hole cut me off, I burst into tears. Not the pretty kind either. I am not a pretty crier. I am an ugly snot-dribbling, wailing, hiccupping, red-nosed bag of misery when I cry. One of the many reasons I like to cry by myself. Nobody there to look away awkwardly or try to put a paper bag over my head so they can stand to comfort me properly. I bawled the whole way home and still wasn't done.

My husband came home and made the mistake of trying to be nice to me. This turned into an argument which turned into even more tears and a chilly night of fighting over the blankets. The next morning I was busted in the office sniffling away. Thankfully I'm one of the only ones in that early and my dark sunglasses are huge enough to cover half my face. It did not occur to me until later that walking around in dark sunglasses in a well-lit office probably looks kind of strange too. Oh well.

A couple days of miserable wailing and finally, this morning, I started to feel better. Gorging on homemade pie probably helped. My god, I have been hungry.

I take these stretches of time as they come. I know this comes with the territory of being widowed. You cry, you blow your nose, you cry some more. Sometimes it lasts twenty minutes, sometimes several days. I go through periods of time where it hits me all over again - I have lost my husband. I. Have. Lost. My. Husband. He is gone. While never as overwhelming as hearing that news the first time, it nevertheless brings me to my knees, ransacking me all over again.

Only this time I know. I know that it will ease. That the crying will stop. That I will be happy again in a few hours, days, or weeks. There is happiness on the other side of this. Because this is what grief looks like, two years later. The heartache is still there, the loneliness, the feeling that something is always missing. But it is broken up with moments of happiness, of enjoyment, of things that don't revolve around death.

You just have to ride out the wave.

And repack the Kleenex supply in your car for the next round.

A Little Bit of Loki

This weekend I went and watched the Avengers.

It has been out for a couple weeks now but I've been putting it off, not sure I'd see it all.

Mostly because I didn't want to be the idiot sobbing at the back of the theatre blowing her nose at the funny parts or when Loki makes his epic appearance all badass and whatnot.

Turns out those fears were completely justified. I was and I did. As a random sidenote - it's really hard to see through 3D glasses when they are misted over with salty tears.

No, it was not a sad movie.

In fact, it was pretty cool. No. That's not right. It was amazing. And epic. And everything Craig and I have waited for all these years.

Craig was a comic book nerd. Which amused me to no end considering how much of a jock he was. Like many a closetted comic book nerd, he hoarded his collection possessivey and spent hour after endless hour painstakingly caring for them and savouring them. He would never let me read more than one at a time - something that always reminded me of my own father and his precious collection.

After a couple years of dating I finally gave up and started helping him with his collection, tracking down rare editions, wasting hours and hours at garage sales and farmers' markets searching for missing pieces. It became our favourite go-to activity for most weekends. I even attending Comic Con with him one year and was introduced to a whole new world. A scary, scary world. Just kidding. But not.

We started following the superhero movie craze long before it was a craze and obsessed over every detail of every movie, often seeing them several times in theatres in their opening weeks. We loved Iron Man, didn't care for the Hulk. Superman wasn't relatable but Spiderman was just like us. We argued over plot twists and adherence to the comics, who was too short or too serious or too whatever. Which detail was missed, which was overdone, which was just right.

Nothing excited Craig more than knowing looking forward to the Avengers movie, which was far too many years in the coming.

We theorized for hours about who'd be in it, which superheroes would be best, who the baddy would be.

We loved it.

And, of course, Loki was his favourite villain of all time. He loved him. Poor Loki, always the underdog, unloved, not wanted, always struggling, always failing. For some reason, Craig loved him more than any of the good guys. Appreciated that Loki was just born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, bullied, ignored.

When Iron Man II came out, I struggled to see it. I didn't enjoy it. It was too hard.

By the time Thor came out enough time had passed I didn't feel too bad. Of course it helped that neither of us really liked him as a character and didn't see it going anywhere (so much for that).

But The Big Avengers Movie was what we really wanted, anticipated, couldn't wait for.

So I sat there in the theatre this weekend, sobbing amongst the fellow nerds, oh so grateful for the ridiculous volume of the movie that nobody could hear me over.

It's not fair.

It's not fair that Craig waited so long, wanted to see this so bad, and can't.

It's not fair that they waited forever to make this movie, making him miss it.

It's not fair that the world kept going, that movies were still made, even after he was gone.

It's not fair that the things he loved were allowed to carry on without him, as if nothing had happened.

And it was not fair that I had to see it without him.

That we didn't get to gush over Loki, his absolute favourite villain, that he had to miss.

That we didn't get to squeal together over "Clench up, Legolas".

That he didn't get to roll his eyes at me over my love of Mark Ruffalo.

It hurt so much to see that without him. To try to enjoy something we should have been enjoying together. To reap the rewards of all his hard nerdwork he put into getting me up to speed on these characters, without him there to pat himself on the back for it.

There are so many things he misses now.

Sometimes I hope, wherever he is, he still gets to see them. That it's not so unimportant that he doesn't care. Or maybe I don't hope that. It's hard to say.

I just wish he was here.

I wish he was sitting next to me.

So I could be cheering with the rest of the crowd, instead of crying.

Bill of Rights for Grief

(Source: http://family.lifegoesstrong.com/article/bill-rights-grieving)

1. You have the right to take whatever path you take through your grief without judgment.

2. You have the right to ignore or incorporate any or all of the MOUNTAINS of advice you will get.

3. You have the right to say: "No thank you."

4. You have the right to grieve for whatever you have lost, including things you never had but ache for, like phantom limb pain.

5. You have the right to ask people to bring you pizza, not platitudes.

6. You have the right to your own definition of grief. For someone else the loss may have some unknowable reason; it may be a journey, a blessing 'in disguise', bad karma, a teachable moment, part of a plan, a test, a process, a choice. It doesn't have to be any of those things for you. It can simply be where you are at the time. Or it can be senseless, stupid, meaningless and profoundly awful.

7. You have the right not to be grateful, reasonable, inspired or inspiring.

8. You have the right not to feel or believe or be comforted by any of the following: "he's in a better place; his work here was done; she's in your heart; it's a blessing; it's no one's fault; time heals all wounds; you'll find a new one; it could have been worse."

9. You have the right to buzz around, filling your life with activities and people so you don't have to feel a thing.

10. You have the right to feel what you can feel when you can feel it. Be numb when you are numb. Seek comfort when you can stand to. Sometimes the deep fog of grief can make all intimacy too painful - any feelings unbearable. You have the right not to bear them even when everyone around you says you MUST FEEL YOUR FEELINGS OR YOU WILL NEVER MOVE ON.

11. You have the right not to "move on."

12. You have the right to ungodly, ugly, blind rage.

13. You have the right to feel complete, utter hoplessness and despair, and to say – out loud – over and over, that it will never get better, you will never feel better – without everyone shushing you.

14. You have the right to eat or sing or say whatever you want.

15. You have the right to be inalterably changed. The person you were before the death of your loved one is gone. You are now someone else. You don't know who yet. It's your right to find out.

16. You have the right to experience the many tricky, shape-shifting forms grief takes in whatever order you experience them: Here it looks like rage. There it takes the shape of obsession. It has many forms. They are all true. They are all lies.

17. You have the right to stay where you are. Sometimes there are no signs at all and you are moving through grief's darkest depths without knowing it. It's like starting on the bottom floor of an elevator in the deepest core of the earth. Each floor you go up, the doors open, only to reveal more darkness. It all looks and feels the same, but it is not. You are moving toward where you need to be.

18. You have the right to self-pity, selfishness, self-loathing, self-awareness. You have the right to be YOURSELF. Deep grief is a profoundly lonely experience, and yet, it binds us all. We all walk beside you, which will give you comfort when you are ready.

Crash

Hm.

Guess I'm still mad.

Two Years

Two years is no time at all. Two years is forever. Time can slip like water through your fingers or freeze like ice in your veins.

The mind plays tricks on you, whether you are awake or asleep. In my dreams, without my walls of logic and rationale to protect it, my mind slips backwards in time, lulls me into a world where none of this happened. I still wake up, reach across an empty bed, and feel you die all over again. Though I still do not see you outright in my dreams, I can sense you there, just out of reach. I wake up sweating, panicked, terrified that something terrible is about to happen. Then I remember: it already has. Even in the light of day, I am fooled. Little things, slips of focus. For a brief second, I am eager to tell you something. Then I remember. I drive a road we drove a thousand times and it is like dipping into our past and for that one small second I forget that you are not there with me.

I don’t just think of you from time to time. People assume that the passing of hours, months, and years means that you will slip from conscious thought. But you don’t. You are always there. I talk to you a hundred times a day. Whispered words, sad smiles, bits of my day I want to store up and save for you in a story like I used to. You never answer back. At most, I hear your little sigh, “Oh Sal.” It is not enough. It will never be enough.

Time trudges on without you. I have recovered from the initial shock of this. That time itself did not collapse when you left. It should have. Instead, the world carried on as though nothing had happened. As though the most important part of it didn’t suddenly disappear. Politicians bicker, babies are born, bills must be paid. Many times it is like watching through a frosted pane of glass. I see it all happening as though it is happening to someone else. Why does this part of my life often feel like it is the dream and before was actually real? Other times you are so far away I think perhaps I imagined you altogether.

It has been so long for everyone else that I mostly keep you to myself now. To bring you up, to speak of you, to relive our life garners strange looks, tilts of the head, and awkward escapes from my presence. I am the only one who remembers. I have no choice. You haunt me. Just as you said you would. It is like we have our own secret life that nobody knows. This secret is the heaviest burden I have ever had to bear. It is like scrambling up a mountainside with a boulder strapped to you, dragging it slowly, painfully through the mud. While everyone else takes an escalator.

I should hate you. Resent you. Wish you had never been. That I could undo that entire part of my life and keep it from happening. Save myself. But I cannot bring myself to it. The truth is, those memories are all mine. They are precious. I take them out, turn them over, look at them from every angle, over and over. I was loved. It was real. We were real.

Two years is just a number. An arbitrarily assigned date. It means nothing, really. Each day hurts as much as the one before. Each day I miss you regardless. But these dates, these numbers, still carry weight. Even to me. They mark something. Years with, years without. They are like the beads on a rosary, I count them over and over and over, whispering prayers as they slip through my fingers.

There is little else to say that I have not said a thousand times already. I miss you. I love you. Don’t forget me. You know the words by now.

Come back to me. One day. Promise me.

Remember me.

Just as I remember you.

A Little Help?

Ok, so most of you know that about six months after Craig passed away I did a major shake-up of my career. I quit my stable, secure job I'd had at a large oil and gas firm for almost five years and went back to school.

I sold my house, moved, and started all over again.

It was terrifying.

I'm about halfway through my degree and after a bit of a rocky start, I'm finally getting a handle on things. Unfortunately, the Calgary employment market isn't what it used to be and that year off work leaves a bit of a gap in my resume, even though I was in school at the time.

I'm currently trying out for an internship at a large oil and gas company here in Calgary but I need some help. It's a part of the Alberta's Next Top Accountant competition and in order to win the job I have to get the most "likes" on my tryout video online.

So if you are able, please help me out by clicking the link below and then "liking" my video (it's the little thumbs-up icon to the right of the video you need to click). I would be so grateful and know it would go a long way to beefing up my resume and helping me get my career back on track.

http://nexttopaccountant.ca/?p=70

Thank you!