Dear Jonesie: I am day late and a dollar short but that seems to be the way it goes these days. In my defense, I did start writing this yesterday, … Continue reading Widow Is My Name, Awkward Is My Game (Month 9)
Category: family
Open Mouth, Insert Foot
In the interest of keeping things real (because that’s how I roll), this morning was not great. It never fails, every time I write something regarding strength and happiness and moving forward, something happens that totally negates everything I think I believe. And it’s not that I don’t think I’m strong or that I’m not moving forward. Because I am. But without fail, once I put it in writing, something smacks me in the face (like memories and all the ways that I’m potentially failing my children) that says whoa bitch, calm the fuck down, you have nothing figured out. I guess that’s the nature of losing your spouse maybe.
I woke up this morning thinking I should make my children breakfast. (Not that I don’t feed them breakfast regularly – like cereal or grits or something equally lacking in effort on my part – they do get fed. If you’ve seen them, you know that. Well, it looks like Colt doesn’t really eat – he’s long and lean – but I promise he eats more than Jack and I combined – kind of like his father.) Anyway, back to the point, if I have one. I woke up, laid in bed for while contemplating making bacon and eggs and pancakes. I got out of bed and made my coffee and talked myself right out of making breakfast, drank said coffee, then asked the boys if they wanted me to make them breakfast. Emphatic yeses (is that a word??) all the way around – you know, all 2 of them.
And it hit me. I have not actually made breakfast since Ash died. So as I’m frying up the bacon, I lose my shit. Food (and eating) was one of the most important things is Ash’s life, which I get sounds weird. But that man LOVED to eat. And eat he did. Seriously, he ate like he weighed about 507 pounds. But he didn’t. He was little. He just had that metabolism that burned up everything as soon as it entered his body. He was kind of an asshole that way. Unlike me that looks at a French fry and gains 3 pounds.
So, I’m making the bacon (hey oh!), crying my eyes out, trying to figure out what in the actual hell is my problem. Breakfast is not a big deal. But today it was. Because when you become a widow with 2 young children, everything becomes your job. EVERYTHING. (Obviously) The messes. The meals. The injuries. The sports. The school. The chores. The tantrums. The really good things. The really bad things. When shit goes wrong in our house. When shit goes wrong in our other houses. I had to fix an electrical problem this morning. Do you know what I know about electrical problems? Apparently one thing that actually worked. Today anyway. Hell, I even started cutting grass this week. (Side note – I suck at cutting grass. I managed to make both mowers – riding and pushing – stop working. I missed several spots. I ran into the garage and knocked off the garage door censor. I left the gate open and lost my dogs for a bit. I burnt my neck on the cord thingy on the push mower because I thought if I just pulled it harder, certainly it would start. And I pulled it right into my neck. I was not good at mowing grass. But I did it. And the lawn looks mediocre at best (and that’s being generous). But still, I did it.)
I used to make breakfast all the time. It was one of Ash’s 3 favorite meals. Ha! But once he left us, I never brought myself to do it. I didn’t think the boys cared. They never asked for a home cooked breakfast. I make them lunch. I make them dinner. I just gave up on breakfast. But today you would have thought I hung the fucking moon. They were so grateful and happy. They hugged me. They thanked me for the “best breakfast ever”. There were I love you’s all around. And it was just pancakes and bacon. Nothing complicated. Something I used to make all the time.
It’s strange, the things that change when you lose someone you love. I promised the boys that I wouldn’t wait another 10 months before I made them breakfast again. And they were happy with that.
There were also so many memories swirling in my head for the rest of the day. Ash and I fought. A lot. Especially for the first 5-7 years of marriage or so. It took us a long time to adapt and accept all the things that we could not change about each other. So not all the memories swirling in my head today were good. But some were. And I just miss him.
I just started watching Yellowstone. And it’s good. But Ash would have loved it. It would have been a show that we got sucked into together, staying up entirely too late, bingeing as many episodes as we could until one of us (usually me) couldn’t make it any longer. But he’s not here to watch it with me. And today, it hurts. Which I know is normal. It would be weird if it didn’t hurt. I also realize I’m talking in circles but sometimes I talk in circles.
Hug your people. Tell them you love them. You never know what’s coming in the chapters ahead.
The Art of Moving On (Month 8)
Dear Jonesie:
If I’m being completely honest here, I almost totally forgot that today was the 12th of the month. In my defense, I fear my brain may be partially melted from overexposure to heat and sun this past weekend. Jack had 2 double headers in 2 days in the brutal, unrelenting heat of southeastern Virginia. Seriously, at one point I put ice cubes in my bra and felt very minimal relief. Also tried some down my back. Not much better. Also forgot to bring the stupid canopy to guard us a bit from the hotter than a billy goat with a blow torch sun so today we just kept moving further and further away from the field to seek shelter and shade in the trees. Hell, towards the end of the game, I wasn’t even watching, which you know is very unlike me. Colt was sort of a trooper. Yesterday he fell asleep for a while, woke up and cried for a while. My mama thought he might was coming down with the Covid, but, thankfully, once I took him to the car and let him sit in the A/C for a while, and eat some Star Wars fruit snacks (what can’t they cure?!), he was back to his nonstop chattering self (seriously, he’s so much like you, it’s ridiculous. It was easier with you because I could just tell you to shut up or walk away or even leave. Can’t so much do any of those things with a 5 year old). Today he handled it much better.
Our oldest boy played great yesterday. He pitched well, he did well at short stop and hit some bombs. Today, not so much. That’s the nature of our boy, though. I’ll defend him a bit and say he was nervous today, playing with a team he only knew a handful of kids on and a coach he had never met until today. Yesterday was also a long day that ended late and today started early. And, again, the heat. So, Tiger Mom here will give him a bit of a pass.
Anyway, back to my fried egg status brain, I was sitting at dinner, it was the boys, my parents and me and we’re just chatting and I randomly half shouted “SHIT, it’s the 12th of the month!!” To which Jack replied so what. To which I then reminded him (well, after counting on 2 hands) it was the 8 month anniversary of your death. To which he replied “so what? It’s not like it’s been a year.” So, yeah, he’s still 10. Ha!
The truth is, we’ve been super busy. Baseball is in full swing so that consumes a lot of our time. And in between, we are going to the beach, pool, sound. We are sharing meals with friends. We are over using the grill and trying to avoid the stove. We are covered in mosquito bites from staying outdoors way too late. We are dancing by fire pits, we are staying at the beach until dusk, we are laughing and singing and finding joy in as many ways as possible. We are making new friends while still enjoying the old. Colt is fishing as much as he can. Jack is still all about the sports while adding a couple of new favorites – surfing and skimming (he could use some help with both but I’m not quite the person for that job). And I am loving watching them grow and change. Their wings our spreading and it won’t be long before they are ready to take flight (shit’s getting real deep now, you got any waders where you are?!). As corny as it is though, it’s also 100% fact.
As for me, I am in a good place. Sometimes I drink too much. Sometimes I smoke too many cigarettes (sorry but you know how I love a smoke sometimes). I stay up too late and wake too early, never quite getting enough sleep. But I am well. My family is amazing. My friends are incredible. I’m looking forward to the future while also completely embracing where I’m at today. (There I go getting all corny again. WTF is wrong with me?!)
I’m not sure if you want to hear this or not, but, for the most part, we are happy. We were in a dark place for a while, I’m not going to lie. But we can’t stay in that dark place. I think you’d actually be really proud of how we’ve dug our way out. It did get ugly for a while, I’m not going to sugar coat it. And I’m willing to bet my left arm there will be more ugly in the future. That’s ok. We can handle it. Right now, though, we are going to soak up all the happy, sun, friendships and love that we can. Because that is what makes our world go round.
We have found a sense of peace. Maybe it’s acceptance. Maybe we’re just too busy to think about how sad we are supposed to be. Maybe it’s a combination of a million different things. Whatever it is, we are happy and enjoying all of life as much as we can. In the words of Creepy Jonathon, it is well with our soul.
Certainly we miss you. Certainly we think and speak of you often. But those assholes were fucking right. Eventually, time heals all (most) wounds. Not to say we’re not still wounded, because we always will be, but the more time goes by, the better we get at going by with it. Because that’s how it has to be.
Love you always,
Poopsie
Amarillo By Morning
Music is an amazing, albeit sometimes unwanted, trigger for our memories. Well, at least for mine. I guess I shouldn’t speak for everyone. I was just driving from Target back to Jack’s baseball practice when George Strait’s Amarillo By Morning came on. And boy did it trigger. First I felt happy, it’s a great song, and then the tears came. But they weren’t all sad either. Because the memories are happy.
In May, 2008, after 2 short years together, Ash packed up his shit and moved to Durango, CO. In August, 2008, I sold most of my shit, packed what I could in my little Jeep Liberty, grabbed my mom, some Harry Potter books on tape (side note – I hate books on tape. I don’t think we made it through 2 chapters. Fuck a book on tape. No offense intended to those who enjoy them. They just don’t work for me) and hit the road. It was one of those trips I will never forget. I was moving far, far away from my family and everything I’d ever known. I quit a great job. I left amazing friends. But I was moving to something. To something wonderful and awful and perfect and stupid and beautiful and ugly and fun and mundane and just everything (as is the nature of meaningful relationships).
My mom and I are extremely close. So it was only natural that she accompany me on my journey out west (move over Fievel). That and she would have been terrified to send me all on my own! (Ash used to call her worst case scenario Geri because, well, her mind instantly goes to the worst case scenario possible in any given situation, you know it’s true Mama! 😘). Our first stop was Tennessee, where I got pulled over for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Apparently, he couldn’t see where I was from on my license plate (even though it was just one state over and our license plates are pretty distinctive what with either a lighthouse or the Wright flyer on them) so he stopped me to find out. He also had many other questions for me – where I was going? Why I was going? Was I going to college? All sorts of weirdness. I also hit a bird in Tennessee and believe I screamed when I did it! My mom probably thought the poor bird was stuck in the engine which would cause said engine to fail, which would lead to the whole car blowing up, us included. Haha! Just kidding! Sort of!!
Our next stop was Oklahoma City, if I’m remembering correctly. It was a long time ago. We took turns driving. We talked incessantly. We sang (probably off key) our hearts out. Oklahoma City was a little scary, at least where we stayed so we got the hell out of there as fast as possible. We stopped in the small town of Elk City, OK for a quick breakfast. But if we’re really being honest here, we stopped in Elk City because, at the time, we were a wee bit obsessed with bull riding, a wee bit more obsessed with professional bull rider Justin McBride, knew that Elk City was his home town (stalker much?!) and figured we’d certainly run into him because he would obviously be craving an egg McMuffin at 6:30 in the morning at the same time as us. I’m guessing we probably just missed each other by a few minutes. But, much to our hearts’ dismay, we did not catch even a glimpse of him.
When we got back on the highway, I think my mom was driving, Amarillo By Morning came on the radio just as we passed a highway sign for Amarillo and the miles left. I screeched (because that’s what I do, I’m a screecher and a woo girl and I am not ashamed). I thought it was pretty ironically cool that Amarillo by Morning just happened to be playing as we passed the highway sign indicating how far Amarillo was from our location and that we would in fact be traveling through Amarillo just that morning.
I was so excited to get to Ash we drove straight through from Oklahoma City to Durango. I can’t remember how long it took. But I do remember knocking on Ash’s door, I was wearing gym shorts, an old white t shirt and tennis shoes, he opened the door, we shared an awkward, somewhat uncomfortable hug (it had been months since we’d actually seen each other) and he told me I’d never looked more beautiful. We moved inside, into my new studio apartment that I was sharing with this boy that I couldn’t help but love, and we, let’s just say, reacquainted, ahem, ourselves in the closet while my mom took a shower (sorry Mama).
I haven’t thought about that journey in a long time. Hearing that song this evening brought it all back (ok, not all because it was a long time ago and I’m not as young as I used to be). And thinking about it now brings back so much. So much that I don’t even know how to put it into words. Ash always pushed me. To be brave. To take the leap. To go on the adventure. And while his adventures were cut short, mine are still going. His spirit, his passion, his love will always live inside of me, pushing me, as always, to live. As he would have lived. Well, maybe not exactly but pretty darn close.
S@$&’s Gettin’ Real
Ash was probably the most private person I have ever met. Which is funny because private I am not. Clearly. He never wanted to know about any of my past relationships, hated seeing old photos, especially if I was drunk in them, which let’s face it, was pretty much the entirety of my first 2 years of college. He was tight lipped on his own previous relationships also, which drove me absolutely batty!!
He was always evasive, never answered my questions and just generally gave me no information regarding his life pre-me. I guess I eventually learned to accept it. Or it at least didn’t send me packing.
Ash never met my parents until my brother invited him to dinner, shortly before he moved away. I guess I had adopted some of his habits of keeping everything private? I don’t know. I think I was just so enamored with him, I didn’t want anything to screw it up! (Not that my family is crazy or anything, I just suffered from massive anxiety (still so) and just wanted him to love them like I love them) It was different for me. My boyfriend in college became an extension of my family. I mean, shit, he spent more time with my mom working on puzzles than I ever did! But Ash was different. He grew up worlds apart from me. His family life was unlike any one I had ever been a part of.
And I use that “a part of” very loosely. I didn’t meet Ash’s mom until we were living together in Durango, CO and Ash didn’t exactly tell her he had a girlfriend, much less a girlfriend that was living with him. So that was fun. I don’t think I met his dad until I was already pregnant with Jack so it was really too late by that point if I decided to say fuck this noise! Which I may have had I met him a little earlier in the relationship. Kidding. Mostly.
Ash’s dad was a horse of a different color. He did not welcome me into their lives with open arms, he did not seem to like me and I’m pretty certain he would have preferred I never existed. In his life anyway. He’d probably have been fine if I was alive, just maybe not anywhere near him. He sat me down (after I upset him greatly by eating too much of his cantaloupe – he even bought another cantaloupe but informed me I couldn’t have any – true story) at one point and asked me what my intentions were. Ash and I were already engaged, I was pregnant, I thought it might be a little late at this point in the game for this talk. Either way, my gut reaction was to say to get the fuck out of dodge. Luckily, back then I was much better at holding my tongue and said something along the lines of I intend to marry your son in my home town in a month and that’s where you’ll find me until then.
And that’s what happened. I packed my bags and went home while Ash stayed in Texas and rented us an apartment as close to the hospital as humanly possible. Ash’s dad and I never bonded, he mostly looked at me like I was stupid, but he did learn my name so it wasn’t all bad.
Where we come from shapes us into who we are. I love to know the details. It’s in the details that you figure out a person, why they are the way they are, what makes them tick, how they handle obstacles thrown in their direction and how they even find joy and purpose. I understand why Ash stayed so guarded. It was a defense mechanism. But I regret that I know almost nothing, to this day, after 13 years, 7+ moves, 2 kids and 2 dogs and one hellacious cancer journey, that I barely know a damn thing about his past. And likewise, he didn’t want to know about mine.
Perhaps that’s why I’m an open book now. I never don’t want to know about the people I love again. I want it all. Even the ugly and the awful. Because If we can’t be real, what the hell is the purpose of any of it?
Father’s Day
Tomorrow would have been Ash’s 10th Father’s Day. Due to unfortunate circumstances, however, it appears that he will be missing it, as well as all the rest of them moving … Continue reading Father’s Day
The Hangover of Life
I just had a really great weekend. We had friends come into town on Thursday and stay with us through today. And we had the best time. Beautiful beach days, … Continue reading The Hangover of Life
Life is for the Living
If you are wondering if I just quoted Harry Potter, you would be absolutely right! I’m a nerd that way! But, like, a cool nerd!
I got a little mopey the last few weeks. I’m not going to lie. It wasn’t my best couple of weeks for many reasons. I won’t go into all of those reasons, but I’ll just say it was raining, I felt alone, I was attempting to mend a broken heart, and I just didn’t feel like doing anything. I shut out the people I love. I shut out family. I shut out friends. I shut out the world.
But also, while drowning in my own self induced misery, some really fucking awesome things happened. Jack tried out for a travel baseball team out of state and was offered a position on the spot. Ash, if he had a grave, would be rolling in it, as we always said that Jack didn’t need to play travel sports until maybe his teenage years. That was, however, before the whole world shut down including all youth sports.
Now, I’m going to justify our reason for joining the travel team just a bit (especially so Ash can hear it and stop with all the dramatic theoretic grave rolling). Firstly, I did not realize how depressed my 10 year old son was until I saw him happy again. Read that again. I did not realize how DEPRESSED MY 10 YEAR OLD SON WAS until I saw him happy again. Call me daft, call me blind, call me selfish. I could be considered all of those things. But the boys and I have been trudging along, thinking we’re doing the best we can. I took Jack to one baseball practice and he turned into an entirely different child. A child that I had not seen in quite some time. He was laughing, he was telling hilarious jokes, he was engaging in conversation with me. All things that I didn’t realize were missing until they returned. My sweet, happy child had come back. With one baseball practice that lasted no longer than 2 hours.
Secondly, so far in his short 10 years, Jack has an aptitude, enthusiasm, love and talent for sports, especially baseball. And he has gotten to the age where we (we as in his family – me, PawPaw and Uncle G) cannot teach him anymore. He’s at the age where there’s nothing he doesn’t know, nothing he can’t do and absolutely nothing we can teach him, We’ve reached the preteen, prepubescent, pre “holy shit will mama survive this” stage of life. We can no longer help him due to excessive attitude, eye rolling and heavy sighing (lest we backhand him multiple times a day, which, I’m told, is frowned upon). So in the interest of saving all of our relationships (and potentially our lives), it’s best that he seek his baseball counsel elsewhere.
And lastly, (and I’m sorry, but this is going to sound a little braggy here, but if you can’t brag about your kids’ successes and whatnot, what can you brag about?) he deserves it. He deserves to learn from the best. He deserves to play with the best. He also deserves to work hard and earn his spot, earn his position, earn his right to be with that team, especially given that the current dream is to play Duke Baseball in 8 years.
We didn’t say yes right away, though. I left it 100% up to him (which is very unlike me, I tend to lean a little more towards the Tiger Mom side of momming so kudos to me!!). Jack has a lazy side, and with everything we’ve been through, it would not have surprised me at all if he had chosen no. Instead, he made a list (very Ash like in nature). He made a list of the pros. He had a list of the cons. He weighed them heavily. And he said yes. So our lives are about to get a little crazier, but in the best possible way. Because we’ll be living.
I finally re-emerged with family and friends. We’ve gone to the beach, we’ve had cocktails, the boys have played (outside of course) with friends. We’ve conquered the biggest slip and slide I’ve ever seen. We’ve played our own games of baseball. Jack and I have started jogging together (much to his dismay) and doing all sorts of other training tools that are necessary for him to play on his new team. And I do every one of them with him. Because it keeps him motivated. Because he likes having a partner. Because we are living.
Colt graduated from preschool. Certainly it looked much different than years past. But it was beautiful. We were surrounded by people that absolutely adore my Mr. Tolt. He received his “degree”, he felt special, he rode around the parking lot with his head sticking out of my sunroof. And we were living.
This next part is not easy to write about but I’m going to write it anyway in the spirit of living. I think I am being flirted with by a hilarious, handsome, tall, perhaps a touch younger than me man. It’s been a long time since I’ve been flirted with so I could be getting it wrong. But, in all honesty, I do hope that I am not wrong. Because I feel like a woman again. I feel desired. I feel beautiful. I feel feminine. And these are things I have not felt in quite some time. And I like it. Because it feels like I’m living again. And life is for the living. And if nothing else, we deserve to live the shit out of whatever life we have left in us.
Flawed
I feel like I’ve been giving Ash a bit of a bad rap in some of my writings. I’ve shared some of his larger flaws, setbacks, mannerisms, the things that … Continue reading Flawed
Nothing and Everything
My husband is dead. It’s been almost 6 months. And he’s still dead. I walked into our, well, my, technically, bedroom tonight and I could smell him. And I sobbed. He didn’t even really have a particular smell. He didn’t wear cologne even though I kept buying it for him. He used whatever soap I purchased, so I guess we smelled pretty similar. His shampoo wasn’t super aromatic. But I swear I could smell him. So maybe he did have a scent.
I miss him. And yet, it’s almost as if he were never here. I often wonder how in the world did it all happen. Why did we meet? How did we fall in love? How did we come to marry and have children? And how on Earth is he gone? At 37 years old. I’m 13 days older than Ash and he always joked I would die first, naturally, because I’m so much older. But that didn’t happen.
He started getting sick in 2014. I also happened to get pregnant at the very end of 2013 so, at first, I felt like he was stealing my thunder a little bit, what with all the throwing up and not getting out of bed. That’s what I was supposed to be doing. He had countless doctor appointments and multiple hospital stays before he finally ended up with a diagnosis. Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. It’s an auto-immune disease that affects the liver and bile ducts. I’m sure you could have guessed that if you have been reading my writings for a while. There is no cure. He may need a liver transplant 10-15 years down the road. Ash’s doctor was world famous. One of the best in his field. We were scared back then but he assured us, most people that have PCS die with it and not from it. Most people.
Ash and I changed our lives. Our marriage had been more than a little shaky for a while. At times, I did not deserve him. At times, he did not deserve me. But once he was diagnosed, back in 2014, our perspectives changed quite a bit. We learned to accept each other. We worked at it every day. And it worked. We changed. Ash had to quit drinking, you know, because of the whole liver disease thing. He started a clinical trial, we had to travel a couple hours north once a month to his doctor to check in and they were some of the most fun days in our relationship. We learned to communicate with each other again. We fell in love all over again. I guess, in a way. Life changed, for the better, if you can believe it.
In April, 2018, we were back at Ash’s liver doctor, just for a routine check up. And the words that came out of that doctor’s mouth was some of the best news we’d ever gotten in our lives. He said “I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep it up. Your numbers are incredible. We don’t see this with this particular disease much.” In September, 2018, he was diagnosed with Stage IV Terminal Cholangiocarcinoma. Bile Duct Cancer. Terminal. That’s how fast it happened. He went from what we liked to joke as a “medical marvel like Ross Gellar” to a dying man. How does that happen? Why does that happen?
I just miss him. I miss kicking his ass at Mario Cart. I miss all our date nights. I miss holding his hand. I miss just driving around doing nothing with him. I miss the way he could make me laugh. I miss his amazing smile. I miss his positive attitude. I miss how he always knew when I was about to start my monthly business based on my attitude. I miss hearing his voice. Jack has Ash’s old cell phone and the voicemail on it is still Ash’s voice. I call it, at least a few times a week, just to hear that “Hey, it’s Ash’s voicemail. Leave a message.” Simple. To the point. Just like Ash wasn’t. Ha! (It’s funny because it’s true.) Either way, I miss him. Hell, I miss the shit that I hated and thought I’d never miss. But I do. Grief is annoying like that. It reminds you that even the bad shit wasn’t really that bad. In my case anyway.
The kids are so incredible. They are so resilient. So in the moment most of the time. Sure, they have their breakdowns. But they are less frequent. I’m so envious of their strength. They are growing and learning and they are just amazing.
I don’t know the point to any of this, other than I went in my room, could smell my husband, sobbed and felt the need to write. So I did. And it’s helped in the way that only it can. My own personal therapy. Remembering him is a gift, one that I hope to only love one day.
JonesBoysMama 