Category: widow

I Need a Volunteer

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My husband was one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. His sense of humor was just as sick as mine and he rarely ever got annoyed with all the memes, videos and ridiculous things I texted to him on a daily basis. Anything that made me laugh, he was my go to. Did he ignore me sometimes? Yes! Did I question him mercilessly when said ignoring was happening? Yes! Did he think although it was rather annoying, I was still quite cute and he put up with me regardless? Also yes!

So now I see hilarious memes with 2 reindeer in the car all like yo, bro, get in the car, we gotta find grandma! And they literally crack me up. And I go to send them to my person only to remember he won’t get it (again with the forwarding address and phone number, WTF God, WTF?) and if I send it to his last known number my 9 year old will get it and he won’t understand and he won’t think I’m cool (which, if you were wondering, cool apparently now stands for (according to 9 year olds anyway) constipated overweight out of style loser – I may be overweight but none of those other things apply to me FYI). Ash thought I was cool (like the cool kind of cool, not the 9 year old kind of cool). I also keep getting these weird ads about Jolly Jewels Ball Wash on my facebook feed. I literally screenshot it and went to send it to my husband, but, again, he wasn’t there.

If you look at the photos on my phone, literally half of them are ridiculous memes that I find hilarious and want to send to my person. My person who loved me for me. My person who always thought I was funny even when I wasn’t. My person who understood me inside and out. Was that always the case? Absolutely not. I won’t pretend that it was. But when it came to humor, we were simpatico!

And, yes, I can send them to my friends and they might find them funny or they might think I need to get a life and that I actually am the 9 year old version of cool. Ash, though, he liked me. Like really liked me. Liked me to my core. He knew the good, the bad and they ugly and he accepted it. Sure, he had things to say about it at times, but who doesn’t. We’re human. We’re programmed to complain and always want more. I just miss him. In all the ways you can miss someone. I miss the security of knowing he won’t reject anything I send his way. I miss always having someone to laugh with. I miss my person.

So, I’m looking for a volunteer. You can pretend I’m awesome or you can really think I’m awesome. And accept all of my ridiculous memes and videos and general hilarity. And send your own memes and videos and general hilarity back. I promise to laugh and love it, but you have to do the same. Or pretend to do the same but never let me know how annoyed with me you actually are! Can you feel the anxiety?! Because it is pouring the fuck out right now. Pass the Xanax.

Cancer fucking sucks.

One Month Down, The Rest of Our Lives To Go

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Today marks one month since Ash’s death. It’s been an incredibly long, yet incredibly short month. My boys and I are still standing. Thing 1 just got straight A’s on his last interim report, Thing 2 just sang “Jingle Bells” in his preschool Christmas program. Life goes on. I’m proud that my boys are still thriving. They’re surrounded by great family and friends to help navigate them through these rough waters so to speak (Jesus, I’m getting metaphor-ey – can’t be a good sign of things to come!)

I didn’t realize how hard today was going to be. I feel sad, tired and way older than my 37 years. Yesterday I wrote about how strong I am. Today I feel the complete opposite of that. I cried in the elementary school. I teared up at the preschool Christmas program. I’m crying sitting here thinking how tired I am. Selfish cow – present!

Here’s what I have done in the last month:

Cried.

Laughed.

Yelled. Mostly at my dogs and children.

Apologized. Mostly to my children for all the said yelling.

Drank too much.

Eaten too much.

Gone out with friends.

Got a fence.

Got new blinds.

Replaced my bedding.

Booked a trip to Disney. And Universal Studios. (don’t tell my kids)

Cleaned up limitless amounts of dog piss in my carpet. (Someone, for the love of me or God or dog, take this damn puppy – I’m kidding – sort of.)

I’ve questioned life.

I’ve questioned God.

I’ve questioned Ash.

I’ve cursed even more than usual. Which is a lot. Like a lot a lot.

We saw Santa. (Colt doesn’t want socks if you were wondering)

We watched a parade. (you know the one)

I’ve lost 4 pounds (only 104 more to go!)

I started doing yoga daily.

I started jogging (less often than daily).

I’ve talked to friends.

We’ve visited with family.

We put a puzzle together.

We endured our first holiday.

We’ve done countless, meaningless tasks every single day for the last month.

Life has gone on. It didn’t stop for our broken hearts. It just keeps on keeping on. And we’re keeping up. But today, I don’t feel like keeping up. I feel like curling up on my couch with a warm blanket and hugging my babies tight and crying until my eyes hurt. But that’s not possible either because have 2 basketball practices and Christmas programs and haircuts. Because life goes on. Whether we want it to or not. Whether we’re ready for it to or not. Life goes on.

Unexpected Breakdowns

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I’m going to toot my own horn for a minute. Don’t worry, it’s not something I do often (unless of course I’ve been sipping on the Tito’s for a while and I promise I haven’t been this morning), but today I feel like it. So I am.

We were dealt a life changing hand September 2018, obviously, or I wouldn’t be writing this. I would say for the first 2 weeks, I was a crumbling mess of tears, nerves and anxiety. But then I put my girl panties on (literally because eating was my coping mechanism and I needed the big girl ones to fit around my fat ass), raised my tits up (thank you Mrs. Maisel) and I dealt with it. I found my inner strength (and maybe Xanax) and we continued to live. We lived the shit out of the last year.

Ash and Jack went to a World Series game in LA thanks to some very dear friends. Jack got to play baseball with Duke’s baseball team. Some of Ash’s best friends from high school came to see us. We went to Jamaica for Christmas. We took Colt to Target for hours one day and let him shop the hell out of it. Ash even bought him some random junk, which was very unlike him! We sold a business. We went to Houston, Ft. Worth, Salado and Austin, TX. Both boys rode a horse. Ash shot guns at cacti. We played countless rounds of family golf! Ash and I went to Durango, CO where we took very short hikes and cried too many tears. We went to another World Series game thanks to an awesome brother in law (and our very favorite Washington Nationals won the whole thing! Like, whoa! Divine intervention. Me thinks so!).

You get the point. We lived. We held our heads high. We did not break down in public. To look at us, you would never know what we were living with day in and day out. Even our closest friends were always shocked when Ash couldn’t come some place, or didn’t feel well or found out he threw up several times a day every day but still pushed through and LIVED. He is for sure my hero (that wasn’t always true and those that know me, know why, how, when, etc.). He was so brave through this fight though.

But guess what? So was I. (Told you I was going to toot my own horn.) Some days were worse than others but for the most part, I was dressed, my makeup was done, my hair looked decent and I was mostly friendly (other than at preschool, something about chipper, bright eyed and bushy-tailed preschool moms made me want to crawl in a hole and never come out, sorry ladies!) I went out with friends, I laughed, I made inappropriate jokes about our situation, took my kids to do fun things, took care of Ash. I can’t take all the credit of course. We have one hell of a support system around here, family, friends and even strangers. But dammit, I was strong. I am strong.

Now you’re wondering where the hell are you going with this, Kellie?!?

So here goes. Saturday, you heard about Saturday. I was an angry elf. And then I was a teary elf. I got the sympathy cards. I had the breakdown. I ended up letting the boys sleep in my bed (not my favorite thing in the whole wide world if you wanted to know.) I stayed up too late bingeing The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (best show ever, go watch it!). At one point, I needed to take a trip to the little girls room, somebody (ie the young boys that I don’t necessarily want sleeping in my bed) used the last of the toilet paper so I opened the cabinet above the toilet to find some more. Nothing strange there, except that it was. My husband’s side still had all his things. Deodorant, cologne that he never wore, some medications, shaving cream, razors, all the normal things a man would have for the bathroom.

And I just lost it. Out of nowhere. Unexpectedly. I crumpled to the floor in a heap and just sobbed. And I thought of all the reasons I was angry at him. He left me. He left the boys. He left the dogs. We had a rule, no more children than there are adults and now there’s only 1 adult, 2 children and 2 dogs. He broke the rule. And I am so mad. He never cleaned up his messes. He was always critical. He never liked my ideas. Until he did, because my ideas are mostly awesome! (haha!). He didn’t clean the garage. He left me in this house where now 2 Jones men have died. And I wanted to write it all down. I wanted to write him a letter and give him a piece of my mind. Tell him all the ways he’s pissed me off. But I couldn’t do that, could I? Because he left me. And our boys. And I know it wasn’t his choice but it doesn’t stop the anger. Or the unexpected breakdowns. Like opening the bathroom cabinet.

Yesterday I started cleaning out the garage. My dad’s boss let me borrow his dump trailer. My husband is a bit of a pack rat. He never throws anything away. Why throw it away when we can just lose it in a heaping pile of other junky shit in the garage. So it was a big task. My brother and mother helped because they are angels on Earth! But I found something again. Another letter. (also $25 in Canadian money so I’m probably a little rich now). It was a letter from Ash and my boys for Mother’s Day and it was just thanking me. Thanking me for “all you do for us everyday: laundry, dinner, groceries, special sandwiches!, coffee, paying all our bills on time so we don’t go to jail!!!!, letting us know when we need to go sit on the stairs, keeping our daily schedule intact, always showing us love and patience (okay that isn’t even possible) – but you are always there when we need you, when no one else will do.” It goes on to say other many nice things, and while it brought tears to my eyes (Ash didn’t do nice, really – unfortunate that my love language is words of affirmation. His wasn’t! Makes me laugh now – we somehow made it work, though), it also dissipated some of my anger with him. Had he been given a choice, he never would have chosen cancer and living our entire life in one year and leaving when everything was so good. The last sentence of this letter that I found is “God put us together for a reason and he made you a mother for a reason.”

I sure wish I knew the reason why He didn’t keep us together for longer. More unexpected breakdowns are in my future, but for the most part (other than in writing), you won’t see them. You will see me smile and laugh and make inappropriate jokes.

Hello, My Name is Kellie and I’m an Angry Elf

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One of the grief processes – anger. I have it in spades. I never know what’s going to set it off. Could be one of my children scraped his nerf gun against my wall for the 3,257,851st time in a 5 minute period. Could be the new puppy my children just had to have pissed on the floor yet again because she doesn’t understand going outside and I’m not sure she ever will. Could be that my underwear is on inside out. Which it is. Right now. Because that’s my life now.

It’s funny. But it’s also making me cry. Today is one of those days where I’m teetering between punching everyone I see in the throat and just crying my eyes out for no good reason. (I have not yet tried the aforementioned throat punching, but I have tried the latter and it’s scaring my children). I guess there’s a good reason for it. I’m 37. I have 2 children. It’s almost Christmas. And I’m a widow.

I took my children to a Christmas parade this morning. It was freezing. It was windy. I didn’t want to be there but the boys did, so I made it happen. 2 of their friends met them there. They are 4 boys 10 and under. To say they have a lot of energy is the understatement of a lifetime. Candy is being thrown at them. They are of course aggressively attacking like Darth Maul with his double light saber at every Dum Dum and Tootsie Roll being tossed their way. Have I mentioned it’s a parade? And parades are crowded if you didn’t know. In my mind, parades are for children. I mean, they’re throwing candy. If I want candy 1. It sure as hell ain’t Dum Dum’s and peppermints and b. I can damn well buy my own candy whenever I want. It’s one of the perks of being an adult.

Well, I’m standing back behind the boys out of the line of fire, and a family comes and stands directly in front of me with very young children. They squeeze in right by the line of boys with their metaphorical double light sabers and one of my boys accidentally bumps into this new family’s little girl. Mama Bear said words to my son. Then my other boy stepped on the precious little girl’s foot. Mama Bear says words to my other son. And it is at this precise moment that I realize I am exactly where I don’t need to be. Anger was becoming my new best friend. We were ready to hold hands and skip our throat punch fists right into Mama Bear’s thick and pasty neck. Does she know what my boys are going through? Does she know that it’s Christmas and that those 2 rambunctious, candy chasing boys are actually showing some joy on their faces because of this cheap ass Dollar Tree candy? Does she know they lost their father less than a month ago? Does she know that her family cut right in on my boys’ space and then proceeded to get angry when my boys used said space?

No, she doesn’t know any of this, so me and my new best friend put our fist away.

Then we move on to Winter Wonderland at one of the local school’s. Santa is going to be there. Bounce houses. Food trucks. Crafts. All sorts of the shit that makes me drag my feet and prepare my fist. But again, my boys come first, and they wanted to go. So go we did. And I think they had fun. However, I only let their fun last for just the tiniest little bit. My poor 5 year old, passive, sweet, wonderfully weird boy that he is, got cut in front of, he got booted out of his games in the middle of them, he got pushed out the way, he got balls taken from him while it was still his turn. Again, not the place for me to be today. I can feel my best friend’s heat rising up my face to the tips of my ears. We left immediately. We didn’t see Santa. We didn’t eat lunch. We didn’t craft. We just got the hell out of there.

When we got home, I checked the mail, as one does when they get home for the day. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a sympathy card in the mail. Today I got 3. One of them was from Ash’s oncology team at Duke. All the anger dissipated and it’s place came sadness, loneliness, pain, loss, grief. And I let myself feel it. And I let myself cry. And my children think I am crazy.

But now, I don’t feel so angry and I don’t feel so sad. I had my moment and now I can move on. And I think that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

Next weekend is the Celebration of Life. Tomorrow I am supposed to go through all our pictures and decide what to use for a slide show. All of Ash’s life condensed to one slide show. I’m not sure there’s enough wine in the world. Wish me luck, friends. My fist and I are going to need it.