Entry 54: 1 year + 3 months + 3 days

So here I sit, on the couch with my little love watching some god awful children’s show on Netflix and I’m overwhelmed by the huge void. Life is amazing. My job is awesome, I love my friends, my parents live here and aren’t hating it, I’m as busy as ever, financially I feel stable, and I’m healthier than ever, yet there is a void. Although I cry less, I miss Brian something fierce.

It’s nothing tangible, it’s more like why don’t I feel 100% satisified right now?? Everything is in place. There’s no huge stress or worry. My routine is working out great and Harper is doing wonderfully...I mean as wonderfully as a sassy 4 year old with Brian’s genes can be doing. So what is it? I just miss him. Like everything about him! I miss someone texting me that cares about me. Not saying the people who text me now don’t care but it’s different. I miss sharing small details, gossip or big joys with him.  I miss remembering all the little details about him. I wish my brain was better like that.  I’ve only dreamt about him a handful of times and in everyone he’s breaking up with me!!! I had one this week, he breaks up with me and doesn’t care or show any emotion as I’m crushed! I’m sure there’s so much meaning behind this! I miss him. His touch, his voice, his big presence.

For Harper’s 4th birthday and the anniversary of Brian’s death, Brent wrote a book for Harper. At the time I didn’t give it the attention is deserved. Tonight I sat and read it to Harper. She was so involved and asked questions about every picture and shared her memories of them. It was incredible. I had to act out the part where when you insulted Brian back, he would touch his leg and say it doesn’t hurt here, then touch his arm and say or here, then touch his heart and say it hurts right here! Harper cracked up. By the end of the book I can’t contain my tears and my baby climbs in my lap and just hugs me. This last page, of loving enough for two. Gosh it got me!

Life is amazing just a little less amazing without him. My person.

Now let me end this with one amazing story of empathy.  Every year I assign a photo voice project at the end of the year. Students take picture from their lives, kind of like PhotosbyHarps. Then they pick 4 and write a poem, an expository essay, an argumentative essay, and a narrative. Several years ago I wrote my own poem about time.   About when you’re a child you want time to hurry up, then when I had a baby I wanted time to slow down then there was a stanza in there about after a cancer diagnosis not knowing how much time was left.   Fast forward to last week. My current students heard from my former students about my poem and asked to see it. I saw no problem with this and put is up on my SmartBoard. As we read it together, I was tearing up just a tiny bit. It hit me that I wrote the stanza about not realizing how much time was left just 7 months before Brian died. As I look up to make sure my students can’t tell that I’m crying, 4 of the  7 of them are crying. Visibly crying! People say how can you teach middle school!!?  This is how! My 14 and 15 year olds that have never met Brian, cried along with me over a mediocre poem with such strong meaning! I love them! It made me heart so happy/sad. That’s one emotion.

Brian makes it so easy to miss him! Now if he could just stop breaking up with me in my dreams and come give me a hug, that’d be great!

I am thankful for my life and what I have. This is not me complaining or asking for pity. This is just the expression of the huge void felt today. I guess this void is always here, but at times it is much more quiet. Today it is shouting, begging to be seen. Tonight I am again thankful for the baby we made, the village we have, and love so hard to be without.

Entry 53: 1 Year + 2 Months + 10 Days

So it is kind of like when you know exactly how old your baby is down to the month and sometimes even the day, then after a year your baby is just 1. Ha! That's how it feels. The month markers come, the reminder pops up in my phone to take a monthly picture of Harper because I never turned off my reminder which now serves as a new reminder that another month has gone by since Brian died.

The part that makes me the saddest now is what Brian is missing out on. He and Harper would be the BEST of friends. I would probably be chopped liver. They would have ridiculous rituals and inside jokes. I would probably be kicked out of the room so they could play alone. And she would most definitely be 10,000 times more inappropriate than she already is. I mean she screamed "Good job Mr. Boobies" to people who were running at the gym a few days ago. Thank you very much. That's my kid! But even more inappropriate than that! It makes me sad that he doesn't get to experience this. That he doesn't get to see her antics or mold her even more. It also amazes me how much she picked up from him in those first three years. I cannot tell you how many times it catches me off guard when she is EXACTLY like him, especially when she is being crazy or messing with me.

As I sat on the beach at sunrise service this morning with Harper asleep on me, my mom next to me, and my friends with us, I saw the word lightning in the Bible verse referring to how to angel came and rolled away the stone. Seeing the word lightning of course will always immediately make me think of Brian (which I am SO thankful for). I closed my eyes and got sad, just thinking about missing him. And him missing this. This life. With us. But then I thought, well crap! Isn't that the point of today? We have hope. That although I am sad for Brian, he isn't sad. He gets to be in heaven. He gets to have the best. It's hard for me. I like to know all things. I ask 1 million questions with friends, in staff meetings, in appointments. I like to know. So not knowing exactly what it's like on the other side is tough. But as I sat there on the beach, watching people tip out of chairs, listening to the waves crash I thought, I'm sad but also filled with so much hope and a hope that what Brian is experiencing now is so much better than this and what I think he is missing. Maybe he is even laughing knowing seeing what he is missing and knowing how much he has there. I don't know. And I won't every get those answers. But there is peace in the hope. And on the beach this morning, the message of Easter hit me a little harder and made me even that much more thankful.

I also am just overwhelmed by the good. There are so many good things. I like to know things but I also like lists, so here's another list of 3 recent good things great things:

1. I feel so incredibly loved. The person who loved me most and was my person is gone. But more than ever I feel loved. Not because of something I am pretending to be. But I feel loved, just for being me, truly myself. I have incredible groups of friends, new and old. People who build me up, reach out often, and genuinely care about my family.  People I can confide in without judgement. People who will tell me when my gym clothes are too big. People who will call me out when they are concerned. People who love me even if the frequency in which we hang out has decreased to an unacceptable amount. It is insane to me to know just how deep and wide our village continues to be. When I lay in bed at night and miss Brian, I then think these things. The person who loved me best is gone but I feel incredibly loved every single day even if I am opinionated, loud, bossy, and going a mile a minute. Who gets to be this loved? I feel so so so fortunate because missing a love like his is hard, but I feel fulfilled.

2. Harper knows him. She talks about him. I laugh to think that Fletcher stole Brian's thunder. We all know Brian loved to be the center of attention and now Harper doesn't mention missing Brian without throwing Fletcher into the mix too. But Brian and Fletcher are daily words spoken in our house. Today the Easter bunny left Harps a Polaroid camera at the end of her string connected to her basket. Harper has been really in to taking pictures. She used it to take a picture of Bampy, me, GeGe, Macy and Bella. A little later on, Harper said, "I need my camera!!! I need to take a picture of Brian!" Then she jumped on the couch and took a picture of our canvas of our last professional family photo.  Don't ask me why she is suddenly calling him Brian. I think it's because she hears everyone else refer to him in that way.  Friday night she drew him on an Easter egg. She also asked me to write Harper loves Daddy before dying an egg. Don't worry, Fletcher got his own egg too. She was excited to go to his grave today. When she is crying because she is tired or was
removed from a situation or because she can't find the most recent rock she took from a flower bed at a restaurant, she will often say....I miss Daddy. But most the times when she speaks of him it is with laughter, ridiculousness or love, very rarely is it with sadness. What a great way to not only remember her Daddy but to live like him.

Saying goodbye to the old house.

Hello St. Augustine!

3. MY MOM AND DAD ARE MOVING HERE! During chemo treatments, mom and dad would make the 3.5 hour commute every other week and when people would say, they should move here I would scream NO!  To me, mom and dad earned their retirement. They busted their butts to provide us with a great life full of sports, family vacations, awesome toys (that are super fun to rediscover when packing boxes), and much much more. They each worked for over 30 years. If they move here I will not be able to help but use them. After Brian died, I still didn't want them to move here because I prided myself on being independent (even if I did call them every time there was a crisis). Again I also think they have earned their retirement. But the longer Brian has been gone, the more I realized that the idea of them living close means spending as much time as possible with them, I got on board.  This change is hard. My parents have lived in the same house for 40 years! This is a huge transition for them, but also a new transition for us.  I am so excited that they will be 2 miles away. I am excited that Harper gets to have both sets of grandparents living so close. I am going to do my best not to abuse their awesome grand parenting and let them enjoy the retirement they have earned. But I truly am thrilled that my mom and dad will be just a bike ride away. How lucky are we?

It's been 1 year, 2 months, and 10 days without the love of my life. It has been two Easters. But on this Easter I am grateful for so much. For love, for hope, for new beginnings.