10 years.
A decade.
When I first became a widow, I was just trying to make it through a week. A decade seemed like an impossibility.
But here we are.
10 years and 4 days later.
3,657 days.
I wasn't really sure what this year's anniversary of Kyle's passing would have in store for me.
Each year seems to hit a different emotional nerve for me - and my job has been to just let it.
If you're new to your grief journey, let me tell you something that I learned early on in my journey - sometimes it's okay to invite the grief in before it even shows up!
Grief doesn't make appointments.
It doesn't wait for you to let it know that you're ready for a visit.
No. It is the uninvited guest that has no shame whatsoever in coming in unannounced...and loud.
So, I have learned a good workaround is to set time aside and invite it in, let it have its say, and then see it out the door. I've navigated my grief journey this way for quite sometime. And, it's worked pretty well for me.
But this year, on Christmas Eve, I realized that I had kept myself in such a steady state of "busyness" these past couple of weeks that I hadn't given my grief any kind of cracked door to come inside.
I learned how to make homemade fudge.
I taught myself how to make home made pie crust (and proceeded to make home made chicken pot pie).
I created a new recipe for chocolate chip cookies.
I threw myself into Christmas shopping,
and decorating,
and planning,
and cleaning,
and errands.
I found every possible way to keep my days filled up from the time I woke up until I went to bed at night (and I'd even stay busy navigating things on my phone until my eyes literally could not stay open!)
Until one day - which happened to be on Christmas day itself - it all came crashing down on me and grief kicked in my door and announced its arrival. It demanded my attention and demanded it right then!
I can't say I was all that surprised. I remembered telling my daughter and my husband a day or so prior that I think subconsciously I was keeping myself busy every waking hour because I didn't know how this year was going to hit me and if I kept busy, maybe I wouldn't have to find out.
I knew better than that.
And honestly, I don't know why I was so hesitant about this year's anniversary.
Christmas is so different for me since Kyle passed away.
I have "before Kyle died" Christmas feelings that I remember!
I remember being so excited to make Christmas so magical for our kids. It was so fun getting to go shopping for Christmas gifts; getting together with family and playing hilarious games with each other.
All the food prep.
Going to see Santa.
Every year I'd buy the kids new Christmas PJ's. On Christmas Eve they'd open their pajamas, I'd make hot chocolate, and we would go drive around to look at Christmas lights. Christmas was magic!
And now I have "after Kyle died" Christmas feelings.
I told my husband that it's a weird juxtaposition of feelings.
I still love Christmas.
But at the same time I hate it.
I feel responsible to make Christmas so magical and special for my kids so that they don't ever grow up with a bitter taste in their mouth surrounding Christmas. But, I'd be lying if I said that the magic isn't there for me like it once was. I do love watching them experience Christmas - and that helps keep some kind of a twinge of Christmas magic alive in me.
I cannot listen to any Christmas songs by the Carpenters. On the night of December 23, 2015 the hospital offered me a room with a bed where I could sleep for the night. I would still be on hospital property, but away from the beeps and alarms that were hooked up giving my husband false life.
No one walked with me to that room - they only offered me directions in how to get there.
It was 11 o'clock at night.
The hospital halls were eerily quiet.
The corridors were partially lit. A mini Christmas tree or a strand of lights adorned a desk or two along the way.
No movement at all.
All that I heard was Karen Carpenter singing "...merry Christmas darling, we're apart...that's true...but I can dream and in my dreams I'm Christmasing with you...".
Any time since, if I hear Karen Carpenter's voice, my body goes straight back to those cold, dim hallways.
On Christmas Eve this year I had to take our daughter to the outpatient building at our hospital to get a blood draw for some basic labs. Sitting in that waiting room - Christmas decor all around. It felt like when I was sitting in the lobby area of the hospital where Kyle was in the ICU. I was group texting my family what the doctors were telling us about Kyle when I heard the call "CODE BLUE - RAPID RESPONSE TEAM" announcement - the person making the announcement adding my husband's ICU room number at the end. Doctors and nurses dropping everything and running, knowing they were running to his room. That wasn't the first OR last time I heard that call in his time there. But even now, a decade later, my senses are brought right back to that time!
And there is not a single soul who will ever understand where I am transported when I walk in my house and see our Christmas tree all lit up!
It's beautiful!
The lights sparkle.
The ornaments that the kids carefully placed are so precious.
But when I see that tree, I am taken back immediately - walking in my front door of my home on Sunset Drive in Claremore, Oklahoma on the evening of December 25, 2015 and seeing my tree that we had all decorated weeks prior.
And then seeing my kids.
They were so excited because they had the idea that I could record them opening their presents and I could share that recording with Kyle in the hospital so he could see them open their gifts.
And it was there, in the glow of that Christmas tree, with presents that Kyle would never get to unwrap, that I had to tell our kids that Kyle wasn't coming home.
There is no rehearsing for that kind of speech.
There is no sugar-coating or taking kids to McDonald's to help ease the sting.
I will forever see my son, who was only 10 at the time, stand up without saying a word to go to his room to try his best to escape that news while my daughter, who was 9, sat in that living room in the glow of that tree - sobbing.
And I couldn't fix that for them.
I couldn't take that pain away from them.
I could only sit there with them in it - much like I have to do with the grief that still comes.
These are all memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
These are the things that are stuffed in the luggage that grief brings with him when he shows up for a visit.
Sometimes he packs light.
Other times, he packs every last memory he can until his bags are overflowing!
And on special occasions he'll bring with him memories I had forgotten about!
Grief isn't linear.
Grief isn't "one size fits all".
Kyle's entire family all have completely different relationships with grief.
Kyle's friends all have completely different relationships with grief.
Kyle's children all have completely different relationships with grief.
We all lost the same exact human that day -
but we all lost him in different ways to each of us.
Each milestone in my life is met with a bittersweet undertone that I'm still having to learn to navigate.
When Kyle passed away - that wasn't just a single moment in time. That single moment in time affected every moment thereafter in my own life.
BUT
Yet another juxtaposition?
I love the life that God has given to me that I am currently living.
I am not lying at all when I say that Kyle crosses my mind no less than five or six or more times a day. Every single day! He was truly my best friend. However, some people may not understand when I say that I wouldn't wish him back here though.
He is healed!
He is with Jesus!
I would never wish him away from the presence of God!
God has given me the ability to create a beautiful life while I am still here. And, if Kyle could see this life that I've built, I know that he would be so utterly proud of all of it! I can almost hear his voice telling me so!
I re-married just over two and a half years ago. I married a man who has never lost a spouse to death. He isn't able to know my thought patterns and the processes my brain has to take when the grief hits.
But he is so patient when it hits.
He sits with me.
He doesn't get frustrated or jealous or angry at the mention of Kyle.
He has allowed all of us this necessary space where Kyle is freely talked about and loved out loud!
That is a gift that is priceless!
It feels weird to say, but Kyle would approve of Matt.
And Matt would have loved Kyle!
And I love them both.
Completely.
So, with the grief that hits around certain times, I have learned that I can very much feel two very different ways about the same exact thing.
I can feel dread right along with excitement.
I can feel loss along with deep love.
When you meet someone and they tell you that you that there is not a finish line for a grief journey, believe them! I've been at this for a decade!
But, you know what? I've learned to love my grief journey.
Please don't mistake that for loving the fact that I am ON a grief journey - that's not it at all!
But, I have loved what this journey has shown me about myself, about God, and about love in general!
My grandma Esther, in her letters to me when I was just an 18 year old college student, said:
"I dearly loved him and thought I could never live without him" (talking about my grandpa, who passed away when she was a very young, pregnant, mom of 2!). She went on to say "but God showed me otherwise. Because when he died, God was so close and protective and helped me in every way. It was a terrific experience to have God to depend on solely"
I have lived that.
I still live that.
And I finally understand perfectly what she was saying!
Sometimes you don't know what real, authentic, deep faith feels like util it's all you have to cling to!
