Now is all we have..

Life teaches us many lessons from the time we come into this world to the very last day we breath.  With all the lessons comes great knowledge, experience, regret, foresight, patience and most of all understanding.  Some lessons are harder to learn and therefore we face them a few more times than we really want to...

If I've learned anything from the years that are behind me now, is that life.. with all it's beauty and joy can also be a very ugly and painful thing.  I've learned that nothing lasts, that all the good and the bad eventually dwindle away and end..  Pure joy and utter pain don't necessarily ever leave but perhaps we just get used to it and become numb as we grow older, and with each experience and lesson we perhaps get tougher, more resilient.. and in the process loose our childish enthusiasm, imagination and curiosity.  We accept things with more ease, stop fighting with our inner demons and even take the joyous experiences with a slight smile rather than a hearty laugh..

In my case... we went from having a comfortable, warm and fuzzy life to a harsh, treacherous, painful existence, surrounded by pain and grief.  Surviving days with tears and hardship while barely making it through nights with a cold bed, wet pillows and a longing for warmth..  But as time goes by, and even though the pain is still the same... we've gotten used to it, have built an immunity to grief, and are a bit more numb to everything that comes with life..  I see it in my boys and I feel it deep inside of me..

Lessons learned?? Still figuring that part out, but the most important lesson I've learned from all this is, like I said.. nothing last forever, happiness can be lost at a moments time, and sadness eventually leaves as well... So at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will say this... all we have left is NOW!  Whatever situation we may find ourselves in, that is all we have, so we may as well laugh whole hearted as well as cry from deep within.  This very moment will never repeat, and the joy or pain we feel right now is the very essence of being human, of living our lives.. however long that may be.  I think by really submerging ourselves deep into this moment we can say that we are human and at the end of our journey, as we look back at all the miles we've walked... we can say that we've lived... and learned... and experienced all that this life had in store for us..

And that is a satisfying feeling...

just another update

Hello dear old friends, it's been a long time since I've put any words on these pages. Have not visited any of you at your corners either, I've missed you all and the blogosphere...

I have however been reading some of my old posts in the recent weeks and have realized what a positive and energetic person I was all throughout this horrible time in our lives. Not to say that I'm a negative person at the moment but, my energy levels are depleting and each day is getting more and more challenging to get through. Now you all know I started this blog to open my heart and mind, express myself through this experience and hopefully help others who may be going through a similar chapter in their lives. I'm sure that is exactly why I was able to handle all that happened and this blog really helped me stay sane...

So, with that in mind I think it's time for another update on this grief thing we're going through. I guess the old saying is that "time heals all wounds" and "in time things get easier".... Well I think it would be more accurate to say that it gets worse before it gets any better. Of course it's different for every person, and it's different depending on who you've lost. A loss of a child, a parent, a friend, a sibling, a spouse are not at all the same. The pain and suffering may be on the same level but the aftermath and all that is required to survive each day is an entirely different path.

Since I have been fortunate enough not to have lost any other close loved ones, except grandparents from old age and illness, I can only give you guys a perspective from my point of view... one of a widow, one of a person who has lost a husband and a best friend, as well as one of a mother helping her boys through the loss of their father. Not an easy task, but grief is in no way ever easy regardless of who one looses. In our case, loosing him was needless to say very hard but, what makes it so much harder is when we lost him. Of course one is never ready to lose a loved one and there is no better time for things like this, but perhaps when we lose an older member of the family, it still hurts but we are comforted by the thought that he or she lived a full life, watched their kids grow, had grandchildren, etc.. and in some way we tend to think life has come full circle and it was their time to go.

When we lose a younger person, one who still had so much to live for and so much to see and experience still... then it's more difficult to find peace with this harsh reality. I can't help but think of all that we still had to do together, and all that he still needed to see, and this hurts me a great deal. Now this tragedy couldn't have happened at a worse time in our boys lives too, they are teens heading into manhood, in great need of their father. I can do all that I can, but will never fill his shoe, and that is a fact, a harsh fact of life that we just need to accept and live with. And in this area I think we're doing ok, we are a close family and that is our power against this tough situation.

Life it would seem is not really fair, we say this all the time and most of the time we don't really think about all that this saying means.. In my case, I was very fortunate to have had a great marriage, and yet it was short lived and ended at a time when we were starting a new chapter in our lives. Our boys were getting older and more independent, we were planning on embarking on a new life, we had big plans and were looking forward to more wonderful years together. So much to live for... But once again, it was short lived, and perhaps it was his time to go, I've come to terms with that now and in some way I'm in peace with it. What the challenge is now, is to reboot and come up with a whole new set of dreams and plans that don't include him. This is the hardest part, I still want to live in the past and replay the images on my mind of all the dreams we had for our future. But I can't!

I need to once again find out who I am without him, what I want from life and the paths I want to take. My boys, their happiness and well being is all I can think about. But with the challenges each day I have to face as a single mother, trying to make things better for all of us... it's not an easy task. When you are busy surviving each day, you don't have time to live!

However I am hopeful, I am after all a pessimistic optimist and there are some rays of sunshine in the horizon.. Thanks for lending an ear once again my friends.

peace

the first year without him..

How do I begin to describe what I'm feeling today?... I don't think it's possible, this day will forever remain the worse day of my life...the day we lost so much. It is a dark day and nothing can be done or said to make this day any different than what it is... We just have to survive through it year after year...
It was a year ago today, at 8:38pm when he took his last breath, it was the last day we saw him.. touched and kissed him, the last day I held his hand and caressed his forehead. This moment in time we will never forget... our world ended, we stopped breathing...
And now, a year has gone by... a long, painful year, filled with so much sadness, endless tears and heartache, and yet somehow we survived that too...

We've learned so much in the past year...
We learned that it takes a lot to brake the human spirit, and that the strength that resides within each of us is more powerful then ever imagined..
We learned that no matter how sad we are, we can still find a smile on our faces..
I learned that love does really survive, it does stay behind and warms the heart forever..
We learned that family is possibly the strongest weapon for any grieving person to have..
I learned that I can learn a few things from my sons about dealing with sadness..
I learned that we don't run out of tears...and that our pillow can quite possibly be the best shoulder at times..
I learned that a brand of coffee at the supermarket can make you weep like a child, as you run as fast as you can out of there..
We learned that there are some people that are on this earth to inspire us, to show us true love and true beauty in life, but that these are the souls that so often leave us so soon..
I learned that every time I look at our boys, I see him and this makes me smile as well as cry..

There is so much that we've learned, felt, experienced and lived the past year. And we are different now, we have changed, adapted and evolved to fit into the new life we have...
A part of me died with him on this day last year.... but a part of me learned to live...
love

his last wish..

Went down to our favorite little beach hotel in Rosarito Mexico this weekend to put Gag's ashes in the water, just as he had asked. We've made some great memories there in the past with the family, lots of laughs and good times. Perhaps that's why he requested for this just as he did for part of his ashes to be spread by the 3rd hole at his favorite golf course, which we did some time ago.

It felt good to fulfill his last wishes in a way that he would have approved... surrounded by family, with a nice BBQ to follow and a few cold vodka shots.... Many tears were shed by all of us that afternoon, but we had a few laughs as well remembering him and his "full of life" ways...

It was a tough weekend, full of emotions, and yet it was very peaceful and soul satisfying... and I'm so glad we were able to do this before the one year anniversary of his death. I hope now that his last wishes have been fulfilled he has found peace, as it has given us some peace now.

Although this is what he wanted and I am at peace with it...I can't help but feel as though I left a part of my heart behind with his ashes... as they sank into the waves... For us he will always be a part of the water that caresses the sands down in Baja...

Rest in peace my love

feeling broken

I've stopped writing, not so much because I have nothing to share anymore, but mostly because I've been letting my emotions get the better of me. I wallow a bit, and let it just subside, and perhaps I got tyred of expressing myself deeply, if that makes any sense.

But here I am, once again sulking, drowning in my tears, a day after fathers day.... It was a bad day, and we've had other "special" days that we miss him more than usual, but yesterday was possibly the worse I felt in months. Seeing our boys sitting at dad's grave, looking sad, hurt, somewhat alone and cheated out of life, holding their tears back.... was such a painful thing. What can a mother do to make such a pain go away?... With all that I do for them, all the comforting words, and hugs, with all the love that they get from me and our family, nothing...nothing will ever take away that pain they feel inside. They have been broken as we all have and no matter what we do, we will never be able to put ourselves back just right ever again...

Broken we are..broken we feel..but we must accept this new norm and try to pull it together as much as possible to live...and live fully, for that's what he would want.

love..