Dear Grief

Dear Grief,

I do not like you anymore. I wish more than anything in this world you would go away or just bring him back to me.

Since I know he isn't coming back...fine...but GO AWAY. I do not appreciate how you sneak up on me when I least expect it and how you hinder my life. You bring me down and make me feel so lost, scared, confused, alone, sad...and everything else BAD.

I like the days so much more when you aren't visiting. So go HOME!!!

Thank you.
Melissa

song

For those of you who read this and aren't my Facebook friend....I had to share this with you....
Things are looking up for me...I decided last week, I don't want to be sad anymore. Derek would not that for me, he HATED it when I was sad. So I am trying really hard to have more better days than sad days.
Am I still sad?
Absolutely.
Do I still cry?
Absolutely.
Do I still hurt?
Absolutely.
Am I trying to find joy in life?
Absolutely.

A friend in my grief group gave me a CD this week....and I must share it with the world....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3CVlv2dz3w


Please take a minute to listen to the words of this song...thank you God for being with me.....

Freaked out

So today was an awful day...and I was at work.
I totally freaked out starting last night...
How could I donate his eyes...
Now he will never ever see me again.
Was this the right thing to do?
I do not know.
He wanted to be an organ donor and so do I,
But now I just don't know.
Oh how I hope I did what was right....

Then at about 5:30pm I got so excited...soon my shift would be over.
I would be going home to see Derek and eat dinner with my favorite man.
Oh how I forgot....
What I wouldn't give to come home to him once more, but
He isn't here anymore.
Why do I have to live this life....
I hate you Grief....
I really hate you.

Missing him

Well let's see...I survived our first wedding anniversary ALONE. I must say though it was the most peaceful day I have had since Derek passed away. God opened the skies for me and gave me a beautiful sun filled moment, filled with lots of hope for my future until I see Derek again. I ate lunch with some friends, I went to the beach and then went to dinner with his best friends. It was a very sad day and I cried a LOT, but He was right here with me....I felt him.
I went to the beach right where we got married at the exact time I became his wife. I cut our cake and I talked to him, cried to him and then laughed and smiled as I remembered our greatest times together. It is amazing to me how much I loved Derek and how much he loved me. I never knew that kind of love really exsisted and then to have it STOLEN from me. I just don't understand...which led to Monday being an absolutely SAD day....
I miss him so much...more and more every day. I miss him lying in bed with me, being here when I get home from work, and lots of other times. But I miss him most when I just need someone to share my "new" work schedule(and complain, of course) with or just talk to about my day. I need him to say...baby it is all going to be ok...that is what I need. I need him to hug me/kiss me and tell me he loves me....whenever he told me he loved me....all my troubles disappeared.
Now I am faced with the biggest trouble I have been faced with in my life and he isn't here.....I HATE this. I need him to make the loss of him all better...he made everything all better....

results

So today was a day...to put it mildly.
I got the phone call from the medical examiner with the results of Derek's autopsy and I do not like it at all.
The cause of death....hypertensive heart disease, no heart attack, no clogged arteries, no clots:just hypertensive heart disease. Whatever, I have hypertensive heart disease, millions of people have it and are walking, talking, breathing, loving and alive. This just isn't fair. I wanted a different reason. I do not know what reason I wanted, but it isn't the one I got.
This was suppose to give me some sort of closure, not so much. I miss him more than words can say. But God had bigger plans than we and I know that he passed away quickly and without suffering and for that I am thankful.
This is treatable, why didn't his medicine work, why was it his hypertension that took him from me, why didn't we do something more, WHY???
I know if I try to figure it out I will make myself crazy, so please don't ask me to stop. I know I can't change it and I can't fix it...but it just doesn't make sense to me. I just want my husband back sitting here eating ice cream with me, to eat dinner with me, to hold me tight and kiss me goodnight....this is a LONELY, SAD, MISERABLE, HORRIBLE, AWFUL, HURTFUL time in my life....but one day, just one day I hope to be better.....but not right now....

Living with Grief

I am in a grief support group....part of our work in this group comes from a workbook which asks us to journal each week....this week's journal entry says....
"From the moment you wake up until you crawl into bed at night, what is it like to live with grief?"

So here goes my thoughts...some of them at least....I think I could write on this all night...

Grief smacks you in the face each day when you wake up...my husband should be lying in our bed with me and saying, "Hey baby" when he sees my eyes open. Derek always woke up before me and I loved the moment when I would awaken and there he was with the sweetest grin on his face....oh how I miss him. So at the start of each day I am immediately reminded that he isn't here anymore.
Then, throughout the day it is awful...I want to call him from work when I am there, just to tell him I love him, to tell him something that happened, to discuss dinner....whatever it is I just want to call him...and I can't, he won't answer. If I am not at work, I still want to call him, tell him what I am doing, take him lunch to work, stop by his work just with a Diet Coke to help him get thru the afternoon. And if it is a day when we should be off together, those are really hard...I just miss our time...we looked forward to those days when we didn't have to work, when we could do whatever we wanted...we loved to spend time together.
Coming home from work, well from anywhere for that matter is the hardest for me. I still after 11 weeks hope each time I turn the corner his car will be here and he will be waiting inside for me, but again...he isn't here.
I am trying really hard to "LIVE" with grief...I am trying really hard to not let grief get the best of me, but I tell you it is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Imagine...losing your everything, losing the person who still gave you butterflies in your stomach every time you would see that person, losing your one true soulmate. Imagine never being able to talk to, touch, hug/kiss, snuggle with, eat with, laugh with, dance with the one who completed you. That is GRIEF.
Grief is the worst pain someone has to experience, grief is a ball of emotions...you are sad, mad, guilty, lost, lonely, hurt, broken, scared and a million other things all rolled into one. The weirdest part of grief is that you never ever know when it will hit you, grief has no boundaries.

I am not sure if I answered the question correctly, but I can tell you living with grief is something I very much wish I didn't have to live with and I will never understand why I have to endure this horrible, terrible, awful life...but I just continue to survive and pray for strength to get thru each second...sometimes you can only focus on the next second....and I always get thru with God's strength and hearing Derek say to me..."Deep breaths, baby...deep breaths...."

another "sign"

I have so much to say...tonight as usual...but I am only going to write one story to get it out...

I worked last night and my good friend Carla very strangely asked me..." Do you have Derek's watch?" And I thought it was strange but answered her, yes it is on the dresser, I loved his watch. And I told her how much I loved his watch...it is something that he always had on him and it was very "catching" for lack of a better word. I remember very vividly sitting in his old office and always noticing his "big" watch. Weird, I am sure...but I loved his watch.

Well as the story goes...Carla's sister in law works in the ED where Derek went and apparently his watched stopped the moment he left this earthly body for the Heavens. ODD...

So this morning...I couldn't wait to get home and check and see if his watch was working...it was...I guess that is another sign from my God that it is ok and time and my life will keep going on even without the love of my life...what a great reminder that in time...I will be ok.

I went to my first support group session tonight...it was just a meet/greet thing and we actually start next week...I think it is going to be very helpful for me.

survived

Well I am home from my beach weekend with the family...it was a good time with some sad moments.
My brother completed his run and did awesome...so proud of him!!!

I am use to being without Derek when I am with my family so that helped the situation. I had a few sad moments...I really wanted to call him a LOT and tell him what we were doing, how my brother did in the race, that I was on my way home, but he wouldn't answer...what a sad feeling.

My niece who is 3 was with us and I was nervous she would ask about where her uncle "D" was, she only said one thing about him the whole weekend...I wrote her name in the sand and she took the stick and made a "D" in the sand and I asked her what that letter was for and she said, "For your Derek"...precious and I told her yes it was....oh how I wish he was there with us to see her and play with us and carry her on his shoulders...she loved him and he loved her so much. He would always get so excited when I would let him listen to her voice messages or look at her pictures.

He would have been such a great daddy and I am saddened that we didn't get the opportunity to share that amazing joy together. But I am so thankful that our God knows what he is doing!!

All in all it was a good time...but there is nothing I wouldn't give to have had Derek there with us...

Vacation

The loss of my husband will be so clear this weekend.

I am going to VA Beach tomorrow with my family for my brother to run a half marathon. This is his first big run since he has been cancer free. I remember getting that phone call almost 2 years ago, my brother had stage III cancer. Derek sat here on the couch with me and held me as I cried, we had only know each other less than 2 months. He was amazing...he told me we would do whatever needed to be done, move to Richmond, whatever I/my family needed. I knew from that moment on that Derek and I would be such good team mates. And that we were. We could handle anything together and now I am all alone.

SO, we were suppose to go this weekend with my family together to support my brother. This would be our first vacation with my family. I have waited a LONG time to have someone who was willing to be with my family, this was going to be the first time ever I finally had someone/a husband to go on a family vacation with me. We were so excited to go together. But that isn't going to happen now. I am still going to go support my brother and be with my family, no matter who hard it will be. I just wish I wasn't going alone, I wish I didn't have to do anything alone.

Please say an extra prayer or two or three for me this weekend that I will have peace and joy as I celebrate with my brother and family. We truly have so much to be thankful for.

deep thoughts

I feel compelled to write this blog entry....I want to put my happenings of the day into words....Warning: this may be long and may not make sense to anyone of you that actually read it...but it makes perfect sense to me.

Story before the story: Derek and I have a lovely beach house in Emerald Isle. We used to go there just about every second that we weren't working. Our greatest memories and moments have been there, walking on the water front of Beaufort, sitting on the porch just the two of us (we had lots and lots of awesome conversations there, that I will forever cherish), sitting on the beach, eating special dinners and we even got married down there barefoot on the beach. It was our favorite place to be together. And in June we discovered a new beach, I think it is called the point...well as were sitting there and playing in the water together I told Derek that if I could invision what heaven was...this spot with my husband would be it. I called this beach "Heaven on Earth."

Well today I chose to drive to our beach house, ALONE and for the first time since Derek left this Earth. I had to face it at some point and I chose today....for starters as I was driving and was about 10 miles from the house, it rained on me (no more rain the rest of the day) and I said a little thanks be to God for letting me know my Derek was with me on this adventure and I would be OK. So I get to the house and it looks the same as it did the last time we were there, July 5th. And I just laid on the bed and cried out for Derek and asked him all kinds of questions and told him all kinds of things....why aren't you here? i can't believe you aren't here. i don't want to be here if you aren't here with me....i was very sad to be there, anywhere without him with me.

I then decided I would go to "Heaven on Earth", maybe to find some peace...not so much. I went to the point and it was GONE, crashing waves were covering the area that once was "Heaven on Earth"....I suppose this was from Hurricane Danny, but it gave me the weirdest kind of feeling. A confimation that my life is like crashing waves and will never ever be what it was once was. However I do know that eventually those waves covering that part of the beach will be gone and the beach will return, just like eventually this pain won't hurt so bad, the waves will never go away but maybe just maybe they will retreat.....

I can only hope for this retreat of waves in my life, but I did settle an issue I have been struggling with...I will sell the beach house...I do NOT want to make any new memories there, I only want my memories and times there to be remembered as those times with Derek. I long for the day when I can be in HEAVEN with Derek since we can no longer go to our "Heaven on Earth".

the hurt

Everyday gets harder and harder...I just want my husband back. I know this is not possible but oh what I wouldn't give to have him here. The pain is so strong and hurts so bad. I want Derek here with me, I do not want anything else and I feel at times that nothing else will do.

On that awful day, I lost so much....
I lost my best friend
I lost my lover
I lost my partner
I lost my soulmate
I lost my husband

I lost my personal chef
I lost my driver
I lost my listener
I lost my teacher
I lost my helper
I lost my dog walker

I lost my doctor
I lost my meterologist
I lost my funeral director, that is for you buddy
I lost my car man
I lost my grocery shopper

I lost my drinking buddy
I lost my singing buddy
I lost my beach buddy
I lost my porch sitting buddy
I lost my buddy

I lost half of my heart. But I am so thankful for everything that Derek taught me and showed me in those short 2 years I had him in my life. My life will never be the same because of the love between a husband and wife that we shared. We shared so much in such a short time and I am forever grateful for every second of it. I would give anything to have it all back and one day I will see that precious man again.....

how life changes in the blink of an eye

Well I have decided maybe I need to write some of my feelings down...I started this blog ironically to just see what a friend had written on her blog and reading my first blog brings me so much pain....I thought I had it all...

Until that awful Sunday...I was at work talking with a family who had had a baby born with problems...the phone rang and it was for me...I had no idea that phone call would forever change me. I never get phone calls at work so I knew it must be something...and boy was it something...my husband was unresponsive and his best friends were doing CPR on him and the ambulance was taking him to the hospital. I knew the end result...my precious Derek had died...someone drove me to where he was and after lots of waiting the doctor came in and finally said the words I already knew were true. My most favorite and wonderful man in the world was gone....how could this be...I just talked to him few hours ago and he was so excited to go riding 4 wheelers with the boys...and none of us had a clue how that day would end up...

It has now been 6 weeks and 3 days that I have learned to live without my true love, my soulmate, my Derek. And it is by far the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with. We had just started our life together and it was perfectly amazing....we didn't even get to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary together...my life will never ever ever be the same....

At first I was numb, well I am here to tell you the numbness has all since worn off and the pain is so real and so intense. I would give anything to have him here with me...to touch him, see him, kiss him, talk to him, eat dinner with him...do anything and everything we loved doing together. My heart breaks every second of every day...I may appear to be doing "ok" but truly I am not. I am only surviving at this point. I go to work to get away from it all...I have to be a nurse there so I can leave my pain aside for 12 hours a day...but coming home is the worst...no one is here with my dinner ready and my diet coke poured and no one is here to hug and kiss me and talk about my day with me....oh how I miss you Derek.

Well I decided today to write out some of these feelings, my grief books say it might help and I know I will continue to write them for whoever reads it...as a lot of people's blogs have helped me over the past 6 weeks, maybe one day mine can help someone too....

For fun!

So one of my very good friends is trying this blogging thing and I wanted to see what it was all about! I don't really know what you are suppose to but I am going to work on it.
I love life...and it seems as though the blogs I read are all sad about sickness and such. But I don't have any of that...thank God. I read someone's blog today that I don't even know and she is 26 years old and dying....puts everything into perspective for me....my life is better than great and I/we all need to be thankful for what we have. I have an amazing husband, job, family and my health....and I couldn't be more appreciative of these things.