Phenomenon

I love the movie “Phenomenon” with John Travolta (George) and Kyra Sedgwick (Lacy) because it shows a great love...and how it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known someone...love is as strong as you make it.

Towards the end of the movie, George is dying (sorry...spoiler alert, if you haven’t seen it) and Lacy is wondering how in the world she is going to live without him.

He asks her how she would comfort her children when they were babies.  And she starts rocking back and forth, back and forth, with her hand over her heart, beating time.

He finally makes her open her eyes and points to the tops of the trees, which are moving back and forth at the same time.  Just rocking.  Swaying.

George explains to her that that’s how she can comfort herself.  Rock and sway...slowly.  Keep time.  And she will be comforted.  He will be there.

I think about that part of that movie all of the time.  When the sun has almost set and the sky is light blue, I’ll sit on my swing on my back porch. That time of day...there is barely sunlight.  I watch the silhouettes of the trees.  They’re so strong at the bottom, nothing moves.  But at the top, the newer part...they seem weak.  And they just sway. 

It’s almost hypnotic.

Last week a storm blew in.  My girls woke me up (my son will sleep through anything).  It hailed, it rained, and it sounded like the roof was going to come off of my house.  I ran downstairs to see if all of the windows were shut and wondered if I should take us all to the basement.  I watched the huge tree in my backyard bend in the wind.  Bend almost in half.  I felt sure that the entire thing was going to snap.

But...the next morning, it was there.

Calm.

Steady.

As if nothing had ever happened.

It had lost a few leaves.  Some minor branches.  One major limb...but nothing that would kill it.  It would stay.  It has stayed...for longer than I will ever know.  Weathered storms.  Taken a beating.  But still standing.

Sound familiar?

I Would Rather Pass a Kidney Stone Than a Milestone

It’s late and I’m tired.  Which means that this blog may not turn out like I want it to.  But since I’m alone and left with the History Channel (which has somehow changed from how the states were formed to how the pot industry has grown)...I guess I’ll write.

My birthday is next week which is the 2^nd hurtle in the line of 4 that I have to deal with in the next month.  The first was Father’s Day which I somehow managed to sleep through.  I’m still not quite sure if this lack of consciousness was due to a virus or my inability to deal with the day.

Something that only you Deep Grievers will understand.

All I know was I had no business being behind the wheel of my daughter’s foot-pushing toddler car...much less the powerful engine of my minivan.

This year will mark 4 years.  FOUR YEARS.  Four years of my sad little cluster of dates.  Father’s Day.  My birthday.  His “death-a-versary” and my wedding anniversary.  I’m seasoned.  I’m a professional griever.  I’m halfway through my medical degree in grieving.

And I spent my few hours awake wondering why in the hell it was still so hard.

I came to a conclusion that I thank my “thinking sweats” for ( you know...those clothes that you’ll wear for days and think no one actually recognized you in.  Like you were incognito while you were in your “break down wear.”)  (Side note:  They noticed you but were too embarrassed to claim you.)

So here it is.

It’s not the milestone.  It’s the revelation.

Think about it.  With every birthday, holiday, or Monday...you’ve passed something.  Yes, I realize that it sounds like a kidney stone.  But the truth is...it’s much more painful.  And more enduring.  And can’t be broken up by lasers.

Last year, around my birthday, I had a similar breakdown.  I realized that I was about to turn the same age that my husband was when he died.  And that made me sad.  UNBELIEVABLY sad.  So sad that my insides turned out.  So sad that my life, which I thought had already been turned upside down...turned upside down again (which I realize should make it right side up...but it didn’t).

Deep down, in my core...just...sad.

And then it passed.  Life went on and I was so relieved to just be over that milestone.  I thought for sure that I would never feel that bad about my birthday again.

Until this year.

A couple of weeks ago, I felt the milestone coming again.  I’m going to tell you what it looks like.  It looks like the clouds are building...but you think the storm is going to pass you by.  Then they turn green and threatening and you wonder if it’s possible to take shelter.

And then it’s there on top of you...like a swirling vortex of life you can’t dodge.  And all of the contents of your life are circling.

And you wonder if they’re going to land intact or in pieces.

My milestone is coming.  It’s circling.

My sister asked me today, what I wanted to do for my birthday next week.  And I told her, “I don’t care.  I just want it to be over.”

She said, “That makes me so sad.  You’ve always loved your birthday!”

And I said, “No haven’t.  Not since he died.”

I’ve always been the youngest of my group of friends.  I have always been a few years younger, or a few months younger...something that everyone has joked about.  I’m the baby of the group.  I was the last one to get a license.  I was the last one who could get into a bar.  That was my job.  That was my place. 

This year...for the first time I realized...I’m not the youngest of our group anymore.

He is.

© Catherine Tidd 2011

Father's Day: Both Grieving and Grateful

I love my father as the stars - 

he's a bright shining example 

and a happy twinkling in my heart.  

~Terri Guillemets

I’m going to try and keep this one short and sweet (you know how I have the talent of the “prattle”).  I know many of us are struggling this weekend.  Many of us are missing the father of our children, our own fathers, or are just trying to work through yet another “family” weekend. 

And when I say work, I mean work.

This week has been a tough one for me as well.  As I said in a Father’s Day blog on The Denver Post’s Mile High Mamas, Father’s Day begins my “cluster” of milestones.  Many of us have them and I’ve always thought how strange it is that it works out that way.  It always seems like our spouse died around a birthday or a holiday that makes one season unbearable for us.

For me...it’s now.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day and in a week it will be my birthday.  A couple of weeks after that is the anniversary of my husband’s death and then 2 days after that is our wedding anniversary.

As many of us know, the anticipation of these milestones is usually harder than the actual day.  My own grief and frustration about grieving finally built up this week until I had a blow up of epic proportions at about midnight on Wednesday.  If there was a hole in my face...I was leaking from it. For a couple of hours, I allowed myself to cry, vent, and generally not feel good about this whole widdahood thing.

I think I scared my dog, but I feel much better now.

This week has also been incredibly emotional for me because some good friends of ours called with some news about their newborn that sent me into a tailspin.  Now these are the friends who you know should be parents, but take their own sweet time going about it.  And just when you think it’s never going to happen...they announced over the winter that they were expecting. 

But earlier this week they called to tell me something that no parent ever wants to hear...whether it’s about your child or someone elses.

Their 3 week old baby’s heart had started failing (apparently due to a birth defect they didn’t catch) and had been taken in for emergency by-pass surgery.

My first thought when they told me this was, “Why wasn’t my husband here?”  He was part of the foursome.  Part of the team.  I mean...I could talk to the mother about the ins and outs of breastfeeding and all of the child birth stories that tend to make men leave for manlier pastures.  He should be here for the conversation about how hungover they both were for the birth of their children and how it might be possible to attach a remote control motor to a stroller so they won't have to leave their napping positions under the tree at the park.

For a moment...I felt like a very poor substitute.

It’s taken me a week to realize that...even though I may feel inadequate in picking up the slack for the both of us as a parenting couple...I must be coming across okay to the outside world.  This morning it dawned on me...they called.  They called me.  They knew he wasn’t home.  They knew he couldn’t come with me to fill in meaningless conversation during the endless hours that seem to happen at the hospital.  They knew I was flying solo.

And I was enough.

My friends will get to go home today with their beautiful month old daughter and this morning I woke up with a feeling that overpowered my dread of Father’s Day.  Even though there is still a sadness in my heart that I can’t explain that my husband will never meet this beautiful little girl, I remembered the look on his friend’s face last night at the hospital as he watched his baby sleep...the baby he could have so easily lost. 

And even though I will desperately miss my husband tomorrow, I will be grateful that there is a dad out there who will be spending the day with his daughter...when there was a chance that things could have turned out so differently.