Birthday Reflections

Saturday was my 35th birthday. Overall, the celebration was good. I didn't cry. Mostly I either felt happy with everything everyone was doing or saying, or I just felt numb.

As for the happy...Rachel planned a party on Friday night. It was great to get together with so many that have stood by me through so much, and for them to be there for something fun. The girls were very excited to get everything arranged, and even gave me a nice basket full of my favorite Bath and Body Works soaps/bubble bath/lotion. I had my very favorite cake, German chocolate! Thanks to everyone who helped Rachel get things planned. As for Saturday, I took the kids out to eat in St. Joe and bummed around all day. I didn't feel like staying home. I battled some anxiety throughout the day, but all in all, it went well.

As for the numb...my head was full of all kinds of thoughts. I imagined my last birthday, and I can't remember anything about it, other than that I had a DQ cake. I have tried and tried, but my mind is just a blank on what it is I did last year. I can hardly believe that I let a birthday go by and didn't even notice. So many people think it is just another day, no big deal. Believe me, it is a big deal for me not to have a birthday to plan for Brian this year. I looked in the mirror yesterday and thought...jeez, my husband only lived to be 35. Then I remembered that the future is not promised to any of us. Every year on my birthday I always ask God to please bless the coming year and let me live to see another birthday. It is numbing to think that Brian didn't live to another birthday. So most of the day I just felt, I guess, nothing really. I had pangs of feeling alone. I had moments of imagining spending the day with him. I had thoughts of what it would be like to get away for our birthdays. But I mostly just wanted to survive the day. I wanted to be happy that I am alive and healthy. I wanted to be able to enjoy my life, as Brian would have wanted. So I tried to just push those feelings aside.

I remember after my mom died, I went though a stage of feeling basically nothing. That is kind of how I feel now. It isn't really shock or denial or sadness or loneliness. It isn't anger or fear or anxiety (well, maybe some anxiety) or pain.

It is nothing. It doesn't feel like anything. It is an odd feeling. Even though I still think about Brian constantly and miss him terribly, I don't really feel much. It is almost like it didn't happen. I have to remind myself often that he is even dead. Heck, I have to remind myself sometimes that the life I had with him even existed...not because I'm forgetting. It more feels like my brain is trying to give my heart a little break for a while, so I'm not feeling too much emotion. I feel kind of like a brick wall. Because of this seeming lack of emotion, my mind has also allowed itself to wonder to all areas of thought. I laid in bed last night and thought of Brian dying in my arms, of his last breath, of the moments of preparing his body to go to the funeral home. One little part of my mind was thinking...WHAT are you doing? But the rest of me felt like I needed to trudge through it in my brain because I have blocked it out for so long. I closed my eyes and imagined seeing him again, feeling him breathe, laying my head on his hairy chest, feeling him not breathing. My mind raced, it swept though many terrible moments, seeing him suffering in the hospital, hearing him cry in pain, moving him in the lift, changing his bandages, his seizure on Valentine's Day.

I took a deep breathe and told myself that I don't want that life back. Not for me, but for him. Melanoma is so cruel. I would say it showed him no mercy, but I know better. I know that for as bad as it got for Brian, there are many others who are worse off. That isn't to say that Brian didn't suffer. I just know there are many who become far more incapacitated than Brian. As far as his melanoma seem to stretch him, it did have a limit that allowed us some peace at home, that allowed him to spend some quality of time with his family, that allowed us to surround him with love, and for him to know that.

I guess I should be grateful. I'm not to that point yet, to be able to be thankful for anything having to do with Brian's illness. He feared he would keep on living in the pain the beast had stuck him with. How could I wish him hear, knowing that?

Tye told me Happy Birthday like 75 times yesterday, literally! He was very sweet and the girls made it a special day. I am thankful for that.