500 Down...18,000+ to Go

Today is Brian’s 37th birthday.

Today also marks 500 days exactly since Brian died.

Time seems to be in hyper-drive. The sun rises and sets without regard to the fact that my Brian is dead. The yard needs to be mowed every 5-7 days, despite my attempts to will the grass to quit growing so fast! The seasons have changed and come back around full circle, only to change, yet again. The kids are also changing so quickly. Rachel is hardly recognizable from 500 days ago, with her stretching out, changing hairstyles and getting her top braces off. She has gradually and suddenly become a young woman. Amberlea is still my sweet little one who, even after 500 days, continues to always say just the right thing to help me feel better. Tye has grown by leaps and bounds, and 500 days has given him the chance to skip over a few sizes in clothing, learn to ride his bike without training wheels, and become a much better swimmer. He went from being a preschooler to being on the verge of starting kindergarten.


I don’t sit around figuring that up, but instead it came up in a conversation with Tye. I was sharing with him that Daddy’s birthday was coming up, and he danced a little jig then asked how old he is. I said 37, even though I know in my heart that he will always be 35. Then he asked me an odd question he has not asked before…how long has my Daddy been in Heaven? I said 16 months, and considering he doesn’t have that great of a concept of time, he seemed confused. He responded with…but how many days? I quickly added things in my head and said I thought somewhere like 400-500. That night I sat down to write a blog entry, and I used a calculator to add it up. That is when I realized that it was coming out to be so close to 500. A few more clicks of the calculator showed that August 3rd is exactly 500 days past March 21st, 2008.

So I have spent some time trying to reflect on the past 500 days. While the kids seem to flourish, I find myself in a rut, a stand still. I want to go back to before Brian was sick. I want my life back, and nothing I do can change that Brian is dead. I miss him so desperately that I feel sick inside. For me, this has only gotten worse because time has made me long for him even more. Early on, I was so relieved that his suffering was over, and I was willing to sacrifice any thoughts of him being here to thoughts of him being in Heaven and at peace. Now, 500 days later, reality really has set in, and while I still don’t want him to suffer, I am smack dab in the middle of just literally missing him so much it hurts. I barely went a full day without being with him, let alone a few, so 500 has basically been hell. Brian’s illness and suffering also pushed us into a deeper intimacy than others may experience, say before a sudden death. The last year before his death, we spent nearly every moment together. We knew what was happening, and we both wanted the chance to spend as much time together as possible. In just a breath, that was over, and I have been left to exist in a world without him, without his smile, his touch, his love and laughter.

These 500 days have taught me so much. I knew I would survive, and I have. Who seriously wants to live a life that you are just surviving? Just existing, just getting by? Each night when I go to bed, I thank God for giving me the strength to live another day without him. And each morning I ask that God might allow me to do it all over again. I also ask that I can somehow get through the pain, as I’ve learned I definitely can’t seem to get around it.

This summer has been hard for me. While the break itself has been great and being with the kids has been amazing, there has been entirely too much time for me to think about Brian. My brain needs a serious break from it all, and I think the routine of school will help.

500 days has also given me the chance to fully understand that I am alone in my grief. No one could fully understand the joy and happiness in my marriage, so I don’t expect anyone to really be able to understand the agony I feel either. I do agree that the 2nd year is worse. I would say it is better and worse. Better because I get through the days a little easier than I did, I find a way to laugh at things a little more, I try to soak up all the love I feel…worse because I feel like I am alone because society itself seems to dictate that the one year mark is the magical turning point in which someone should get over their losses. I warn you, if you think this, please reconsider being more compassionate. The pain of a loss like mine does not go away. Yes, we do have to and want to find a way to pick up the pieces and move on in a healthy way. But that comes over time. And as bad as this might sound, I feel like I am entitled to grieve for Brian as I choose, on no one else’s time frame. I have found that to be a challenge, even within my own family. We have grieved differently for my mom. I don’t know if I even really had the chance to grieve for her, and this summer I have missed her terribly. I was bound to finally feel the pain of losing her, and it seems to have hit me. Even between Rachel and me, there is a huge difference in how we choose to deal with all of this. She wants to only remember the good things, and I know she is very happy that he is no longer suffering. She knows he loved her very much and I do think she misses him. But that was then, and this is now. For me, I battle the feeling of loss every minute of every day. I spend all my energy trying to find a way to accept how my life is now, and to deal with this life-altering change. I don’t expect our feelings to be the same, and I can tell you they are far from the same. I think it has added to how alone I feel because it is not something we can share. We are both working to accept and respect each other, and beyond that, I just work to help Amberlea and Tye feel good about Brian and about him being in Heaven.

I have been trying to figure out how to really express what I feel right now. The best thing to tell you is there are brief moments each day when I literally and seriously feel like Brian just died. My heart flutters, my head aches, my stomach turns, and that feeling of loss washes over me and consumes me. Sometimes it can last for a minute, others times maybe longer. I think it might be my brain trying to remind myself that he is gone, really and truly gone. I have moments that I have to remind myself that this has happened, that he existed in my life, that I did feel his love. Enough time has passed, and enough of my life right now shows no signs of him, that I can almost wrap my mind around him never existing as much as I can him dying in my arms.

500 days has also shown me that the before Jenni is long gone. There are glimpses of me, and sometimes I feel like myself again. But I think that any hope of getting back to who I was is gone. I used to regret that, but I am coming to understand that if this was part of God’s plan, it was a part of my life for a reason, to transform me and change me, hopefully for the better.

500 days has felt like nothing, yet also felt like an eternity. I have so much I want to tell Brian. I loved to hear his stories and have him wrap his arms around me. I miss hearing him call me Sweetie. I miss his laugh. I miss the way he made me feel. I miss being in love, even though my love for him will always be, I miss the day-to-day being in love and being loved by Brian Halley.

Somehow I think another 500 days will feel no different when it comes to missing Brian. I have realized I don’t have to get over missing him, and it is ok to always and forever miss the love of my life. I hope and pray that the next 500 days will bring more healing. I pray for God’s grace to help me find myself again, to find what is left of me. If I live another 50 years, I have 18,000+ days of missing Brian. And I just can’t do another 500 the way these 500 have been…and for that, I beg God to bless me, to guide me, and to bring me peace.