What Might Have Been

I didn't really know what to title this post. I can't really say that today would have been our 8th anniversary because God had other plans, plans that had us married just past 5 years before Brian's life on this earth was over.  Even so, I can't help but remember those dreams we had on this day in 2003. The love I felt was beyond any description I could even attempt to give.

So how is it on this 3rd anniversary date without him? It was a hard day. But I survived. For me, it really hasn't gotten any easier.  I have learned to better deal with it, sometimes to better hide it. But more often as the days and months and years have now passed, I have to realize a different norm. Life is what it is and has been now for 38 1/2 months. So I guess I have actually gotten used to it, as far as the day to day goes.

I went to the cemetery the other night. I cried harder than I have in a long time. My head was filled with strange thoughts.  What did he look like? What did he sound like? I felt a panicky feeling that I couldn't remember him calling out my name. I tried to remember his touch and his kiss. It seemed so foreign to me. I felt like digging up the dirt and crawling in with him. Don't judge my craziness until you've had a dead husband you miss so much you can't think straight. Crawling in with him sounds like a great idea for a brief moment of time every so often.  I kept seeing him as he was when he walked up onto my front porch the first night I met him. He was wearing the same shirt as he was buried in. I suddenly wanted the shirt back. I wanted to hold it close.

That night I nightmared. This time he walked up onto the front porch and his head was shaved. He looked more like he did at the time of his dodgeball benefit. His face was puffy. But he had that same shirt on. When I opened the door, he said...you have big hair. He always teased me that my hair was poofy that night. Some other not-so-pleasant and too personal to repeat things happened in my nightmare to remind me of his illness. Then he kept walking away from my house. He would come close, then turn and leave. Next, he was up on the ladder putting up my Christmas lights (if you remember, this is the moment when I realized I was falling in love with him and he was telling me about his cancer, and I was thinking oh my God I am going to fall in love with him and he is going to die)...but in my nightmare he climbed up onto the house and then fell off. Next thing I knew I was standing in the back of church with my dad, getting ready to come down the aisle. I started having a panic attack (which really did happen), and I was freaking out about how happy I felt (did happen). I came down the aisle and the violins were playing but I couldn't hear them (maybe a connection to the fact that my ears have been plugged for 2 weeks because of a double ear infection). Then I could hear this cackling from the back of church, like an evil laugh.

I bolted straight up in bed. And people wonder why I can't freaking sleep. Honestly though, it was the first actual nightmare I have had about Brian. I am sure the earlier crying at the cemetery sparked it off. Here's hoping that his the last of it.

I got flowers today, beautiful flowers like the ones from our wedding. I don't know whose handiwork it was, but it made me feel very special. One of my students asked why I got the flowers, and I said that today is my anniversary. He replied...what an awful thing to have to come back to school! No kidding! Although the routine probably helped to make it an easier day.  Then I had several texts, emails and posts on my facebook page, and it meant a lot to know that so many remembered and/or thought to say something to me. Like this day really mattered. Like it wasn't a figment of my imagination. Like it was ok to still celebrate that this is the day I committed to be Brian's wife, to love and honor him, in sickness and in health. And I upheld that, by God, and I am proud of that. I like to think I had a hand in getting him to Heaven, and I am honored to have been a part of that.

I planned to come home and look at pictures with Tye. He has wanted to see our wedding video. So that was the plan. By the time we got home, I was feeling a little better about the day and decide to leave well enough alone and just leave that for another time.

I keep thinking that before I know it, more time will have passed with him dead than the time I knew him alive. How can that be? When so much of him is living and breathing right in my daily life. Tye brings Brian's love to me everyday, and I am so thankful. I feel bad for Tye to grow up without Daddy, but hope he always knows what a gift he has been to me. I told him today that I missed him at school. He said...why? I said...because you are good company! He said...MOM! I'm not company, I'm your son. Tee hee!  On New Year's Eve at midnight, he hugged me great big and said...it just gets better and better every year. Awww. I chuckled and thought, no kidding, it can't hardly have gotten much worse! But it made me feel good that he is so happy and feels so loved.

Thanks to all of you who have helped me get from my 7th anniverary to my 8th. I have been taking one day at a time, and pray for continued healing, and maybe someday even peace.