Saying Good Bye

A year ago tonight were the last moments I had with John. I remember bringing him home from the hospital after his first chemo treatment, he was so tired and weak and not really himself. I remember begging him to try to eat something to keep up his strength. The only thing he could manage was a bit of toast and a few sips of chocolate milk. It was Danielle's birthday and he didn't have the strength to be part of her birthday celebration. After we cut Danielle's cake I went back in the room with him and spent most of the night with my arms around him. I remember trying to will all of my strength into his body, trying to give him enough strength to fight the cancer that in such a short time was already eating away at him.

I remember telling him not to talk, I just wanted him to save his energy for getting better, but as he dozed in and out of sleep I whispered to him again and again how much I loved him. As we drifted off to sleep with all of my many alarms set so that I could wake in the night to give him his medication and breathing treatments I remember trying to slow his sharp, shallow breaths to match mine, to infuse him with my deep calming breaths. If I could have found a way to enter his body and breathe for him I would have done it, but all I could do was pray. Those prayers were never answered. I awoke in the early morning hours to John telling me he couldn't breathe. I checked his oxygen and we talked for a few minutes, he said he had to go to the restroom. While he was gone I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew I woke to him standing at the foot of the bed telling me again that he couldn't breathe. Before I could react he collapsed on to the bed and as I begged him to talk to me, to start breathing, I called 911.

There was someone here almost instantly but what I can still picture is his face with one tear in the corner of his eye. They did everything they could but he was already gone. In that moment my entire life changed. At that moment it fell as if it had completely shattered and I guess in many ways it had but I have also realized in the past year that I am stronger than I ever imagined. Not that I haven't had my weak points, not that I haven't totally lost it and fell into complete and utter despair, but no matter how low my lowest moments were I never completely gave up. How could I? I have 4 kids that need me, that depend on me, that are looking to me to show them how to continue going on.

So that is the purpose of this post, a way of saying goodbye to John. Not that I won't write about him again or not that he still won't be in my heart, but as a way to remember not just how he died but how he lived. He was such an amazing friend, husband and father. He had such a crazy sense of humor and no matter how down I was he could always make me laugh. His sense of humor was as morbid as mine which is what made us such a great couple. When I was being completely bitchy and snarky...he was always amused and completely understood were I was coming from. At the same time, he never hesitated to let me know when I was being unreasonable and in so many ways we balanced each other out.

When we first got together I'm not sure if either of us expected to fall in love so quickly. We met at work and became instant friends. In a very short time we would spend hours just talking, about our pasts about the people in our lives, about where we wanted to go in life and what we found to be most important. I don't think we really thought too much about where we were going together, it just sort of happened. Not that I made it easy for him, poor John had to propose 4 times before I finally gave him a definite yes...not that I didn't want to marry him, but I wanted my next marriage to be for life and I wanted to make sure that we both knew what we were doing. Plus I wanted his final proposal to be one we could share with our grandkids, unlike the first one which happened after a night of drinking with friends! We had a beautiful outdoor wedding which started out amid a sky of dark, gloomy rain clouds. Even though it was pouring rain I insisted that it had to be outside, so we huddled all of our guests under a large canopy and said our vows in the pouring rain. All were surprised when shortly after our ceremony the rain stopped, the sky cleared up and the sun brightened the rest of the day to help us celebrate not only our wedding but the 4th of July.

Our wedding was a great example of how our life together was. No matter how many storms came our way, and believe me there were many, we always stood together. The stronger the storm the stronger we stood because we knew together there wasn't anything we couldn't handle. Even though we were both stubborn, control freaks we both wanted the same simple things. A home for our family, to be the best parents we could be and to provide the best life for our children as we possibly could. When I look at our children and think back to the many great memories that we had together I know that we did pretty damned good at those things. Money was something we didn't always have in abundance but there was always enough for the things that mattered and along the way we still managed to make the memories that are the most important. Birthday parties, family game nights, poker nights, card nights, fairs, circuses, plays, eating out, movie nights, holiday meals, late night flashlight tag, haunted houses, road trips, fishing, going to the lake, trick-or-treating, Easter egg hunts in the middle of the night, school concerts, conferences, family meals all around the table, family meetings that started with us scolding and ended with us all laughing, books read, homework help, Spyro & Final Fantasy marathons, miniature golf, swimming pools, playing in the rain, building snowmen, Saturday morning donut runs, going to church, doing puzzles, going on walks, bike riding.... honestly the list could go on and on. The main ingredient to all of those amazing memories is that we were all together.

If John wasn't at work he was always with us. He sometimes complained about the things I would drag him to, for example he was not a big fan of the circus, but he was always the first one to start buying the snow cones and the cotton candy. He would get such a huge smile on his face when the kids were having a good time. As I look back I guess that is what I miss the most about him. His joy for living, his pleasure in the simple things in life and how no matter how tired he was from work he would still come home and give 100% to his family. Never did he decide to go to the bar and have a beer with friends, not that he couldn't have, not that I didn't encourage him to do so, but because the only place he wanted to be was home with his family. He took the time to read books to the kids, to hear about their day, he took a real interest in everything they did and enjoyed nothing more than to brag about their accomplishments in school.

I suppose I could sit here forever sharing all of the beautiful memories that we had. That is what makes this so hard. I think about our beautiful children, about our 4 year old who was cheated out of more time with her wonderful dad. I will do everything I can to keep those memories alive for the kids and I am doing everything I can to continue living the life I know he wanted us to have. But it is so fucking hard....it is hard to once again be a single mom, it is hard to sit around the table for meals to see his glaringly empty chair, it is hard to read all of the bedtime fairy tales, do all of the homework, and not have someone there to share it with you. It is hard to go to the plays and the concerts and dance shows and not have someone there to share in those joys as only a parent can. It is hard to sit in church and picture him holding the little one as he sang loudly off key in her ear to make her giggle. It sucks to sit in an empty room surrounded by pictures and memories with tears streaming down my face knowing that he is really gone.

I think about this past year without him and it has been such a blurr. I can't believe he has really been gone a year because it seems like just yesterday we were sitting in his garage, listening to classic rock blasting from his stereo, as we played cards just the two of us, watching a thunderstorm through the open door. I am so afraid that these memories will dim, that all that he was to me and the kids will somehow disappear. I know in my mind that I will never let that happen but in my heart I am scared that I will forget the bits and pieces that weren't significant in themselves but as a whole they made up who we were together and what we shared as a family.

As I say goodbye to this first year of mourning I find myself afraid to move forward. I want to work through my grief, I can feel the slivers of hope in my heart that I will find a purpose other than just getting through the pain. I am ready to move past this storm but at the same time I am afraid that if I just look to the future looking for rainbows I will miss the beauty in the dark sky that make it possible for the rainbows to appear. I want to be happy again, not just for a moment here or there, but for all of the ones in between. I want to sit around the table again as a family, something the we have only done sporadically since John passed away. I want to clear the clutter out of my bedroom and make it my own again, I want to start focusing on the joys and not just on what I have lost. I want to learn once again, and in some ways for the very first time, who I am as a person, someone who is not just a mom, not just a wife. I want to take the beauty of all that I had with John and once again start living..not just functioning but truly living.

Tomorrow I want to spend the day with the kids remembering John but I also want to take the time for myself to think about what it is I want and where I want to go from here. I don't know what the next year will bring but I am determined that when next year comes I will be writing about all of the amazing things I have done in the past year, posting pictures not of memories gone by but of those in the moment that are wonderful, spectacular and amazing that can only be experienced by truly living.


Goodbye John, thank you for all of the love and joy you brought into our lives. You will always be loved and remembered.