Candy Man

Last night, my husband came home from work and woke me up.
"Hey sweetie, I came home with a little presentation and everyone's asleep!"
"A presentation?"  I asked sleepily, raising myself up a little in the bed.
"Yeah!"  he said excitedly, "I'll be right back!"
I turned on the little lamp beside my bed, and waited.  He returned a moment later with a plastic bag held protectively to his chest.
"I thought I would surprise everyone with their favorite candy."  He said.  Tim loves candy.  He shows his love through candy (and sometimes baked goods).  His love language is sugar.
He reached dramatically into the bag and stirred things around a bit.  
"First we have Jake's favorite candy...skittles!"  he said and brought the package out like a magician coaxing a timid rabbit.  He showed it off to his audience of one, and dipped his head back into the bag.   "Then we have Mom's favorite candy...which we all know...is chocolate with nuts." he announced and held the Hershey with Almonds high in the air.
I waited as he went back into the bag a third time.  "And for Dad...I got Cory's favorite candy...remember these?"  he pulled the Ferrero Rocher package out of the bag, and I saw the tears had already began their silent journey down his cheek.
Did I remember them?  How could I forget?  We'd gotten her a star shaped container at Christmas and a bunny shaped container of them at Easter for as long as I could remember.
"I'm going to take them out to her tomorrow, and leave them on the monument."  he said.

What a sweet, sweet man.

Hypocrite, much?

So after my screaming-on-the-highway incident, I had some time to think about what a complete and total hypocrite I have been.  Two of my best supports since Cory's death are two women, neither of which have children.  One can't have children, and the other hasn't found the person she's meant to make them with yet.  Every time I have opened my mouth in the last 2 years and 8 months to complain about how much I miss the amazing daughter I had 19 incredible years with, I am likely making them feel the same way I felt listening to women complain about their healthy, live children.

We are all human.  We all speak without thinking.  We are all hurting about something.  All we can do is try to be kind to everyone we meet.

The Empty Nest

Work papers got tucked away.  Pens were sat down.  Coffee cups were lifted, and in a moment the business at hand had shifted from professional courtesies to a handful of women sitting round a table venting about their lives.  Pretty soon everyone began to complain about their children, and I just sat there the odd man out.

 I listened as they talked about having kids home from college who've turned into adults seemingly overnight and no longer adhere to high school-aged rules.  I stiffened in my chair and tried to imagine what Cory's face would've looked like if she'd lived long enough and gotten well enough to go away to college.

Complain about Jake?  No.  There are no complaints here.  I give into his every whim, and let him get away with everything short of setting fires.
As complaints were made about loss of sleep because of young ones in the house, I leaned back in my chair and remembered how Jacob woke up crying for his sister again this morning.  Mornings are the hardest.  I rubbed his back and sang him a little nonsense song about making brownies with Cory and seeing Oliver resting in the cat napper.  After a few minutes, he calmed down and got up to face another day without his big sister.

One of women began describing that the perfect way to get rid of your grown children is to move into a tiny house with only one bathroom.  My teeth ground against themselves helplessly at the words "get rid of your kids".  I listened to some more of their genuine heartache and frustration, shuddering just a bit as my brain, so helpful, pulled up the image of Cory laying face down on the pavement.  What would I have given to pick her up and carry her to my house for just one more night under my roof?
What would I have given to ride beside her in the ambulance and spend the rest of my life changing her diapers, if it came to that, just to see her dear face and feel the warmth of her hand in mine?

Everything.

I've come a little ways, guys.  I realize that this venting and chatter was not meant to hurt anyone's feelings.
 All the same, I walked away from the table feeling sick with anger, and hit the highway screaming at the top of my lungs to God or just no one...  how is this fair?

List making

Here's ten things I haven't done since Cory died:

1.  Made brownies with Jake.
2.  Baked sea salt chocolate chip cookies from scratch.
3.  Used my shiny red Kitchenaide mixer for anything.
4.  Cooked the corn chowder that made Cory hug me.
5.  Cooked Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon.
6.  Enjoyed a Christmas.
7.  Felt completely safe.
8.  Kept the guilt away.
9.  Felt like as good of a mom as I used to.
10.  Looked forward to the future.

How to Break Up with a Guy

Cory and I were an absolute mess together.  Perhaps this is best illustrated by telling you how we roleplayed how to break up with a guy.  I was the guy.  Cory was to be herself.  We sat at the dining room table, me with my legs splayed apart in a masculine fashion, and Cory sitting with her knees together like a lady.  She took one look at me as I made to scratch my non-existent scrotum and just cracked up.  "Mom!!!!  Be real!"

"Cory, I AM being real!   I'm getting into character!"  I retorted.

She laughed a little more and we tried to set our faces into serious, pensive expressions.

I waited, and when she'd paused so long that the silence became awkward, I said, "Hey baby, you from out of town?"

Cory snorted, and we were off on peals of laughter again.

"Okay.  Okay. I'm sorry.  I'll be good!"  I promised.  "How about you be the guy, and I'll be you?"

She nodded in agreement.  "Okay."

We took up our assigned postures and began again.

I looked at her, and said, "It's not you.  It's me.  I need some time to just work on me."

Cory abandoned her role and giggled, "Oh my God, Mom, have you really said this to people?"

"Hey!"  I said indignantly.  "I'm trying to help you out here.  What do you want me to say?  You're just not good enough for me?"

She stopped short.  "They usually aren't."

We looked at each other, serious for a moment.  Time spun out, but the giggles returned.

I found the lowest register of my voice available, and said, "Hey, baby!"

We were back to the drawing board.

Solo

It's really hard to do this alone.  Tim has started sleeping in again, and that's a sign that he's getting depressed.  I knew it would happen again, but I was hoping for a longer space between episodes this time.  I don't think I'm going to get one.

 Instead, I think he will gradually- protesting all the while that he's not before turning over and falling back to sleep- move away from me, Jacob, and the rest of the world.  He takes refuge in sleep, and while it's not the worst he could do, we miss him when he's gone.

We Persist

I had the chance to talk about art as therapy, Cory's illness, and losing a child at the local college the other night.  I've done this a few times, and it's always interesting to see how long I can hold out before I start crying, and what questions people ask.

I could really only share my experience using art to cope, I have no schooling or training in this area.  The thing that popped into my head driving home was this:  writing and drawing has kept me out of the psych ward more than once.  When I feel completely depleted, and just want to collapse somewhere and be fed and watered like a fern, sitting silently at the required therapy groups, I remind myself that I won't be able to have my journaling items with me on the ward, and that usually curtails any fantasies I'm currently nursing about running away to the hospital for awhile.

I still don't consider my doodles art.  They keep me busy, but they aren't as good as real artists produce.  I do enjoy going through them, though, months or years later, and being transported back to an exact moment where a woman even more lost than I am now, used color and line to communicate her horror and despair to others around her.

I meander through these pages that are smudged and sometimes crackle when you peel them apart, and I can see my progress, my winding, two steps forward- three steps back, unwilling, angry, protesting progress.

Cory is never coming back.  I will not run into her at Barnes and Noble.  Of that much, I'm sure.  The rest of the stages are sketched and doodled, painted and drawn...they run off the page; they return when I thought I'd seen the last of their ugly faces.  They persist.  And so do I.

So do I.

Progress

So where were we?  Oh yes, not in a good place.
So what happened?  The same thing that has happened before.  I fell completely apart, and slowly started to put myself together again, with help from mental health professionals, and frankly, a wonderful new medication that has returned my sleep and appetite to nearly what it was prior to Cory's death.  This is amazing, and I'll tell you more about it, but first...

I was feeling homeless, spinning out of control, just searching and trying to find a way to feel less unsettled, and less of a vagabond.  I took a couple days away from work, and tried to be as kind and patient to myself as I would be to a dear friend in the exact same situation.

Something that occurred to me while enjoying these quiet moments was that Cory would likely have given a lot for one more day.  Just one.  I have got to make myself look for the small joys, and draw them near.

I affirmed again that there is nothing and no one that will ever fill her place.  She is my heart, always, and always.  It is so difficult every day to accept that the accident happened and she is, indeed, gone.  It takes me by surprise upon waking often enough to make my anxiety climb the walls.

While I was home sick, I remembered my father commenting after the accident that Cory would want us to keep going because she LOVED life, and lived it to the fullest every chance she got.  She knew how to have fun, and she loved deeply.  As her nurse said to me, "She never stopped trying to have a good day."  She had to get that strength from somewhere.  Be patient with me, dear readers, as I appear dumbfounded and look behind me to see who you might possibly be referring to...could she have gotten such strength....from me...?  Maybe?

Then one day, while collaging, which is fast and intuitive and completely frees my mind, I thought about this- what if I had a choice between having Cory for nineteen years or another child for every day until I died?  Well, I'd pick Cory, no contest.  She was amazing!  So there you have it.  I  can't really argue with myself on that one.

From there, I started thinking about what a rich history with her that I have to draw from- so many songs, movies, moments, and milestones.  We  planted so many seeds, so so many, and they are still sprouting.  Still!  We were each other's constant for nearly 20 years.  It was a love story for the ages, and I was blessed to be part of it.

Back at the Coffeeshop

A couple weeks ago in my "workbook":

I've been having some bad thoughts again.  The future without Cory seems so vast.  I sometimes wonder what could possibly fill all the time that sorrow hasn't already claimed?  

This back and forth relationship with grief is so reminiscent of breaking up with the love of your life and getting back together, only to break up yet again:  heady euphoria soon followed by a teeth-rattling, jarring crash to reality, complete with all its shortcomings. 

I despise this cyclical pattern- progress rewarded by utter failure, which is, in most cases, publicly witnessed.  What  idiot thought this up?  You'd think you should be able to serve your time, and then be released from suffering.  I feel like I'll be dragging these shackles around with me until some fool runs me over with their car, too.

Angie would say this mindset is a choice, and to that I say, "Geez, woman, I just don't know."  It's an endless cycle, and that gets pretty depressing when you stop to think about it.  I'm not sure how to view this differently if pain is always crouched around the next corner stalking me.

Two days later:

A Personal Inventory

I don't feel good today at all.  I can't think straight.  I have so many ideas all at once, I feel like I'm swimming in them.  I don't want to be around people.  I just want to be home.
I kind of hate everything, but not everything at home when I'm with my boys, the animals, and my art things.  I'm so weary of this whole mess.  Bring her back, already.  I'll give you everything I have.

  Her heart was my home.  I feel homeless.

Thoughts & feelings:  Paranoia, anxiety, fear, stupid, worthless, miserable, out of control, more anxiety, not good, rough, lost, my bones hurt.

Eye makeup can hide a lot.

To be continued...

Guilty...still.

It's really conflicting to catch yourself in an unexpected moment of joy, even as your heart lies underground.  The guilt begins tip-tapping at your window, asking to be let in.

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.
I am safe.  I can handle this.

Collages

As I sit in my little art room, cutting and pasting images into a book, I feel Death all around me, and only hope his eye doesn't fall on my family, again, and so soon.