Last Wednesday Im Sorry!!!

I didnt realize it has been since Wednesday that I last blogged! Oops!  Sorry for my absence, we had a super busy week.

Thursday started off with my Mom and Oma coming for a few days from Canada, for Mothers Day and my housewarming party.  And since theyre internet and computer Nazis, I wasnt able to get on here that much.  Friday we got up early to bring the kids to school, as I had TWO Mothers day events that day.  One was in the morning, and one was at noon.  In between, I managed to drive them around the city to see the sights a bit, and we also did a quick trip to Trader Joes.  Then it was off to the school again, and after that, we spent the afternoon at Costco.   Saturday we were up at 7:30 and go-go-go ALL day.  We didnt really settle down until almost 10 PM.  We did food prep all morning, and then the party was all afternoon.  However, some friends came late and didnt leave till 9:30PM.  Thats perfectly ok though, we had a lot of fun with them, and drank and played scrabble.

As yesterday was Mothers Day, the kids and I did stuff together.  We went out for lunch, and then did a bit of shopping.  We had a really long day too, as my mothers day gift to myself was this:

Her name is Athena, Butterball for short! haha.  She is 7 weeks old and just a joy!  I also got her to keep Braddock company, who is our 7 year old black lab.  We all love her to bits, even Braddock!  except the cats, theyre keeping away from her. I bought all the pets some extra treats, and were giving Braddock extra love so he doesnt feel left out.  I kept with the Greek theme for names (except for Braddock, we did this after he came along), because Barry always insisted we do "distinguished" names for our pets, nothing stupid like Shadow, Rover, that kind of thing.  He was always adamant about that.  So I kept up with it in his memory.  Athena is also AKC registered, and has champion bloodlines.  I may or may not breed her, I have to think about it for awhile.

In other news, with the excitement of Athena, I forgot what day it was today.  Its the 10th.  I even surpassed 11:11AM.  7 months ago I became a widow, and I forgot! I am shocked, guilty and relieved all at the same time.  It is the first time I have forgotten.  I dont even know what else to say, except Im shocked I forgot.  This can only be a good thing though, as we go through the healing process.  But I actually forgot! wow.

I had a rough morning yesterday without him, as we had another holiday without Barry.  I cried as soon as I woke up, realizing that Ill never hear him say "Happy Mothers Day" to me anymore, Ill never get those deliveries from Pro Flowers or 1800Flowers anymore.  I cried and cried at breakfast with the kids, and my mom and oma.  I was better the rest of the day though, thankfully.  Yes, I do have my kids which are such a gift from him...but as much as i love them, they dont replace him, it doesnt make me feel that much better.  Flame me if you like for saying that, but I cant be happy just because I have the kids from him.  Because they dont replace him.  le sigh.

Well, time for me to be puppy mommy and put Athena outside again.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Mothers Day!

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New Blog Info

I would LOVE to have you all follow me over to my new blog.  I dont want to lose all of you awesome followers!

Its up and running now, but this blog will be active till October 10th 2011.

Go ahead and email me with your name on here (the one you use as a follower, so I can cross reference), and I will email you back the link to the new blog so you can follow me there and subscribe as well.

Thank you all so much!! 

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A Forgotten Milestone Day

Ive noticed that the last few days Ive been exceptionally cranky.

My attitude has been really crappy, Ive been snapping at the kids, I have a very short fuse. And Im just feeling under the weather.

But I couldnt put my finger on it, and today at MOPS a light bulb went off. I was talking to a friend there who asked how I was doing and I said I was OK, but it really comes and goes. I happened to glance down at my watch to check the time/date, and then it hit me.

December 15th. It was December 15th.

Exactly 10 years ago today I arrived in Germany to marry Barry. I left Edmonton, AB the night of the 14th, and arrived in Germany at 10:40 local time. And thus began the next 10 years of my life. We were married two weeks later.

Isnt it interesting how you forget days like this sometimes? And then it just hits you, and you realize that it affects you so much more than you realize. And the effects can last a few days even, as your body slowly recovers.

My appetite has been affected, as have been my moods. I was just exhausted this afternoon, and almost fell asleep on the couch. I had a headache as well, and a sore back.

Can I just sleep through till the middle of March so I can bypass all the sad days?

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Its Time

Dear Readers;

What Im going to write about today has been weighing heavily on my mind for awhile, and Ive struggled with coming to terms with it, how to acknowledge it, and just how to proceed from there. I had a couple really awesome conversations last night with a couple people, one including my sister, that really helped me realize that this is what I want to do right now.

And without further adieu, here we go...

Im not going to blog about grief for long time.

It has been almost two months since Barry died. I have trouble beleiving that myself, only two months? I remember the week after he died, when we were all busy with funeral preparations and dealing with that and the aftermath, time just crept by so very slowly. And then my family left, and I thought time couldnt go fast enough. All I wanted was for time to pass. Now here I am, the last day of November, and Im shocked that hes been dead for two months almost.

The last two months have been filled with unmeasurable sorrow. Buckets of tears, little sleep, spending lots of money because I just needed to keep busy. Weve done the Grief Support group thing (next week the 10th is our last meeting, were skipping this week because the three older kids have the Christmas Choir performance) too, and weve just tried to deal with this dynamic change in our family. And it has been the HARDEST thing I have ever had to do.

I will always love him, that is never going to change. How could I not? We were married for almost 10 years and have 4 children together. He was my life for over 10 years.

But now hes dead.

And honestly, that changes things now. How can I be in love with a dead man? Does that sound callous? I certainly dont intend for it to sound that way, but the love that I have for him, its changing in some ways. Its so hard to explain unless youve actually lost a spouse; You will always love them, always hold them in your heart and memories, but you cant live a live with a dead person. You cant talk to a dead person...well, you can, but not in person and you certainly wont get a response. I dont think the love will fade, but it just changes.

Blogging about him has been so therapeutic, it has helped me to work with my grief and somehow, somewhat, come to terms with it. But it is so emotionally exhausting to talk about it all. the. time. Ever stopped by here and wondered why there wasnt a post one day? this is why. All Ive been blogging about for these last two months has been Grief and Barry, and I just CANT anymore. I just cant. Theres no saying I wont blog about grief again, I probably will, and at certain milestones too. But this grief blogging day after day after day after day, is really getting old. How many times can I really say how sad I am? And I do think that blogging about him all the time is prolonging my sadness. Of course if I write about it, Im going to be sad and all that encompasses.

I want to be happy again, I am going to be happy again. I dont want to wake up each day and think that I have to grieve, have to be sad all the time because my husband is dead. Society has made us think that once you lose a spouse, you should grieve for the longest time possible, perhaps the rest of your life. But Im only 29, Im not destined to spend the rest of my life grieving and mourning the loss of my husband. Im not destined to spend the rest of my life alone! I do want to love again, and one day I hope I can even get remarried. Im going to get through the holidays this month (ok, next month, but its only one day, does it really matter?), and start 2010 afresh. 2010 is going to be a new year for us! Im going to make it the best year I can. Were going to go to see family in PA hopefully in the summer for a reunion, Im going to try take the kids to Disneyworld or Disneyland, and Im even thinking about going camping with them too! Were going to LIVE, and enjoy, and be happy again.

I hope you will all come to visit and read my blog still. I love having you all here, reading about us, encouraging me, and being such awesome supportive friends. It has meant so much to me.

And with that, I say goodbye to grief blogging for now. I will be blogging still regularly, so come back to visit!! Ive found a new love for writing, and I enjoy it!!

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Time To Give Credit Where Its Due

I was pondering this morning, and realized I havent done a thank you post since Thanksgiving I think. A LOT has changed in our lives since then, and I just feel that maybe its time for me to say thank you again to all the important friends I have in my life.

I wanted to do individual thank yous to everyone, and even wrote out paragraphs to everyone, but I found it was just too much to write, and too emotional to do so. So I will make a list, and hopefully theyre all reading this...and if not, they know how I feel. A thousand hugs and thank yous could not express my happiness at having you all in my life. I love all of you!!

*Jason and Lindsay

*Sara

*Rebecca

*Christy

*Johanna

*Mimi, Monica, Connie and all the other ladies from Mops that came and helped me clean and unpack

*All of my awesome twitter friends, especially Rachel who ran the London Marathon, and ran a mile in Barrys memory. That made me cry. And Ian too, who is a fellow widowed single parent, and knows what its like.

In other news, yesterday I took the spawn to a summer camp orientation/interview. Its through the Jamie Moyer foundation, and is called Camp Erin. Its geared specifically towards children that have, or are, experienced a significant loss in their life like that of a parent or sibling. Its a bit of a lengthy application process, and we wont find out for a good month, but I am pretty confident that the three olders will get in. It is just for a weekend in June, two nights only, but they will have so much fun.

Yesterday as I was driving them there, I got a little teary eyed. Thinking to myself, why do I have to do this? Bring my kids to a summer camp for Grieving Kids? WTF? how is that even fair to us? It isnt FAIR. Not one bit. I dont see why my kids have to grow up without their daddy, why they have to go to a summer camp because their daddy is dead.

And then I got a little angry at Barry. Because if he hadnt died, I wouldnt be in this situation. I wouldnt have had to take the kids out of school early to drive 45 minutes to Tacoma so they could have this opportunity. Its all his fault. I know he tried his damnedest to stay a live, I know that b/c I saw the look in his eyes, but he STILL DIED! He LEFT us. He put us in this situation, and I am so mad about it. I cant do anything about my life because he died, and no matter how much I want to go back and change what happened, I cant. Its infuriating, heart breaking, maddening. I hate this. And for the rest of our lives, we are going to have to deal with this heartbreak. Sometimes I just want to yell and scream at him for leaving us, and I have done that already. Maybe I need to do it again. Or get some aggression out again, something like that.

Barry knows Im angry, and I think hes OK with that. I know he didnt want to leave us, and if he were in my situation, Id expect him to be angry too. Anger is a perfectly normal part of grief, and I need people to know that sometimes Im going to fucking hate Barrys guts because of what he did to us. Right now Im angry and sad because I dont want us to be in this situation.

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Time to move on

Well my dear friends, family, and readers, time has come for me to end this blog.  I will do one last post, on October 10th, to mark the 2 year anniversary of Barrys passing, but that will be the last one on this blog.  I will be starting up a new one, so if you are interested, please contact me and I will let you know when it is up and running.

I just feel that I am moving away from this.  The identity I had with this blog was of Barrys wife, the mother of his children, the woman that posted tons of recipes and crafts, the woman that then watched her husband die in front of her eyes, and lastly...Barrys widow.

I will always be Barrys widow, my widowhood will always be with me, and I will identify as a widow for the rest of my life.  Moving forward wont change who I am, and what I have experienced.  But, I want to start a new blog as Joanna.  The single widowed mom of four children, 2 dogs, and two cats.  I dont want a blog that involves Barry as the main subject, I want a blog about ME and my kids.  I love to write, and I can write well, but this blog feels stifling to me.

I am going to write about Barrys death for you all.  You have all been such wonderful amazing followers, and supported me through my darkest times.  But that will be my last post here, and I will also have my new blog information for you all by then.

Thank you so much for all your support, especially during the last two years of my life.

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