I’m still having a tough time with the grief “episodes.” I was doing so well, and now I’m not.
I question what has triggered this…tomorrow it will be six months since the day Rick died. Valentine’s Day is Wednesday. We weren’t big on celebrating what Rick called the “Hallmark Holidays,” but most years, we were on our way to Florida on or around that day. I also quit taking Xanax just over a week ago.
And then there’s the decision about how to use up vacation days that need to be used by the end of March. I can’t picture enjoying any vacation without Rick, and I can’t stand the idea of going to our special place in Florida and revisiting all those places we loved and sunsets without him.
So, I keep plodding along, socializing and putting one foot in front of the other. I don’t have much choice, do I?
Today, I cried at breakfast because I went to a diner I hadn’t been to since we went together. Then I cried over a song on the radio on the way home from trivia finals. Then I cried for no reason at all, just feeling that same anxiety and fear that I felt when he first died – how can I go on without him? how can he be gone? I miss him and love him and want him back!
THIS CANNOT BE! HE CAN’T BE GONE!
I went out to dinner. When I leave the cat home alone, I leave Pandora radio playing on my Amazon Echo. I know it’s dangerous to leave the music going when I get back home, because so many songs trigger so many memories, but I left it on while I washed dishes. And then I heard the song from Snow Patrol that always always makes me think back to the last months of his life, when he would sleep so much, sometimes nap most of the day. And then he’d awaken and call to me to come lay with him.
I know it’s my crazy widow brain just wanting some connection with him, longing to hear from him and touch him, but I feel this song – with it’s crazy lyrics – has some that he’s using to talk to me now. We did lay there together and forget about the world. Oh God, I so long to do that again – just lay in his arms and just “be.”
The last words of the song mean so much –
All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see
All that he ever was WAS in my eyes as we lay there together. I loved him utterly and completely and he knew that without a doubt as we lay in bed and he looked into my eyes. And now all that he is, all that he ever was is in my heart forever.
I don’t know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
I don’t know where or when I’ll see him again – will I see him when I die? Will we spend eternity together? I’m confused about how it will be, but I’m also confused about now…how can he connect with me? How can I hear him? But, the truth is, nothing will change for us at all. He will stay here in my heart and my memory exactly as he was when he was alive. Nothing will change for us now. Our relationship, our love, our connection will be forever the same as it was in August 2017, before he was sedated and died and left me behind.
And the memories of being held in his arms in our bed on many a summer’s afternoon, just being together, being one with him, forgetting the world around us, will be with me forever.
February 10, 2018
The full lyrics…
Chasing Cars
We’ll do it all
Everything
On our own
We don’t need
Anything
Or anyone
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
I don’t quite know
How to say
How I feel
Those three words
Are said too much
They’re not enough
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life
Let’s waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads
I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that’s bursting into life
All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see
I don’t know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never change for us at all
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Written by Nathan Connolly, Gary Lightbody, Jonathan Quinn, Tom Simpson, Paul Wilson • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group