Back to reality..

I've only been home for two hours, but let me tell you.. it already sucks. I don't know if I want to sleep in my bed yet in my house alone, or sleep in my old bed upstairs in my parents house. The only way I've been getting any sleep lately is taking Tylenol PM. If I don't, I just lie awake for hours on end reliving the past few horrible weeks. It'll be three weeks monday and while some times when I say that it seems like it's flown by.. then other times I think the days couldn't drag on any longer than what they are at that very moment. I used to love taking nice, long, hot showers.. but now I actually dread it. I used to use those times just to think.. to plan my next day and make a mental list of what I need to get done.. now all I can think about is sitting there in front of that doctor listening to him say, "he's dead, he's been gone for a few hours." Me, sitting there with a blank look on my face, screaming, "WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?" I know I had to have looked like a complete idiot and probably fit in well with my mother in law, but that's the only words I could manage to squeeze out at that moment. Remembering the Chaplain telling me the moment I had arrived in the room, that they bring him on for occasions such as these.. and it never dawned on me that my husband was dead. I don't know why, but when things happened to him, my initial reaction, or feelings were that of anger.. I guess it's my nature, but I always get angry before I get worried or upset. I just knew I was going to get to walk into that hospital room and jump his ass for whatever reason he was in there.. not to mention the DWI he got the night before. I just knew it. It never even hit me that I'd never get to hear his voice again or have him hug me, kiss me, hold me.. anything.

We had planned months ago to go on vacation to Florida. We decided to go even after everything that has happened. I thought maybe it would help.. but then I come home to the reminders that my husband is really gone. His boots sitting in my doorway, that he'll never wear again. The plants and flowers, only reminders that we had to bury him.. the pictures that we put up near his casket.. again, terrible reminders.. I'm not sure if I should keep all of this in sight or put it up. Some moments I don't want the reminders, then I feel like if it's all put away, I feel like I can't breathe.. I want the reminders. I can't tell if I'm coming or going anymore.

I just want to go a few hours, without reliving that horrible day. Without hearing those words being replayed in my head over and over again. Without remembering how cold and hard he was when I touched him.. without remembering the smell.. without remembering his funeral, and without hearing those songs that remind me of him. Without the what-ifs, without wondering how I'm going to go on with my life because I don't know how to. I just wish I could cut all the cords to my brain that help me think. I'm tired of thinking. God, I'm tired of thinking.

Some people don't know what to say to someone when they suffer a loss. I'll tell you what not to say, but only because I'm being ugly right now. If your spouse is still alive, still breathing, still able to communicate to. Whether it be by phone, texting, email, snail mail.. any of the above - DO NOT tell me you know how I feel and do not even try and compare the two. Once your wife or your husband is no longer walking around, breathing.. once they are put in a casket, once they have to have makeup on to cover the color that they have turned, once you bury them and know that the hump in the ground means that he's really buried under it.. once you look at the marker and the only thing left of them says their name, date or birth and date of death.. the only way of feeling close to them is sitting beside their grave.. Do not tell me you know how I feel because until then, you have no clue.

If you have that luxury of being able to look forward to doing something with them, talking to them, just being with them.. then you have no clue what it is like to look at your future and not see them there. At all. Ever again.