THANKFUL FRIDAY

Chris turned fifty three on Monday. I tried desperately to not pay attention or say anything about it, but spent the day continually checking his Facebook memorial page to see if any one had left messages. Then I swallowed my ball of hypocrisies and posted nothing, leaving it with plain old lurking. Today marks eleven years since his passing and it has always felt like an extra layer of cruelty that we celebrated his birthday and said our final goodbyes all in the span of one breath.

Tiffany asked me on Monday what age Chris is to me, like is he the same age as when he died, younger, older? In general, Chris is at various ages in my head. I am surrounded with pictures of him during our life together, along with pictures of a much younger Chris before me. Those images make an impression. Mostly though, Chris ages with each birthday. I imagine him now with a bit more gray in his hair, particularly around the temples. Chris, even though he had Lasik years ago, needs readers now and it has become a big joke about how often he loses them on top of his head. He’s a little thinner because he took up running. He likes to run up to the coffee shop at seventy fifth and Wornall and he spends half his day there typing away on his laptop. There’s a comic book nerd guy that hangs out at the same coffee shop with his computer and he and Chris have become comic book pals. Chris has settled in here, found a group of his kind of people. He’s taken to smoking a pipe, not really because he likes the tobacco, but because it is ridiculous. Sometimes he replaces the tobacco with soapy water. You can imagine.

Chris is still Chris.

This, these anniversaries, it is not any harder today than it was last year or the year before that. That doesn’t mean it is easy. Like a habit, missing him has just become a way of life. It is just like the parts of my body that now ache when the weather turns suddenly from tolerable to freezing. It is a dull pain like all the other pains that come with an aging body, that I just live with. This is how I am now. Like the other day at work when I was hot. I am always cold at work, but the other day I wasn’t and I said out loud that I was hot and I didn’t know if it was because the room was being heated or if this is just how I am now. There is gratitude in accepting the things that I cannot control or change. Because while I cannot change the fact that Chris is gone, I can still imagine a life where he is still with us.

Imagination: the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful.

The number of times I have heard someone say to me “I just can’t imagine…” My reaction was always “why would you even try to imagine?” Now I wonder if imagining a life without Chris would have actually prepared me for the inevitable. I have become more creative and possibly more resourceful, but not delusional. I don’t go home at the end of the day and expect to see him sitting on the couch, Empire Strikes Back playing on the TV while he pokes around on his computer. I no longer keep a chat window open for our daily random chats. Because while I can imagine all of these things, I know it is all just a practice in creativity and Chris was all about practices in creativity.

I am no longer mad at Chris. Releasing the anger has allowed me to see the gifts that he left me with.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I have worked late three days this week and will be working late again this evening. My job has taken up the majority of my mental space. The leftover mental space has spent one day fretting about the gas light on my car, pondering the idea of taking a day off from work to clean out my house, and dealing with Bass Pro customer service regarding a birthday gift card that my brother never received. All of this has left little mental space for writing here.

Despite how busy I have been with all of the science, this week has been a really good week. I have done a thirty minute exercise class every day. Josephine and I have walked every day except for one because of rain. I’ve eaten lots and lots of green vegetables and I have been drinking plenty of water. There have been profound yoga moments and yoga teacher high moments. On Thursday, I was able to break away from work to meet my friend Shruti for lunch. It is a rare treat for me to leave the building to meet someone outside of work for lunch. I love my group and I thoroughly enjoy going out for lab lunches, but I need to socialize outside of work sometimes.

Easter is a holiday that is full of memories that prickle. Those memories are filled with moments of when my family was whole. Recently, a friend of mine retweeted a tweet about someone looking at their childhood home in Google Street View. In the moment the image was taken, there was light on in one of the bedrooms and the person said that they could imagine their mother sitting on the bed in that room. I was so struck by this imagery that I went to Google maps and looked up my childhood home. I have not been by the place since my mother sold it when Dad was put in the VA home. The street view in Google maps was taken before Chris got sick, before we knew that Dad was not well. The antique milk jug holding up a street sign that read “Graham St.” is still marking the end of the driveway. The pictures were taken in what looks like late Spring. I say this because Mom’s azalea bush is in bloom, but her irises look like they have already bloomed and died off.

The steps of what was always referred to as the main front door, a door we rarely ever used, was the place were all of us would gather for family photos. Every Easter. Every graduation. Every monumental moment. We stood in layers on the steps while Randy set up his tripod and camera. As I see those pictures in my head right now, they play through the years and I can see my family grow and shrink with time and it is enough to make my heart crack open. There was a moment in time when all of us, every single one of us, were gathered on those front steps. So I look at the Google street view and burn the image of those steps into my brain. Then I close my eyes and I overlay that image with that moment.

I am thankful for the memory of the time my family was whole.

FORTY SEVEN

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * Feb 6, 2018 at 2:39pm UTC

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Chris turned forty one and then died one hundred and three hours later. This is the first thing I remember when I wake up on February sixth. It is the beginning of the losing. If this were a normal day and there were no such things as tumors or cancers, Chris would be turning forty seven, but this isn't fantasy land. Tumors happen. Cancer has been a thing since the dawn of man. No one lives forever. I can't even image what we would be doing to celebrate his birthday this year. Movie? Dinner? Maybe have Amy, Roger and Charolette up for the weekend? Traci, Chris and Quinn? Maybe we'd go there? I don't know. The only birthday of Chris's that we celebrated after our move to KCMO was the one before he died. It had only been a year since our move. 

One year. 

2011 was a year of great change. 2012 was the black hole that sucked up all of that greatness.

I keep thinking that there really is going to be a day when I don't dwell on this day. Facebook reminded me to share a Thankful Friday post from February sixth where I wrote about being thankful for the time Chris and I had. I read through it and rolled my eyes. What a load of sugar coated bullshit. Of course I am grateful for that time, but come on. I'm the Pollyanna of grief. Oh look at me! The person I expected to grow old with died before we were old, but I'm doing so great! Sometimes I think this attitude I have where I try to show everyone (mostly myself) that I'm doing just fine, diminishes Chris and what we had. I mean, if it was all so great, how is it that I've been able to move forward so quickly. What I don't always tell you or anybody is just how much I have to work at staying in forward motion. 

Do you watch This is Us? I don't know why Michael and I watch it. It makes us both cry every damn episode. The latest episode was the hardest for me but at the same time, a little validating. Twenty years later and each family member is still grieving. Each member of the family spends the anniversary of their Dad's/Husband's death dealing with it in their own way. Mom makes lasagna. Kate watches a home movie. Randall goes all out for the Super Bowl, Dad's favorite thing. Kevin...usually does nothing, but that changed this year. We see him start his own tradition. I feel like each of those characters represent my years of grief. I made everything jambalaya the first year. I got lost in all of our old photos. I haven't gone all out for anything or started a new tradition. Those are for years to come I guess. 

I have removed 90% of his junk from this house. Mostly garbage. Some toys. All of his clothes with the exception of a T-shirt that I still wear and his old bath robe. I still wear that too because it's big and soft and he didn't really wear it but once or twice. I never got around to fixing his Facebook account. It requires a photo ID and I've put all of that stuff someplace so organized that I don't remember where. Also it's for selfish reasons. The daily onslaught of messages to his timeline is too much for me. So I've let it slide. I'll fix it eventually. I owe it to the others who loved him. Just not today. Today I am too busy being split in two between the life I had and the life I have.