302 days

10 months ago today Gaye passed. I miss her more today than August 23rd of last year. This day, I was hit with the the full range of emotions from sadness and helplessness to downright anger and bitterness towards God. For the first time, I can see and understand why people give up on life. I want so desperately to understand this chaos. I lean on my fragile psyche and faith to help me get through just another day. I find it impossible to see my life in the future without my Gaye and that is what fills me up with tears and sadness. I look so hard to find answers. All I get is silence - and that scares the hell out of me!

C.S Lewis wrote in a Grief Observed:

When I lay my questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of no answer. It is not the locked door....It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though (God) he shook his head not in refusal but in waving the question.

Like: "Peace Child, you don't understand"

Sometimes, it seems our greatest hope is that we just don't understand. I will do my best to lean on Faith and Love. (Perhaps, that is why Gaye posted those words Faith, Hope and Love in our kitchen last year - To remind me daily of what is important!!!!)

I'll do my best Darling!

The Absence of her Company

We cannot re-create this world....

We cannot even, truly, re-create ourselves.

Only behavior can we re-create, or create anew.

- Alice Walker

Gaye was such an inspiration to me. Her Courage, Her Love, Her Intellect, Her Sympathy, Her Beauty, Her sense of Humor, Her Good Heart, Her Good Soul.

The absence of her company is all consuming.

As Peter Gabriel says in one of his songs "It's hard to move on, when you still love what is gone...."

As I had mentioned in an earlier entry, the first movie I went alone without Gaye was Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I watched it again this past weekend.

In the movie, Benjamin writes a letter to his daughter knowing that he will never see her again. He provides his imprint on how he hopes she will lead her life.

It is never too late or too early to be whoever you want to be.
There is no time limit.
You can start whenever you want.
You can Change or stay the same.
There are no rules to this thing.
You can make the best of it or the worst of it.
I hope you make the best of it.
I hope you see things that startle you.
I hope you feel things you have never felt before.
I hope you meet people with a different point of view.
I hope you live the life you are proud of.
If not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

Knowing Gaye, She would want me to follow this advice. She would hope I make the best of it and lead a life I am proud of. If not, she would expect me to have the strength to start all over again.

With Gaye's Love, Courage, Strength and Soul, I think she will pull me through..... Thank you baby!

Love, Hope and Faith - Part II

Deacon with Gaye's Godson Max standing among Love, Hope and Faith

On May 15th, Valeria, my next door neighbor and mother of Max, came up with a wonderful idea of planting three Leland Cypresses in honor of Gaye in my backyard. Each tree representing Love, Hope and Faith. From an earlier blog entry, I had written how Gaye had hung these three words up in our kitchen to help remind us of what is important in this life. In my times of loneliness, I lean on these words with every fiber of my soul to help me move forward and let go of my profound sadness. It continues to be a constant struggle. God, I miss her so much!

Tonight all the hells of young grief have opened up again; the mad words, the bitter resentment, the fluttering in the stomach, the nightmare reality, the wallowed-in-tears. For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope am on a spiral?

-C.S. Lewis

"The refusal to love is the the only unbearable thing"

- Madeleine L' Engle

If we had no one we loved enough to mourn for, how flat, how terrible, our lives would be. What would my life have been without Gaye whom I loved so much? Is it worth the pain I am experiencing to have Gaye for only this brief moment in time?

Of Course it is worth the Pain!

Last month, I was walking to the Gym from the parking lot and I came across a person wearing a shirt with the caption "Life is Good". I laughed sarcastically at such a statement. "Not for Me" I replied to myself. I then held a lengthy self debate on how would I best capture my life story for my personal T-shirt - Life is ......

It is such an easy thing to say Life is sad, Life is heartbreaking, Life is unfair.... but that does not fully describe my experiences in total.

Life is Love!

That is what comes to mind. Love is so wonderful yet it can be so Tragic.

With Gaye's love, I experienced the mountaintop.

With Gaye's loss, I feel the depths of despair.

I guess I could not have one without the other. That was the cards I was dealt.

Give me love, I will take it every time.....