Dear Mike,
It was your birthday yesterday. It didn't even occur to me until Dad pointed it out that you would have been 40. That's so hard to imagine. When we were young(er) I saw you as being so grown up. It was only recently that it occurred to me REALLY how young you were when you died. I was waiting for you to get your life together, each year thinking "this is the year". Now I see you were truly so young. You must have felt so much pressure from all of us to "get it together". Having been on this growing up journey myself I see now that not having it all figured out by age 24 is pretty normal. I mean some people do but they also are likely to have a rude awakening as they age and have realized all they did not get to discover about themselves maybe from the responsibilities in life they incurred, intentionally or not. This summer I also discovered that I have lived nearly half my life without you. THAT is just crazy for me to realize. Embarrassing too. The loss of you has harshly impacted pretty much all of my life since you died. The few years after I often thought, "when will it let up?". I would ask doctors, friends, therapists and even research how long does grief last. Lots of people and info say one year. I haven't checked recently but now if someone were to ask me I would say "It's individual".
I've never been a big New Year's person but I got to thinking about it. I seem to treat your birthday as a New Year's of sorts. I anticipate it whether I'm looking forward to it or not and now even try to make preparations. But much of how my year goes depends on how this time of year goes, your birthday and the anniversary of your dying. To make it more complicated there's numerous birthdays and Feast Days now too. While writing this I've only just discovered that beginning yesterday, your birthday, at sundown, is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year's. Maybe a part of me is Jewish at heart. I keep thinking to myself each year that this is the year I will accomplish all this stuff I've dreamt of. Sound familiar?
We celebrated your birthday with a special dinner yesterday. Julie and Sawyer came over, Kerrigan was working late and we had tacos and chocolate eclairs. Well profiteroles really, but they tasted sooooo delicious. We're going to continue the tie-dye tradition but really we'll do that this weekend. I have spent a lot of time prior to your birthday this year thinking of what I need to do to continue to heal. I was surprised to realize I still have these wounds that are not healed yet. When I heard about Katie that's when I knew I wasn't all better. Part of me feels if I can just get all the art of my journey, part of life with you and mostly of life without you, some big wounds will close. My heart was pounding when I put the link to the blog on facebook but after the initial shock I felt soooooo much better. I could focus, paid more attention to my kids and just had this relief...that it was done, my feelings were out there, and I wasn't hiding anymore. Since I felt that, now I really think I'm onto something. I don't even think I could imagine the incredible release of energy when that project in my mind is complete. I hate to even think that a New Year's resolution is pointless because frankly I do but I want to succeed at this one so badly. It's like now I WANT to wear my heart on my sleeve, when for so long, really, the feelings and images have been this dark spot in my soul where only on lookers could see the repercussions of it's presence.
Love,
Gabby
P.S. My favorite thing about this blog is you're always looking at me. I love the connection with your eyes, your smiling eyes.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Pictures of You
Dear Mike,
I heard about a someone playing a video of old pictures at their loved one's memorial service. I would have loved that. Here's one I made of a few pictures I had and from others.
Love,
Gabby
Friday, September 23, 2011
Your Soon-To-Be Birthday
Dear Mike,
You know last year when your birthday was coming up I couldn't wait for it. Really, because it actually looked like I might accomplish what I had been hoping. A birthday to celebrate and honor you. I had attempted it the year before and we managed to do the dinner. We eat Mexican food because your first job was at Casa Burrito and we have chocolate eclairs for dessert because at least when we lived in Van Nuys that was your favorite dessert. I used to go with mom to the bakery. I can still see it in my head. Last year I got it together enough to do the tie dye too. I remember you enjoying it so much and so it's really the best thing we can do together in your memory. It was FANTASTIC. For one thing the recipe you left in that book was perfect. I managed to get the last ingredient and I just couldn't believe how great they turned out. They were so incredibly vibrant. And it was easy, even with young kids.
You know last year when your birthday was coming up I couldn't wait for it. Really, because it actually looked like I might accomplish what I had been hoping. A birthday to celebrate and honor you. I had attempted it the year before and we managed to do the dinner. We eat Mexican food because your first job was at Casa Burrito and we have chocolate eclairs for dessert because at least when we lived in Van Nuys that was your favorite dessert. I used to go with mom to the bakery. I can still see it in my head. Last year I got it together enough to do the tie dye too. I remember you enjoying it so much and so it's really the best thing we can do together in your memory. It was FANTASTIC. For one thing the recipe you left in that book was perfect. I managed to get the last ingredient and I just couldn't believe how great they turned out. They were so incredibly vibrant. And it was easy, even with young kids.
Soaking in soda ash solution.
Drying a bit.
Trying out the spiral pattern.
We each did our own.
After the dye application.
Isn't Fionn's awesome?!?!
This year feels different. I'm more tearful. Not sure why although I can think of several contributing factors. The trigger from R loosing her cousin in such a violent way, a classmate in high schools death, maybe even seeing that woman get hit by a car. But all I can think about is the art. The art I've kept in my head for what, 6 years now. I have to get it out. For you, for me. It's just scary. I'm afraid it won't turn out how I envision it. But I want to put it out there. I want to show my journey, even see it myself. I want to let go of the incredible pain some of it holds. That has to be it because when I look at some of it with my minds eye it brings back so many horrible memories. Some of it is quite beautiful though. That would be awesome to look at and enjoy. I hope this year I can make all that art from inside me.
Love,
Gabby
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
My Awakening
Dear Mike,
Anna recommended this book to me a couple of years ago, The Shack. I was struggling so much with the loss of you. All these years I've had these crashes where all I can think about is the loss of you, how you died, and would obsess with trying to find the man who killed you because I wanted some more answers. The TRUTH whatever it may be. This time, a little over two years ago, I was pregnant with Corrianna. Anna, Ivan, and Deb all reached out to me and so I read the book which changed my life. There is this line in it, "Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly, and if left unresolved you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place" - William P. Young, The Shack. It had never occured to me that these huge parts of me had been paralyzed by pain. I had been wondering where the old me was.
Since reading it I have been healing wounds I've had since your death and this spring some new growth in me started to appear. We planted a vegetable garden.
Our family poured our hearts into it. It was the best we could do on our budget and in the amount of time we had. It spurred so many other projects in the garden and we accomplished them.
This one's from our dahlia bed. Isn't it "bodacious"? Now I've got this itch for some competition. My next hurdles are to run a 5k, particularly the Starlight Run, and to participate in the Petal Pedal. This fall I'm starting my second attempt at the Couch 2 5k and I've found a Couch 2 100k for bicycling so I can prepare for the Petal Pedal.
Your ability to decide, "this is what I want to do so I'm just gonna go learn all I can about it and then make every attempt at getting the end result I desire until I've achieved what I set out to do" is something I feel like I can only hope to accomplish but I'm going to try my darnedest. I thought my life was too messy and bogged down to break away and give my whole heart to something I dreamt of. Now I know I was just dormant, but I'm re-emerging. I hope to pass this powerful trait of Uncle Mike's down to my children so they can know just what a go-getter you were.
Love,
Gabby
Anna recommended this book to me a couple of years ago, The Shack. I was struggling so much with the loss of you. All these years I've had these crashes where all I can think about is the loss of you, how you died, and would obsess with trying to find the man who killed you because I wanted some more answers. The TRUTH whatever it may be. This time, a little over two years ago, I was pregnant with Corrianna. Anna, Ivan, and Deb all reached out to me and so I read the book which changed my life. There is this line in it, "Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly, and if left unresolved you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place" - William P. Young, The Shack. It had never occured to me that these huge parts of me had been paralyzed by pain. I had been wondering where the old me was.
Since reading it I have been healing wounds I've had since your death and this spring some new growth in me started to appear. We planted a vegetable garden.
Our family poured our hearts into it. It was the best we could do on our budget and in the amount of time we had. It spurred so many other projects in the garden and we accomplished them.
This one's from our dahlia bed. Isn't it "bodacious"? Now I've got this itch for some competition. My next hurdles are to run a 5k, particularly the Starlight Run, and to participate in the Petal Pedal. This fall I'm starting my second attempt at the Couch 2 5k and I've found a Couch 2 100k for bicycling so I can prepare for the Petal Pedal.
Your ability to decide, "this is what I want to do so I'm just gonna go learn all I can about it and then make every attempt at getting the end result I desire until I've achieved what I set out to do" is something I feel like I can only hope to accomplish but I'm going to try my darnedest. I thought my life was too messy and bogged down to break away and give my whole heart to something I dreamt of. Now I know I was just dormant, but I'm re-emerging. I hope to pass this powerful trait of Uncle Mike's down to my children so they can know just what a go-getter you were.
Love,
Gabby
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