Catastrophic Grief Makes You Crazy

It really does.  

Need proof?

Crazy - like keeping an open, half drank Pepsi in your fridge for two years and only tossing it as you move.  (Hey, at least I didn't pack it.)

Crazy - like tripping over a houseful of toys scattered everywhere for six months after there was no one under 40 that even visited. (And sadly, yes, I will cop to the fact that did pack some of them.)

Crazy - like getting that "deer in the headlights" look every time someone asks how many kids I have.

Crazy - like nine years later still not knowing how to answer that question. 

Crazy - like when I finally tell someone I lost my son, I never say "and my grandson and my daughter in law" which makes me feel awful but I know if I do there will be questions that I can't answer.

Crazy - like breaking off the closest friendship you've ever had - screaming that you never want to hear from her ever again.  And then crying because you miss her so much - for nine years.

Crazy - like bursting into tears in Walmart when you pass by baby shoes, Hot Wheels cars, pumpkin pie, eggnog, a box of Rice Krispie Treats or losing it in the checkout line over a pack of Skittles. 

Crazy - like postponing an appointment with a surgeon made for the 24th of August.  A surgeon! 

Crazy - like having a hard time planning or doing anything on the 23rd of any month because in my mind I have 12 anniversaries of their death every year.  Yeah - that's crazy.

Crazy - like unconsciously looking up and noting the time at 3:15 (March 15) on any clock I pass every single day and stopping to think about Brian

Crazy - like noticing the numbers 315 on phone numbers, signs, car tags, addresses etc.

Crazy - like stalking and snapping pictures of a total stranger in Chick Fil A because he looks so much like Brian till its spooky.  Realizing that's crazy and doing it anyway.

Crazy - like thinking every single dark haired girl with Italian features on TV looks just like Kara

Crazy - like seeing a man that looks like Brian going into a store and actually seriously wondering what Brian was doing in South Carolina! Because for just a moment I forgot - five years after he died.

Crazy - like going into a funk and crying on and off the entire month of March --for nine years.

Crazy - like waking up at or close to 4:00 A.M. almost every single morning for nine long years - when you are retired!

Crazy - like binge-watching crime shows trying to find a scenario that fits or a similar scenario that disproves the story we were given.

Crazy. 

It makes you just plain crazy.

Birthdays

Today is Brian's first grandchild's 8th birthday born just 6 days before Brian's birthday.  His hardest birthday.  The first one after he died.  So he has never met this first grandchild and there are now two more that he has never met.  

His daughter told me the other day how her youngest one (three) noticed a picture of Brian sitting on her table and asked who that was.  She told him it was her dad and he said, "I've never seen him."  Thus began a long, difficult conversation and a lot of pent up emotions of how her children would never know their grandfather and he would never know them.  

She, like me, still struggles.  

As a matter of fact she has just now after 8 1/2 years signed up for GriefShare.  She did the opposite of me.  We signed up way too early in this grief journey and she has signed up way later than their target attendees.  I was still in shock and denial.  She has struggled with learning to cope with daily life on her own without their help and has found that 8 years later, she still needs help.

What she is hoping to gain out of it at this point is being able to get her emotions out because again like me, she keeps them inside.  She lets them out to me but only on rare occasions.  She is still also  struggling with the secondary losses - which never seem to end.  Like her sons never getting to know her dad and the biggest influence in her life.  And I'm certain with wondering how on earth to ever tell them what happened.  I do not envy her that job.  I cannot imagine how you could even tell that to your children.  I still cannot even tell it to strangers, friends and relatives.  I don't know how.  I don't know where to begin.  How could you tell this to your children???  Both of Brian's children have got that hard conversation ahead of them.  Catastrophic grief - the gift that keeps on giving...

March is always my most difficult month because Brian's birthday is the hardest of all days.  This coming Wednesday will be his 50th birthday.  A milestone birthday that should be celebrated.

I'm pulling my usual - distracting myself with activity to try and keep from melting down.  Church work, camping, house painting projects, basement cleaning anything and everything.

We have been cleaning and working on their memory garden some though.  I'm afraid my good intentions with that have gone the way of my interest in every other part of my life.  I have neglected it.  Ofcourse, it always needs cleaning and replanting in the spring, but I have been very negligent still.  Maybe for his 50th I will get the lead out and get it looking like it should again.  You know what they say about "good intentions".

How I would love to do something special for his 50th to actually honor him instead of either avoiding it or crying all week.  When Kara's mom brought cake to our lunch to celebrate Paxton's birthday together, I wanted to cry.  It made me so happy to finally actually "do" something to remember his birthday.  We had a "Paxton's grandmother" day out with lunch and a movie and then cake. Remembering him together.  It was awesome.  I would truly love to do something for Brian's 50th even something small.  Dinner with his kids and grandkids would be nice.  Hmmm maybe?