Day 20. Working through it, thoughts, etc.

 You might have noticed that I've been slowing down a little bit with this blog. I guess it's because I'm speeding up back in life now. I've been working on sorting through our room, sorting her clothes, and going through pictures and stuff.

 I've started to feel that writing this blog daily is causing me to dwell on things more. So, I think I'll move to a freer updating schedule on this, and get back to updating my other blog. If I could find a way to condense everything into one blog, that would probably solve the problem.

 I have a hard time not compartmentalizing things.

 I think it's the natural evolution of things. I am moving through my grief. Not that you ever move through it completely. It's open ended and there is no time frame. You learn how to live with it. Live in spite of it. It's a part of you, but instead of indulging it, you let the flare ups pass like smoke in a breeze.

 Like the rest of life, it is a dynamic process. It changes.

 So, I'm not sure where the road heads, but I have to look forward. I'll still always look back to remember, but the way lies ahead.

Day 11. Dredging up memories

 Today was one of the better days. One of my friends gave me a gentle reminder of where strength comes in our lives. Strong people carry the light internally, and Robin expected me to be strong and live on because it is the right thing to do. Not because I promised her, or anything else. I will survive because it is what I need to do.

 So I spent time working through all our picture filed on the computer, and I moved them to my external drive. I spent a lot of time looking through the older files I had already had stored. I found a lot of pictures of old Thanksgivings and Christmases and summer days from when we lived at Fort. Meade.

 It's amazing how looking through old pictures, and living in memories for a while will send you back to the moment when they happened. Looking back and seeing Meghan as a child, playing with her mommy.

 Seeing Logan as a baby with his mommy. Seeing Morgan from a few years ago.

 The memories are what can't be taken. They are part of the light that give me strength.

 I sometimes come dangerously close to depression. That comes from letting myself indulge in grief, instead of realizing it, accepting it and moving past. Grief is a natural expression of loss, and we should grieve. It's healthy. What isn't healthy is when we hit the point we can't get past, and it consumes us.

 Just like when I almost let my anger consume me, but I moved past it; I won't let my grief consume me. I will move past it. I will be strong for the children because it is the right thing to do. I will miss her, but I will live through this.

Day 6. Sorting Memories.

 Today, while I was out running errands, I felt I should go by our storage locker. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I stopped by. I sat down and started looking through all of our stuff. All our life together that we weren't currently using, and was kind of humbled that a lot of what we leave behind is just stuff. The chronicle of who we are can be boxed up and put in a room.

 So I sat down and looked. I found pictures from when we lived in California. Most of them were from a now Legendary Halloween party. I found some of Meghan's earliest days. I found pictures of us and the cats. We were so young, and so in love and that's all we wanted out of life.

 I found my book of poetry, and looked through it. Most of them were from high school and college. What a tortured young artist I was. Some of it is good, some of it not so. One of the last poems I wrote was to Robin. It seems my poetry stopped after I was happy.

 I also found one of Robin's journals from high school. It's funny the things you worry about when you are young. One thing she wrote struck me deeply. She wasn't worried about success or any other part of life. She just wanted us to be happy and together.

 I really think in our last two years together, we finally got it right. We truly enjoyed every moment. Even more so after she got sick.

 At the end of it all, every day we had, from all the way back to December 20th of 1996, every day was a blessing. Even the days when we were angry with each other, even the days we fought, they were all perfect. We fought for our love, and sorted our life out. It wasn't our idea to part.

 I can truthfully say we never stopped loving each other.

 Today was a better day. The grief hits at random moments. Putting away laundry. Driving. Making breakfast.

 I know this is going to hurt for a long time, but I promised Robin I would be strong. I will not lie down and curse God and die, though there was a time I wanted to. I will live, I will raise my children, because they are our legacy.

 I will live because I promised her I would.

 My only fear is I will live to be 100. It runs in my family, and that is too long to miss her.

Lessons learned, or, the Zen of Suffering

 When I woke up today, I realized I just learned something. Through talking to my friends and family, including some old friends I never really expected to hear from, I realized that many people have been talking about how strong we are, and how well we are dealing with all of this.

 I didn't really see us as dealing well with this. We spent a lot of days crying and shouting, and yelling at God, and bitching about how unfair it all was. And it is. Life is totally unfair. I can think of roughly 1400 inmates I know who totally deserve cancer more than my wife. I also realize at this point, that I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone either. It is the great equalizer. Young or old, rich or poor, it doesn't matter. Cancer sees no races, it kills indiscriminately. It's unfair to everyone.

 But a few weeks ago, I let my anger go. One night after I took myself off of my anti-depressants, I had a moment where I visualized a Sith version of myself being sealed off. It is geeky, really geeky, but it worked for me. I told him I didn't need his destructive anger anymore. I didn't need the Dark Side, as it were.

 Now, onto the lesson I learned.  I have been noticing there are a lot of spots that Bushido and Christianity cross paths. (Read Bushido, The Soul of Japan by Nitobe Inazō) And this particular spot is dealing with suffering gracefully. As Americans, we are bad at that. Especially this generation. We really suck at it. We have this sense of entitlement that is rampant (some worse than others), and if we don't get what we want out of life, stand the hell by.

 The Japanese were always, as a culture better with that. Nitobe pointed that out in his work, and I trust his viewpoint, as he was a Japanese Quaker from the turn of the century. I trust he knows what he was talking about. But if you want a more modern example, just compare Katrina and the Tsunami/Earthquake/Nuclear Holocaust in Japan.

 Who dealt with it better? Any looting in Japan? Anyone floating out giant screen televisions? Nope. People got in line and did what was expected of them.

 It is the whole philosophy of suffering well. We can look at it as dealing gracefully with life. I am by no means a master of it, but I am learning.

 And learning, like everything else is a gradual process. One day at a time.

 One foot in front of the next.

 True courage is to live when it is right to live. - Nitobe

Ten years

 Where did ten years go? I am sitting here sipping bourbon and water watching Robin wrap Meg's birthday presents, and I wonder where the last ten years went.

 Ten years ago we were sitting at the Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula, lovingly referred to as CHOMP, waiting for Meghan to come into our life. I was a 23 year old Lance Corporal in the Marines, and Robin was my 20 year old wife. We were young and clueless, and had no idea how much this 7 lb, 15 oz. ball of blonde mischief was going to change our life.

 Cue 4 years of sleepless nights, tending a sick kid from time to time, and generally trying to figure out how to be parents on the fly. Some times we did alright, other times we could have done much better, but we were learning as we went. Eventually she learned to talk, learned to sleep in her own bed, and somewhere along the line she grew into a beautiful, hard-headed young woman.

 Eventually we'll figure out what we are doing.

 Now I'm a 33 year old veteran, working in the Federal Prison system, something I never thought I would be doing, and Robin is 30 and fighting cancer, which we also never expected. We have three beautiful children now, including the aforementioned middle-schooler. I couldn't imagine life without them.

 And you know, I wouldn't change a thing. Except for maybe the cancer.

Thoughts

 First, I have to apologize from my absence from writing. I could make excuses, but it just comes down to the fact I haven't sat down to write in a while. So I am rectifying that now.

 Now, on to writing.

 Lately, I have been thinking a lot about divorce, not because Robin and I were thinking about it, but because it is something going on all around us. On a certain level, it bothers me quite a bit. I always wonder what happens in a relationship where you get to the point where you don't love one another anymore.
 I know, on an intellectual level, that sometimes it can't be avoided. Sometimes there wasn't a strong enough foundation to hold it all together. Sometimes, you realize you married a giant douche who is running around on you. Sometimes, you realize your partner is a sociopath, and that is the safer road.

 Sometimes, though, it really seems that the only reason is that one or the other refused to grow. Marriage is a living thing. You need to grow, together, and both need to put effort into it, or it dies.

 I think the only reason it hit me so hard recently, is because Robin is sick. We had our own share of problems over the years, and we were walking the line at a time; but we grew. We fought for our relationship, and we came through it on the other side. And then we got this prize. Yay us.

 And it leveled me. Everything we fought for, everything we held together might end up being taken from us anyway. All that work might not mean anything due to the cosmic forces set against us. What a bitch that is.

 Whet it comes down to it, the thought of not having Robin with me terrifies me. She is my best friend. The thought of not having our random conversations, not having someone to bounce my random stupid thoughts off of. Not having my soul mate with me.

 The possibility of losing her to cancer terrifies me, and the fact that other people are throwing it away pisses me off.

 But I'll get off my podium.