Just another day right?

One year ago today my heart was broken. One year ago today, we learned that Krissy had unresectable cancer, no chance for cure, no chance for life, a sentence ending in death. They broke my wife that day, broke her spirit and her strength, left us with pieces that we picked up but could never quite fit together again. Krissy fought hard, battled demons and pain and suffering, and although it's only been five months since her death, I truly lost her that day.

I hate marking these days that should otherwise have no special importance in our lives. This day, the 28th, will mark the day we journeyed into the horrors of cancer, every day a reminder of hardship and sadness. A year ago, last night, I slept in a hospital room, in a chair at the foot of her bed, praying that the doctors would finally give my wife relief from the pain she had been suffering through the previous year. What she received instead was the worst of any outcomes we imagined.

I've tried hard not to mark every day of significance since Krissy passed away. I don't want to look at every 14th on the calendar with despair, or any other day we marked with some importance during our lives together. But I can't get past it today. Today a clock started ticking. But the clock is broken. I'm broken. The minute and hour hands move relentlessly forward, but the second hand is stuck, trying to tick forward, hindered by some underlying mechanism that will never function quite the same again.

My memories of Kris these past few months have been of better days, when she was happy, healthy, full of laughter and fire. Today I can feel the past year under my skin. Last night I dreamt I was back in that hospital room, cold, uncomfortable, listening through waking and sleep for her breathing, the beep of IV machines, shuffle of nurses. Today I'm watching them wheel her into surgery, kissing her one last time before she's taken away from me, never to return. I just can't forget what came next, the tubes, injections, sickness, uncertainty, fear, desperation, hope, determination, frustration, decent, heartbreak. The rollercoaster is just starting on it's uphill climb before lurching and hurtling down and around and upside down.

I can feel the wound that had scabbed over starting to open up again, raw, painful. I hear loss like this leaves a scar so we'll never forget. I'm not sure scar tissue is going to form on this one, this feels like it's going to bleed for a long time.

The Good Things

It's been a while since I've had the urge to write here. After Krissy's birthday, I really felt like my emotional batteries had been drained, and in a way I still feel this way. This month of October is bringing me back to the time a year ago when Krissy's health worsened and we went to the hospital for two weeks, and when we were given her terrible diagnosis. This has been a gray, numbing couple of weeks. Strangely enough though, I've found reason to be happy even to the point of questioning whether I'm in denial at the moment. I truly feel alive and thankful for the things I have in my life at the moment. Of course, these feelings bring with them guilt and longing for things I can never have again, but it's getting easier to reconcile my current life with the one I had just a year ago.

Everyday I'm overwhelmingly thankful to have such beautiful and wonderful children. My girls really keep me going, and without them this would be so much more difficult. With Cori I have seen her grow into such an astonishing young woman and I marvel at her courage every day. She reminds me of why it's important to stay positive and always think and talk about the great things Kris left us. We are able to talk about our memories of her, what she would have wanted for us, and that we have amazing lives yet to live and should treasure every day. It hurts, but it helps too. With Camryn I have the ultimate reminder of her mother and a source of such pure joy I can't imagine what life would be like without her. While her questions about mommy have gotten less frequent she still understands she is missing Krissy and that she is not coming back. However, she is just so happy and full of life, you can't help but smile and laugh in her presence. She has her mom's spunk and attitude and it gives me comfort to know a piece of Kris lives on in this wonderful little girl. Both of my daughters remind me so much of Krissy that sometimes I just have to shake my head and thank God that she left me with such beautiful reminders.

As unlikely as I had thought it would be five months ago, life has indeed continued on for my family. I have such tremendous support from my family and we enjoy all of the time we spend together. Dinner every night, football games on Sunday, weekends out... I feel we've been therapeutic for each other without really knowing it was happening. I can almost talk about those painful days without crying. Almost! I think we're all at roughly the same point in our healing process and I know I wouldn't feel as good and as healthy as I do right now without their presence. The same can be said of my close friends, all of whom have just let me be myself and have given me open ended love and support throughout. I also know I will never, ever, starve as long as the girls at work are keeping an eye on me.

I've been trying to figure out what I've learned from all of this. From the heartbreak of Krissy's diagnosis, the fear and uncertainty of helping her heal and cope with the horrible affects of cancer, the hope of recovery and trying to stay so positive for her, then the sudden and crushing acknowledgement that her life was ending. I learned in some ways I'm much stronger than I expected myself to be, and in other ways just how helpless and uncertain I feel. I learned how to take better care of our health, but it's been difficult to stay on the rigid track we attempted while Krissy was undergoing treatments. I learned people are capable of amazing love and generosity in ways I could never expect. I think the most important thing I've learned over this past year is that no matter how much it hurts, or how much sadness you endure, there will always be good things in your life and they must be acknowledged and nurtured. I'd be an absolute fool to ignore or neglect the positive people and events in my life simply because I have sadness and grief over losing the love of my life. We have to laugh, we have to play, we have to live. Krissy wouldn't have wanted it any other way.