Friday, February 3, 2023
Dear Dead Husband -
It's your birthday! So I'll be headed to Pivot and Mirror Twin with the usual suspects, just like we used to.
If you were one to worry about such things, I'd tell you that I won't drink much. But you never cared because, HEY!, you and I were going out to celebrate as best we could. And BOY could we!
Anyway, I can't because I'm broke so I'm very, VERY limited. Yeah, it's your damn father still. The asshole wants his 25% of the WHOLE VALUE of the house ($36,000), not taking into account the fact that, as 25% owner, he's also responsible for 25% of the mortgage and any upkeep. No... he says that, since I'm living here and take advantage of 100% of the property, I should be paying 100% of the expenses. So now I keep going into the negative until the next check comes or I sell something of yours (sorry).
Please go haunt your dad or something. You know... go full Jacob Marley on his ass. Pleaseandthankyou.
SO! You funny boy, you. This...THIS is so very like you.
I posted what I feel is an apropos picture of us as a profile pic on FB today and noticed that you had commented on it 6 years ago when I first shared it.
Saturday, January 14, 2023
Dear Dead Husband,
Well, you did NOT get better, as I had hoped, and I'm here trying to piece it all together, not to mention trying to stop your father from sucking me dry monetarily. Currently, he's in the lead.
It's a long story. I'll tell you sometime.
Tonight, I was finally able to change any profile pictures on social media to something that was just me and not us. That's pretty huge for me! I don't know why I couldn't do so before this, but I couldn't. I guess it just helped me remember the good times and not just the end there.
But I don't want to talk about the end right now.
I want to tell you about the progress.
Aside from changing the pictures, I've also started tackling the shows we used to watch that I couldn't catch up on because of where we left off. It shouldn't have been that hard, but it was. The books I could do as there were only a couple series... or was it only one?... that we were waiting on, and it was a solitary pursuit that we only touched on when we were both done.
Books...
Speaking of books, I'm reminded of the first night I spent in this house on the day you died. You had a book open to where you left off before you passed, your glasses laid down beside it on the coffee table. I had to ask Tracy to take it away while I went outside to smoke. It was too real, too soon after... a reminder of how quickly you had been there and then gone. I still cry when I think about that day and seeing the book. It still guts me.
OK! So... ummmm... enough of that. I came here to tell you about my progress, not to tear open the wound.
I love you. I miss you. But I do understand, and maybe we already knew how this would end.
Love you. Truly, deeply, madly.
Ceci
Monday, April 6, 2020
Just so I NEVER forget..... April 2, 2020
- School closures -all students on distance learning.
- Graduations, Proms, etc. - canceled.
- Self-distancing measures on the rise.
- Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers (6ft) from each other.
- Limited number of people inside stores, therefore, lineups outside the store doors.
- Wear a mask when you leave your house.
- Non-essential stores and businesses mandated closed.
- Parks, trails, entire cities locked up.
- Entire sports seasons cancelled.
- Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events - cancelled.
- Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings - cancelled.
- No masses, churches are closed.-
- No gatherings of 50 or more, then 20 or more, now 5 or more.
- Don't socialize with anyone outside of your home.
- Children's outdoor play parks are closed.
- We are to distance from each other.
- Shortage of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.
- Shortage of ventilators for the critically ill.
- Panic buying sets in and we have no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towel no laundry soap, no hand sanitizer.
- Shelves are bare.
- Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.
- Government closes the border to all non-essential travel.
- Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.
- Press conferences daily from the President. Daily updates on new cases, recoveries, and deaths.
- Government incentives to stay home.
- Barely anyone on the roads.
- People wearing masks and gloves outside.
- Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.
- Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.
Why, do you ask, do I write this status?
One day it will show up in my memory feed, and it will be a yearly reminder that life is precious and not to take the things we dearly love for granted.
We have so much!
Be thankful. Be grateful.
Be kind to each other - love one another - support everyone.
We are all one!
Thursday, August 10, 2017
I just want you to remember that I'm telling this story from the view point of two days later, so there's a lot interjected that I am able to add now that I know all of it.
Stephen had a psychotic breakdown on Tuesday.
He said he had vivid dreams that felt so real! he could feel the blood pouring down his veins and he wanted to rip them out (or at least that's how he described it to me).
He had been prescribed some antidepressants last Wednesday and started them on Thursday. This is not to say that the fault lies in that of the medication, really; there was a lot more there than we could see. I say this to highlight the fact that he knew he needed something more than how he'd been surviving up until now.
Brandy, I wish I had taken your observations as something bigger and I feel that I should have looked at it as such. Instead, I thought it was just something that would pass, something that I thought could be helped once he settled in; some fleeting byproduct.
I was never more wrong in my life.
Your observations were a sign of what was breaking down, of things to come... and I couldn't see it getting to where it has gotten now.
So, after much talking late Tuesday night, Tracy and I decided that we needed to present him with the option of checking himself in, of having himself committed.
So you know, Stephen was placed on suicide watch for 72 hours as of 17:09 Wednesday evening in the psych ward of a local hospital. It is currently 01:28 on Friday and he will remain in the hospital until Saturday evening. The doctors are looking into other medications just to be sure but they don't feel that the medication really could have been the whole of the making of this. They've also advised him to check himself into an intensive psychiatric outpatient program. That... seems to very likely be where he'll end up after this. Quite.
But really... I just want to use all that has brought me to where I am in my life to enable him to get to somewhere better than his "here." I've been there. I've survived this. I believe he can, too.
I believe in him.
And I feel like I'm breaking up
But I wanted to stay.
Headlights on the hillside
Don't take me this way.
I don't want you to hold me
I want you to pray,
'Cause it's bigger than us.
Lyrics and images from White Lies "Bigger Than Us"
