My Agony

My Agony

Last night I wanted nothing more than to just get it over with…just get it over and done.  I was awake nearly all night thinking, wondering, and crying over things I could not change.  I would doze off for a few minutes and then wake…over and over.  Each time I woke up I would looked at the clock only to find that a few minutes had gone by from the last time I look.  I did not think morning would ever come.  Perhaps I was upset because earlier yesterday evening I was in group therapy and we were talking about my state of emotions.  When asked where you think you are…in the grieving process, stages of grieving...what stage are you in.  Every week they ask this question of the participants. Every week we all have a different answer.

“Back to the beginning,” was my reply. “It has been a year…you know…my phone has not rang in a year.  I guess I have come to realize Jeff will never come back…my phone will never again ring.”  This recognition…this final acceptance feels like I was sideswiped by a bus!  Although I've known Jeff has been gone, is gone…I really think I have still been waiting for a miracle.  How many miracles did I wait for in the last dozen years?  How many miracles’ were we promised…first by physicians…and lastly by my own mind.   I kept hoping…knowing full well this nightmare I have been living, suffering, is in fact, reality…I kept hoping, I kept dreaming Jeff would be back.  I knew all along Jeff would never be back…yet I still hoped beyond all sanity, or what is left of it.  I still hoped.  How stupid is that?  For a woman like myself…an educated woman…to still pretend there was hope.  Hope, where no matter how much make believe was involved, it still would never change a thing.  How senseless is that?  Me, still hoping against all odds I would wake to find I was having a horrible dream.  

I tossed and turned all night with these thoughts, these thoughts that continue to weigh on my mind.  Missing my son.  Doubting my own identity of being a mother.  Trying to figure out what plans are waiting for me.  In this whole big universe...what plan does this universe have for Olgie.  All night I cried because my fears were more real than ever before...not only am I a woman who lost a child...am I now a woman who is no longer a mother?  Really?  Is this now who I am?  

“Oh my dear God please help me!’  Were the words I once used to ask for help…were the words I used just last night when I laid there in my bed agonizing over my present state of affairs.  “Oh my dear God please help me.”

The same way I know Jeff is gone…I also know there is no God for Olgie.  No angels to hover over me.  Because fact is, the day Jeff died…I was also stripped of being a mother.  This is what we discussed in group…this is what kept me awake all night.  God not only took my son, he also took my legacy.  I anguished all night over this.  

All night I thought about the entire past year…and the many years leading up to Jeff’s death.   This is what full blown grief looks like.  This is what it looks like every day of my life now.  Last night was just another night for me.  Just another night of tossing and turning, another night of sorrow, another night of crying, another night of the same damn thing over and over again.   I cannot tell you how many times I get up during the night…get up and go sit in my corner…in the dark.  When I say to you there are no words to explain this grief…I truly mean that very thing.   There are no words to make you all understand this grief, this sorrow, this vacant feeling in my heart, is not only very real...this sorrow is so damn overwhelming that it conquers my every move, day and night.   Day and night!  I feel like I have been thrown into this dark, damp corner of the universe and now, am unable to find my way back to the light.  to the light...what light?  Truth is...with Jeff gone...there is no light.  Don't you see Jeff was my light...Jeff was my heart.  I am in a dark corner of the universe and...

There is no way out!

My Corner

My Corner

What is it about this corner that has me constrained?  Why do I sit in this damn corner?  This corner that holds me hostage day in and day out.  It seems the only time I am not in this corner is when I am at work or with Dwaine, and even when I am at work…I am in my corner or wearing a mask of sorts.   

As I sit in my corner I am forced to stare at the wall cross from me.  The same wall I painted a Venetian red, but I never finished painting the trim…so the trim has various practice colors painted in different areas.  You know, the light hits differently at different times of day so I painted swatches in different areas of this room, and never finished it.  I started painting the trim several times but could not get the wherewithal to finish it due to mourning my husband, grieving my siblings, and now Jeff.  Perhaps one of these day I will get it done.  The TV sits in front of this red wall as does the fireplace…the fireplace that hasn’t been used in years.  To the left of the red wall in front of me stands the cat tree Dwaine made for ‘Fritz.’ (I named Fritz after Jeff’s cat…but I really wanted to name him Doob.)  Months ago when Dwaine first made this tree for Fritz I would pick up Fritz’s toys and put them on the top shelf of this tree.  Now, his toys sit where he leaves them.  There is a wall of windows to my left.  The glass in the windows are separated by white PVS strips between two layers of glass, giving an appearance of individual panes within the window itself.  There is a small end table between myself and the wall of windows, and a red chair sits in front of the windows.  There at the far end of my couch sits my saxophone, unopened, unused.  But I still take my lessons…if nothing else it gets me out of the house for an hour. I keep thinking at some point I will open it and will be good to go with all these lessons I am taking.  Immediately in front of me is the square coffee table cluttered with stuff.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought this table would have been used as a catch all.  To my right stands a rolled top desk…a desk which I am thankful has a top that closes because all my mail goes in this desk, most of which I have never opened, and don’t even care that it wasn’t opened.  To the far side of that desk sits another chair.  If you look closely you’ll be able to find not only minute strands of cobwebs (or as one of my friends calls them, ‘dust bunnies’), but also an inch of dust on top on everything.   

It has been a year now that I have been sitting here in this corner.  The maples from my corner view were in a state of late winter/early spring a year ago.  They started with the tiniest of buds, and then grew the brightest of green leaves.  The skies also changes during this past year.  The spring rains came down, and changed the color of the foothills from browns to green and then back to browns as the hot sun during the summer months set in.  And then with the fall came the changing colors along the foothill landscapes. With time the leaves turned to hues of yellows, then orange, and finally they slowly fell to the grown.  Then came the snows of winter.  Some days the snowflakes were so beautiful as they gently fell from the sky.  And here I sit a year later watching as the maples again begin to bud.  

As I sit, I stare out these windows…wondering why life itself has not stopped as my life has most definitely been stopped short.  The cars on my road still come and go.  At least five or more times a day people decide they are going in the wrong direction and choose my driveway to turn and go back the opposite way.  People also use this busy road as a destination thoroughfare to ride their bikes, walk or jog to and fro.   I watch as my little blond neighbor of eight wonders the street to and fro.   She is reminiscent of a busy little bee flying from flower to flower.  I can’t help but remember when Jeff was at this very age and how very busy his day was.  I remember him playing all day long out in the snow during the winter and catching bugs during the summer.  I wonder what happened to that little boy…why was he made to suffer as he got older.  It seems the older he got, with each birthday he would come down with another disease.  What the hell did he do that made God so damn angry at him?   

I cannot tell you how many people have said to me, “God will only give you what he thinks you can handle.”  OMG…they have obviously not suffered as we have suffered…or believe me….never would those words come out of their mouths.  Who the hell is God to decide what we can or cannot handle.  Who the hell is anyone who thinks they have the right to decide any such a thing.  Think about the stupidity of this statement! 

This is my view from this corner, this corner to which my ass is glued!  Although I can easily see them, the people walking by cannot see me because the couch I sit on sits back from the window, and there is a partial wall behind me and the front door, so if anyone is at the door they cannot see me through the door.  So…as I write this description of my corner…I realize this corner is not a place of comfort…it is a place for me to hide.  I hide, I coward from all, I hide and I grieve in my corner, alone.

While sitting in my corner I cannot tell you how many times I have talked aloud to my son.  What happened baby?  Where are you baby? You were supposed to tell me you were ready…why didn’t you tell me you were ready?  Over and over I have asked these questions aloud directly to Jeff.  And I have also asked myself…Why I didn’t just call him that morning.  The morning he died…why did I put off calling him and quite frankly…I am not sure I will ever forgive myself for not calling him that day.  Hell, even if I did call him…I know deep down I would have been too late.  There was nothing but turmoil at his house that morning, even if I had called I would have call right in the middle of the whole thing.  You know…his son giving him mouth to mouth, trying to save him, while the rest of the family probably cried in the background waiting for the ambulance to show up.  The paramedics, police, fire department, everybody working on trying to revive Jeff.  If I had called that morning this is what I would have found on the other end of the phone.  I think about this a lot…I cry about this all the time.  Perhaps this is why my phone did not ring that morning.  Perhaps that is why I did not call…did I know?  Did I know in my heart my son would take this last breath that morning?   

Don’t forget if you read the very first blog I posted you’ll remember…I knew he was going to die.  I knew it all weekend…I knew he was dying.  I cried all that weekend because I knew I was going to lose him.  And still I didn’t call him.  Is that why I didn’t call that morning.  Was I afraid?  Was I afraid of what I would find had I called him that morning?  Think about this…Jeff’s kids had tried to call me several times throughout the morning he died.  My phone was not ringing…it did not ring even though the ringer on my phone was not set to be silent…the ringer did not ring.  As I am writing this blog I remembered this part of that morning.  I just this very moment remembered that…my phone did not ring that morning.  I had the phone in my hand all morning because I wanted to call him…but I never called him.  I had the phone in my hand!  I found out later that day that Jeff's children tried calling me several times that morning…my phone did not ring. It wasn't until I had everything ready for the meetings and after I mailed Seb's birthday card that I was just getting ready to dial Jeff’s number when it rang.  I answered the phone, “Hi Baby,” thinking I was talking to Jeff.  All morning I had the phone in my hand because I wanted to call him.  The damn thing never rang.  The kids called me two maybe three times that morning to tell me about Jeff and my phone didn’t ring.  I thought it was Jeff on the other end of the phone when I answered, but it was Sebastian calling me to tell me his father, my Jeff had passed away.

I sit in my corner, unable to get up.  When I do get up I go back as quickly as I can.  I’ll get up to clean the kitchen or whatever…and only half-ass clean it…and quickly go back to my corner.  I sit with my cat in my lap.  When I cry Fritz will snuggle up to my neck.  God gave my co-worker a beautiful new baby…he gave me a cat!  As I write my story, my emotions…I cannot find the words to convey to you, I cannot find the words to truly explain my agony.  What words can I use to fully describe this excruciating loneliness, this overwhelming heartache, this hollow feeling of despair I am experiencing?  There are no words to fully explain the state of my emotions in complete detail.  What words can I use to explain the reason I take harbor in this damn corner.  What words can I use to fully explain how very much I miss my only biological child?  The child I carried for months, the same child who I nurtured each day as he grew...the same child who carried me when I lost my husband…the same child I relied on for advise when I had important decisions to make…the same child who was my go-to-person for answers to the stupidest questions…the same child who called just to make me laugh…the same child who I leaned on day to day…the same child who became my best friend.  How do I make you understand how very much I miss my son?   

I sit in my corner…this corner which I have come to hate…I sit in this corner.  I hide.  I coward.  I take refuge.  I cry. 

My roommate told me recently, “I feel you have deceived me.  I thought you were doing better.  You stopped talking to me about Jeff, so I thought you were doing better.  And now I read your blogs and I feel bad because I feel you have been deceiving me.  All this time I thought you were doing better.”   

Isn’t it funny…I sit in my f’n corner day in and day out…and she thinks I am doing better.  I no longer go for walks, I no longer go to the gym, and I am seriously thinking of quitting my volunteer work because I just cannot do it right now.  I cannot seem to do anything right now.  Hell I haven’t even sewed at all this entire year.  I have not sewed this year.  (Actually before my brother Michael died I called my clients and asked them to pick up their stuff because I did not have it in me to sew...I have sewn my entire life.  Sewing is my life...was my life.)  My roommate can clearly see my house is a sty, and she thought I was doing better.  Her room is below my bedroom.  I cry nearly every night, I talk to Jeff aloud.  Can she not hear my cries?  How many times has she come home to find me in tears?   

She once said to me, “I am scared.  I am scared one day I will come home and I will find you dead.”   

How can she possibly feel that I have fooled her?  She will not find me dead, because I am already dead.  She will not find me dead...and yet, I am afraid to live.  I am afraid to live because I do not want to endure this pain anymore…but she will not find me dead.  I will survive this horrific ordeal.  It scares the hell out of me…you know…what scares the hell out of me most...is the new me that will survive this horrific chapter of my life.  That scares me.  I already know from firsthand experience I have lost a piece of Olgie with each death…how much of the old Olgie, will be preserved after I have crossed this long dark passage?  Although I still have lingering thoughts of suicide…she will not find me dead...she will not find me dead because you cannot kill that which has already died.

My phone does not ring…not my house phone nor my cell phone.  If the phones do not ring…does that not mean no one is calling?  No one.  Not Jeff, not my friends, not my family, not anyone.  I think people see/hear what they want.  I think it is a safety mechanism for all of us.  If we know too much about what is going on around us, we may not be able to handle it...so we choose not to see the truth.  Life goes on…whether or not your own world has fallen apart life goes on.  It is a fact!  As I peek out my window, cars still whiz by, people come and go, my little neighbor is still moving about like a busy bee, meanwhile…

I sit in my corner.  I hide from the world.  I cry.

December 12, 2013  

Jeff Alexander Castillo

Hi Doobie,

How I wish I could remember the words you used to get me out of that corner the last time around.  How I wish I could talk to you and you could answer.  How I wish you would at least talk to me in my dreams.  How I wish you were still here by my side.  How I wish…it is a shame wishes do not come true.  At least not in my lifetime.  None of the wishes I have had over the years, do not now, nor have they ever come true.  Why is that Baby?  Why is I that I continually walk around with this dark cloud over my head?  Why is it that God has never listened to my prayers?  Why is it that my family has abandoned me?  Is it me honey?  I go through life and I really try to help others…you know other people who need help.  Aren’t I the person they come to when they need help?  Isn’t it I who has always been there to help other people?  Where is everyone…now that I need support…where is everyone? Where are you baby, I need you here with me. I need to be surrounded by your strength.

                                           ~Mom

Open Letter To My Audience

My Open Letter To You The Audience,

Why am I writing these blogs?  I want you all to know I am writing these blogs…hell I am writing about my life…my life is not a blog!  I am writing my inner most feelings because I lost my only biological child.  I lost my husband.  I lost my siblings.  I lost my very best friend…twice.  I lost my father…and truth is I never even knew this man…and still his loss has an effect, although the conclusion of how much his death has had on me   is still not known. I am writing so you the audience will know my life right now while I am still in the moment…and…hopefully by walking in my shoes you can get a glimpse, albeit a very infinitesimal  hint, of how it feels to be a prisoner of this grief.  I want the whole damn world to know I mourn the people I love.  I am putting myself out there unafraid of all who will read me.  I am writing without fear of the critics who surround me and question my motives…you who no doubt, have come to your own conclusions as to why you think I write.  I pour out my inner most feelings, thoughts, emotions on these pages not for your pity…NOT FOR PITY…but hopefully to EDUCATE!  I hope to show you the audience what it is like for those of us who mourn.    I urge you, dare you, to take this walk with me…in my shoes…and share what you have learned.  If you have learned.  I encourage, no I implore you to send this blog to others so they too can absorb these words and remember them when someone they love weeps. 

Everything in life starts with a simple gesture…this is my simple gesticulation.  Don’t you get it?  I am trying to help you so you can help the people you love.  Death is all around us.  Perhaps losing Jeff has made me mad enough to try to make something constructive out of the most unimaginable loss known to man.  Perhaps it is the first anniversary of my son’s death that has burned a hole under my feet to reach out to all you who read.  Don’t let Jeff’s death be in vain.   Let me say again…DEATH IS ALL AROUND US…I have told you of my loss.  I haven’t even mentioned my loss within my close circle of friends.  They too are grieving. They too need your help in their loss.  I weep with them…just as you cry with me.  Please read every word of every line…learn from my experience.   Take these words to heart and share them with others.  Be brave enough to walk in my shoes without criticizing my efforts.  Be brave enough to say aloud, “I want to help!”  There are those of you who follow actions of others…just this once…follow your heart.  If my words in any way have tugged at the strings of your heart then please forward this blog so others can also step in my shoes.  Just once follow your heart…Olgie

A Year of Firsts Without Jeff

A Year of Firsts Without Jeff


How do I explain my first year of life without Jeff? I don’t think there are enough words to fully describe this journey I was forced to travel. This passage in time that was filled with not only all the usual holidays, but more important all the days that followed his death in the first year without talking to Jeff on the phone. All the days I have spent without talking to my son is like having to start life itself...all over again.  Only this time...in this new chapter of my life I have no son to talk to, to hold, to spend time with. The anniversary of his death is fast approaching and I find myself trying desperately to stay out of that dark place in my head. How do I explain to you the countless hours I have spent wondering what happened to my once happy life? I wonder how many other women or men have walked in my shoes. How did they survive losing first their spouse and then their child/children, or vice versa? And then there are those poor individuals who lose everyone in their family at the same time in one incident. Wow, the suffering they must have endured breaks my heart.

Tina my step daughter moved in with me for a short while after Jeff died. I cannot honestly tell you if she just stayed with me at night or if she stayed with me 24/7…how is it that I do not remember that? I remember finding out she was staying with me to protect me from myself. But that is all I remember. I don’t remember how long she stayed with me…a few days, a week, a month? As I write this blog I realize there are many days that went by that I do not have any recollection…none. Hell until I started to write this past year I didn’t even know I was missing many many days in my head. I really had no idea I couldn't or didn’t remember. I remember we had a crisis after Jeff passed away, perhaps that is why I don’t remember things. In any event, a couple weeks down the road…down the road from Jeff’s death was when reality hit. Reality for me hit me various times throughout this past year.

The first time reality set in was because I had not heard from Jeff…my phone did not ring…for two weeks my phone had not rang. Let me reiterate…it rang but Jeff’s number was never on the caller ID. There was never a time when Jeff did not call at least once every few days. Even when he was at his worse, the most time would past when he didn’t call was three maybe four days. Here I was two weeks out from his death and there had been no phone calls from Jeff. I made plenty calls to his phone. I left messages. None of my messages were returned. I think that was when I realized he would not be coming home anytime soon. This reality still blows my mind...this reality will sometimes hit me like a ton of bricks.  Know he will not be calling me ever again…is still to me, the most difficult aspect of my life right now.  You see, our relationship, our day-to-day connection, was always on the phone...so still to this day there is at times that little doubt in my head. For many years I have slept with my phone on my bed every night. Quite honestly…to this very day…I sleep with my phone sitting on my bed. “Just in case a miracle happens.” I know this is ridiculous but it cannot be helped.

With every day that went by…every day without a phone call…was another day I had to admit he wasn’t coming home. Now this doesn’t mean I accepted he was gone for all time, this only means I wasn’t going to receive any phone calls from Jeff. This was all I was willing to admit…he wasn’t going to call me. His phone calls, or rather, his not calling me was the hardest thing for me to cope with. The phone calls were our connection, mine and Jeff’s connection, our connection was always on the phone. We spent so much time on the phone over the years that he and I would instantly know the other’s state of being as soon as we heard the voice on the other end of the phone. If I was not having a good day, if I was ill, if I was sad, if I was happy…he instantly knew my moods the second I answered and by the same token I would know Jeff’s pain level by the way he talked on the phone. If I heard him struggling to breath between words I knew his pain level was high. If there was a long pause between a question and an answer I knew his level of pain was excruciating for him. I knew if he answered, “Hi Mom,” he was having a good day. If he answered, “Hey, I’ll call you back tomorrow,” I also knew his day was filled with horrible pain.

After he died I logged Jeff’s absence by the number of days I had not talked to him. We talked on the phone so often…this was what I missed most about my son. Our phone conversations. Don’t forget he lived 900 miles from me…we connected by phone daily…some days hourly. The more ill he became the more time passed between our conversations. Instead of talking every day we only talked every two or perhaps three days. When he was having good days we talked daily or nearly every day. I miss Jeff’s voice. I miss the different sounds of his voice. His happy voice, where I could visualize his beautiful smile. I miss his laughter, I miss our time watching TV together, playing cards, playing dice…all on the phone. I miss going to a bar and playing pool with him on the other end of the phone. I miss us talking politics, current events, talking about work, or talking about the family. Politics, oh my, how he loved talking politics! Jeff believed the current administration was a joke…and never missed a chance to let me know this. I miss Jeff describing in detail the goings on of his children. I miss Jeff’s beautiful sense of humor. I miss his laugh.

I’d like to tell you how I survived Easter Sunday…but I have no recollection of Easter…none at all. I guess we did not celebrate Easter, I don’t know for sure.

Reality of Jeff’s death set in again the day I received Jeff’s ashes in the mail…IN THE MAIL. I don’t know what I expected, I never gave it a thought. I knew in advance the mortuary was to send Jeff’s ashes, I just was not expecting them to show up with my mailman. It is inconceivable to me that we cannot mail liquor, tobacco, drugs, or even money via the United States Postal Service….but it is OK to mail human ashes. I have to wonder what other human parts get mailed via the US post office. It boggles my mind to think body parts are probably mailed overnight express…and NO, Jeff was not mailed home overnight express.

I remember my knees buckled and I nearly fell on the spot when I realized the box I had just signed for were filled with the ashes of my first and last born child. I remember it took all that I had within me to carry Jeff into my house without falling apart right there in the front yard. I remember the incredible loudness of the screams that filled the room when I crossed the threshold into my house. I held my son as closely and as tightly as I could. I set the box on my coffee table and cried until my voice nearly went away. This box sat on the table for another couple weeks before I buried him. Every day I went to work and I could hardly wait to come home to hold this box filled with Jeff’s ashes. I would like to tell you I felt good or that it made me feel better to hold his ashes…but the truth is…Jeff was gone and nothing was going to make me feel better. I knew I had to put him in the ground with his father. I thought once I laid him to rest I would feel better but I was wrong.

The morning I was to bury him my emotions fluctuated like a bobber floating in the roughest ocean. There was no settling down that day.  There was nothing calm about me that day.  I was a mess...and nothing was going to make me feel better.  After I laid Jeff to rest my whole world fell apart. It was only then that I truly knew I would never talk to him again. I had his voice saved on my cell phone. While we were in Colorado his kids had saved a few voice mails from Jeff and they transferred those messages onto my cell…unfortunately when I got a new phone his messages were erased. I must have heard his messages a couple hundred times in those first couple months, before they were erased. His voice was erased from my phone…not from my mind. To this day I have conversations with my son…only now these conversations are made up in my head...or they are while I sit in my corner...only now I answer for Jeff, sitting there.  I talk to him and answer for him out loud.

When Mother’s day arrived I couldn’t help but wonder, “Is a woman still a mother when she loses her child? If a woman was only pregnant once in her life, and she loses that child…is she still a mother? I have asked myself this question many many times. I have no answer. Of course if I ask anyone they would answer yes…without hesitating they would answer yes. But really, would they be right or wrong? If there is no child, is she still a mother? Tina and I went through our usual Mother’s day rituals…but this year it was not the same..not for either one of us. We tried to make it work. Tina tried hard to make this nice for me…and I tried hard to enjoy it so she wouldn’t’ get her feelings’ hurt. Mother’s day was a very hard day. In so many ways it was very bitter sweet. Our Mother's day ritual has Tina buying me flowers for my yard.  We spend the day shopping for flowers and then she helps me plant them.  I don't remember what we bought, nor do I remember if we planted them. I don't think we planted them, neither one of us did well on this day.

June found me sitting in the corner…a lot. I tried working in the yard time and again. But I just could not get into it. This last year my yard looked the worst it has ever looked. Generally in the summers I usually enjoy spending time outdoors working in the yard, I have always taken pride in getting my yard to look like a park. This past summer it looked more like the park from hell with weeds growing where flowers once grew. some areas of the grass growing taller than it had ever been before, and other areas of the grass just whithered away due to lack of water because  I did not bother to fix the sprinklers. I put out my hammock and laid in it not more than a couple times all summer.  I just could not enjoy any part of my life without Jeff in it. I sat on my deck and cried many many days.

Father’s day was hard…all I could think of was Jeff’s children. This day was spent without their father. I know it was especially hard for the youngest two. My heart was broken with worry for the kids. At some point this past summer Dwaine took me out of town to some of his races and to the redwoods...thank goodness…because these breaks were desperately needed from my day to day pity parties. And all this time there were no phone calls…not from Jeff…not from my family…not from the majority of my friends.

I found myself mourning my son on his birthday. No amount of consoling was helping me. I wanted to hurt that day…I wanted to do nothing but feel sorry for myself. On September 2, at 1:36pm I cried…the same way I cried at the exact time he was born…I cried. Only this time they were not tears of happiness. I was in so much more pain than I ever suffered during his birth. Only this time the pain I suffer was not physical…and still I suffer far more than ever before.

And then came the holidays…the holidays. I truly did not expect to live through the holidays. If I was going to die…I just knew this was when I would die. I just knew my heart would not make it through Thanksgiving, let alone Christmas. You see Thanksgiving and Christmas would have Jeff and I cooking together. We would get up early, and we would cook our turkeys together. Jeff would call a dozen or more time throughout the day asking, “OK, that is done, now what?” As though he didn’t know how to cook a turkey or stuffing. Dwaine and I went to celebrate (if you can call it that) at a friend's house...I cannot even tell you if I cooked anything.  I think I just showed up empty handed.  Just showed up like a beggar, which is so unlike anything I would ever do.

I cried throughout the day on Thanksgiving…wanting Jeff to call me. Wanting him to ask, ”OK, now what?” And at the end of the day after we made our mash potatoes and our gravy he would say I’ll call you after dinner...at which time he would always answer to my “how was your dinner?”

“The best I ever had, better than yours,” he would say boasting about his dinner and the acclamations he received from his family.

All year I have struggled to get out of my corner…but when the holidays were upon me there was no way, none whatsoever, I was going to be removed from this sorrowful place. Christmas had me wanting to get into the spirit, but there was no way I could enjoy the season. I did not shop for anyone. A few days before Christmas I went out and bought gift cards for everyone and called it good. This was the best I could do. I had zero decorations. Usually I go all out and decorate my home from top to bottom. This year I had no decorations…not even a tree…that is until Christmas Eve. Dwaine came over and encouraged me to put up a tree. We used the trophies and metals Jeff had won years before during his sporting career. The entire tree was adorned with lights and trophies. It was the most beautiful tree I have ever put up for any Christmas. For Christmas dinner there was no Turkey, no Prime Rib, no fancy dinner. We spent Christmas dinner with Tina and her family…we had potluck. Absolutely nothing fancy. The food was good, the company was good…perhaps that is all that mattered. I cried throughout the day. The best part of the entire day was spent talking to Jeff’s family…on the phone…even though the conversations with everyone were only a few minutes long.

As I look back on this past year, I cannot tell you how many days I have lost.  I cannot tell you how many countless memories I cannot get back in my head.  Perhaps this is the only way I have been able to survive...you know by not remembering certain aspects of my life.  Perhaps one day I will be strong enough to remember everything.  Perhaps it is best I do not remember right now.  I cannot tell you how many days I have dialed Jeff’s phone number, hoping against all odds he would answer. Needless to say he has never answered. I still sleep with the phone on my bed…I know it will never again ring…but it reminds me of a time, of the many nights my son and I had great conversations. It, the phone, reminds me of the many nights we spent playing cards. It reminds me of a time when he came with me to the bar to play pool with me on the phone.  It reminds me of the times we called Jeff so he could karaoke with the rest of us...on the phone. This phone reminds me of how very close we were…my confidant, my son, my best friend.

I was cleaning my room one day, not long ago, when I came across a deck of cards in my night stand. I forgot this is where I kept the cards...there in the nightstand...right where I could easily reach them when Jeff called in the middle of the night.  When he called because he could not sleep.  Many of our conversations happened during the wee hours of the morning. That was why I slept with my phone on my bed, so I could quickly answer it. I quickly shut the drawer as tears race down my face. I cannot stop the tears, not during work, not during my time with my family, not even when I am with Dwaine. I don't even try to stop them anymore. The tears still come…and I am still missing my son. I allow myself to cry, I allow myself to talk about Jeff to anyone who will listen. I now know I will survive…there are still days when I do not want to be alive…but I go on breathing. I still take in air. I will always miss Jeff, he was my life…he still is my life…he is my heart.

Tomorrow will be the first anniversary of his death…although I will not want to survive it, I know I will. I will no longer be measuring the length of time I haven’t talk to my son in days, nor in weeks, not even in months…I will now be measuring his absence in years. How many more years will I be here to remember tomorrow? How many more tomorrows will come without Jeff in my life…without Jeff on the other end of my phone? How many more tomorrows will I be missing my son? How many more tomorrows will there be before I am finally reunited with Jeff.

I wrote this poem the very week Jeff died. Yes, I know, it is an amateurish attempt at writing…but my heart was bleeding…and you can clearly hear my frustration, my love/hate relationship with God. Why did God make Jeff suffer so very much?  Will I ever know the reason?  Did Jeff question God?  I'm sure he did...I am sure he was angry with God just as I have been angry. 

                        Dearest Heart

Heart of mine, why were you made to suffer so.
You never questioned, God's passing blows.

You fought with a fury, the demon's inside.
Your battle was lost , all but your pride

God witnessed your courage, God questioned your faith.
God tested your strength, God set free your pain.

So run dearest heart, run fast without pain.
To the arms of your father, so he can hold you again.

So run dearest heart, run fast to a place.
Run somewhere out there, near heaven's gates.

So run dearest heart, child of mine you are free.
You are now resting, in your Dad's company.

So run dearest heart, run fast without pain.
You will live in my heart, until I will see you again!

                                            ~Mom