Just Time

Post 9

Good morning friends… been a minute since I’ve been able to come here with you. (I actually started this post before the last one… the flooding of my basement had overcome me) Thank you for joining me again. Time. Time is going so fast. How is it that the sands in the hourglass can speed up against your will? I guess that is the big question as you get older for sure. Maybe since the beginning of TIME, we have been fighting it. As children time seems to drag on and on. Children get bored so easily and time seems to stand still when there is nothing to occupy their time. When they are having fun, time rushes by and the fun is over before they know it. True to life as an adult too, I suppose. Time is such a perplexing concept. How do we recognize time? The hands on a clock? The days on a calendar? Watching our children grow up and watching our parents grow old while we seemingly never seem to notice the changes in ourselves. The anticipation of a long awaited day? That always seems to slow the hands of time. The dread of a day we wish would never come will race upon us faster than Ford vs. Ferrari- ( I just watched that movie… I highly suggest it! Man, Carroll Shelby was a dude). I remember when my children were little and my parents were in their prime of life. I so vividly recall the day wishing that Merry Go Round would slow down and I could stay in that place forever. But Father Time did not hear me nor did he care. I turned fifty this year. I honestly don’t feel much different that when I turned any other age. Age has never really bothered me. I always knew there was only one alternative to a number on a birthday and I never wanted to face that option. Who cares what the number is anyway? Some people have tremendous anxiety over a birthday. For my first sister in law it was 30. For my mother it was 40. For me? Eh, its just a number. I’ve welcomed each one and was proud to be 28 yet again. 🙂

I think that I wrestled with time the most after I lost my Jake. It was such a dilemma. I hated time. With each day that passed, I knew I was further away from the last time I talked to him. I feared time then. I was so terrified that I would forget the sound of his voice. I feared that I would forget the curve of his face. I feared that time would erase all that I held dear of him. I couldn’t bear the idea of saying “its been 3 years” or “it has been 5 years”. But they came and went and time was dragging me with it. Feet first I might add. Each year brought something different. The first year was literal torture. Trying to get through that first year was like being in a combat zone in Afghanistan. Before I knew it I would step on a mine and I would explode into pieces. I walked so slowly through that year. The second year was not a great deal different. It was just that this time I knew where many of the mines would be waiting for me but the anticipation of them was just a brutal. The third year finally came. Toward the end of that year, Father Time had allowed me a kind of reprieve. The days came and went much softer. I started to feel who I was now. I was a new person. I had come through the trenches of hell and emerged as someone else. I was gentler. I was more patient. I was more appreciative of the colors and scents mother nature had given me. I loved deeper those around me. I cared about how I behaved and what words would escape my lips- most of the time. I was not as quick to anger and saw life from a different perspective. Unless it came to my daughter for whom I became viciously protective over. I was gentler with people I came into contact with especially as a nurse. And guess what? I reached the milestone I dreaded for so long. 5 years had come and gone. This year we passed the ten year mark. Here is what I can share with you about that. My fears were unfounded. I still can hear his voice. I can still see his sweet face. I can still feel his tremendous embrace. For some reason, God has afforded me wonderful visits from him in my sleep. He is not gone. He did not disappear as I had feared. He is with me more today than ever. I see him everywhere. So, do not fear, my friends. You will not forget. The good thing Father Time has done for me is ease the pain. There are still those days that the pain is as great as it ever was but mostly the pain is not so great on the daily.

But here I am once again. A place I did not want to be. Much different. People would always say to me… “there’s nothing like losing a child” and that is very true. It goes against nature. It is an abomination. But isn’t loss just that? Loss. No, it isn’t true. The loss of a grandparent who has fulfilled their lives and passed on all they could and their bodies have now forsaken them IS a natural expectation of our existence. We all EXPECT to die at a grand old age. It is when we feel we have been robbed and shorted in life when we ourselves- or those we love- are gone too soon that we cannot accept. How do we? Why must we? Why are we left here in a shattered world now ruined by Father Time’s selfishly taking their last grain of sand from US. Those are questions left unanswered forever on this Earth. How can someone suffer not only ONE incredible loss but TWO? I suffered when my father left but it was different. He lived a long and very prosperous life. He was suffering himself and to let him go was to relieve his suffering. I miss him greatly but I again, am allowed visits so often in my sleep.

But this one. This loss of my love. So little time together. A short marriage. It seems we did everything in a hurry. Except for be on time! Those who surrounded us knew that we would be late wherever we were expected. Mostly because we took our time together. We never rushed anything as long as we were in each others presence. Time was good to us mostly that way. Maybe not to those who awaited us but most of them who loved us became accustomed to it and never expected much different. They saw the flame that burned between us and somehow seemed to understand it. Our time was OUR time. We rarely let that be taken from us but we always shared much of that time with those we love. He is the one that made sure of that. I was perfectly content in only his presence…and he was too, many days of the week. We spent most days together. He was off to do his thing, be it work or visiting with friends… but he always returned quickly with so much joy in his heart that it was infectious. I could never have a bad day with him around. Nobody could. He was and will forever be the most joyous human being I have ever come to know. So I did not mind the nonstop comings and goings we had with our friends and family. It brought us so much happiness together. I so loved to see him laugh. Oh, he had the best, most genuine laugh. He loved. Man, did he love. His children the most. His Juju was the crown on the family. He talked about her nonstop. Every single day he would wake up and look over the pillow at me and say “Wonder what Juju is doing?”. Then he would say, “I miss her so much”. I never saw anyone love another person as much as he loved her. She became the paramount in our lives. She was the only thing that would take precedence over everything else in the world. Instead of going to visit with friends for dinner on a Saturday night, if we had the opportunity to have her, we did. He was like a child waiting for their best friend to arrive. We tried to let her sleep on her own as she was accustomed to at home. That lasted once I think. From then on Ole Granddad had a place for her right between us. She knew who’s pillow was who’s. Granddads, Nanny’s and Juju’s. We looked forward to the next two coming. We talked so long about the weekends we would steal them all away from their parents and take them all to the lake. We spoke of it like kids do of Christmas morning. There was always a magic in the air. We couldn’t wait for it! I long to know his nicknames for each of them. I promise to keep him a legend to them as long as I live.

So time is creeping up again. Another day we all languish. Dove season was his favorite time. It was the only time of the year that he would sometimes manage 2 weeks away from the thumb of Michigan. He NEVER missed a sale on Tuesday. But he would manage it somehow for dove season. I think some of his fondest memories with his children and my father and my family was during this season. And here we are left to face it without him. We plan to memorialize this time in his honor as well as my father. It wasn’t about the hunting. It was about the hosting. The ease of the day with beloved friends and family. The camaraderie.

It is also the 2nd Anniversary of our incredible wedding.

There’s no more to say about that is there? We had the most wonderful year and a half together. Today it is taking everything out of me. Today, I keep seeing him. I keep remembering the last kiss he gave me as he rushed out the door for the last time. I keep seeing his dark green shirt he was wearing and looking into his eyes as we gave our “marital peck on the lips” after I hurriedly got him ready to leave for a fun day at the gun club with old friends. He gathered all his things, got his gun ready, found his D-cots (I don’t know if that’s right… his pink shooting glasses that made him sooooo cool) and off he went. The end. I have struggled to look at photographs of him lately. I looked at them so much in the beginning of this hell. Now I cannot. The same is true of Jake. I have a couple of pictures of him in the house but I just cannot bear to look at them. There is a searing pain that runs through my chest when I do.

Life is so full yet so empty. I adore the moments of joy with my family, our family and most especially the littles that bring such hope and light. You know that children are special but now it is ALL children. ALL children that Todd touched in some way have now become almost sacred to me. They will forever carry a piece of him. The adolescent boys who cried their hearts out at the knowledge of the incredible loss from their lives. The visible mark he left on their hearts. Dawson, Nick, Lincoln, Logan… they will carry his name emblazoned on their souls forever. I know they will never forget. The younger ones who were so endeared to him. Aubree, Daniel, Jolene and so many others. Little Daniel still prays for Uncle Todd. What a legacy to touch a child in such a way. I read somewhere that it is truly an amazing person who can touch the life of a child and to win the favor of a child. He did so. So much.

I still do not have the answer on how we will do this. All I do know is that we are trying to do it all together. We are having faith in one another to carry what we cannot. We are honoring the man we all held so dear to our hearts. What else is there? It is beyond painful. But how saddened he would be should we let this time of his pass without a celebration. So we will not let it pass unnoticed. All of the broken hearts will come together to try and fill an un-fillable void. All our broken hearts will pull together to create a beautiful mosaic of love left in pieces. Those young ones and littles will use their magic to pull us through without an ounce of realization of the power they hold to heal. We will look to them and cling to them to guide us with their innocence and beauty. And they will. Because God gave them to us to provide us the hope and faith He instilled in them.

I shall ask for prayers and guidance for the upcoming milestone. Thank you for coming with me ~ And never allowing me to find myself alone in these thoughts. May the peace of the Lord that surpasses all understanding wash over you today and always. JHW