Today

I am walking in the ghostly footprints of the past.  I don't want to remember this day anymore.  If I do I it's him that I think of and the hate that goes with it.  I want to wash that off my hands.

I only want to remember your birthday.  All the happy times.  I look at your tree every day and see your smile.  I will keep Tony going for you.  He loves you too. 

Two years...

It's count down time.  We woke up to the doorbell sometime between 1am and 2am.... tonight, 2 years ago.  

Two long, deliriously horrible years.  I have learned lessons I never wanted to learn. Like how to breathe when your lungs have collapsed, how to smile when you want to scream, how to make your heart beat when your chest is an empty cavern.  But most importantly how to keep loving the ones who are holding you up when you think your world has ended.   

I realized awhile back that the reason I don't write much anymore is that I am escaping into myself or into work.  I wrote every chance I could get that first year because that was my escape.  Putting everything I felt on paper because I couldn't live with my feelings inside me.  I wanted to rip myself apart so I ripped into writing down my fury.  Now, I have found that I can control my grief by segmenting myself.  I cry when no one is around at home, in bed while trying to go to sleep, in my car when driving, etc. If I'm around people and I feel like I'm losing it, I have to stop, doing breathing exercises or I will implode.  Or should I say become a blubbering idiot.  

I can look at pictures of Mary now, but not for too long.  I don't like looking at her clothes because they are empty.  Her favorite jacket hangs downstairs waiting for her to grab it and go outside.  He hiking shorts are hanging beside them.  I wear her hiking boots on cold days.  Danny and I both wear the hats she crocheted.  Julie carries one of the purses she made.  I still have the one she was carrying that night, this night, two years ago.  

I still have many unanswered questions of myself.  Will I always be like I am today in 20 years?  Hell, will I even be alive in 20 years.  Maybe we'll be together by then.  Who knows.

I used to think people who loved each other as much as we do in my family that we had a life force "connection". I may have said this in past months.  I should have felt something when the crash happened.  But even when Danny got sick those two times, I didn't know anything until I saw him. 

I still don't want to remove the pain from my life lest I remove Mary's memories.  The only way I can see myself not hurting anymore is to erase Mary and I can't do that.  I have to keep figuring out ways to keep going while reducing the pain.  Almost sound clinical, doesn't it.   
 

Permission vs What if?

I have not traveled anywhere in 6 years without Danny (and only once) since he's been on the list.  He can only go as far as 2 hours will take him.  So he usually only goes to Helen or Carol's.  Maybe to Cherokee for a quick trip.  

Now, I need to go to Canada for a business trip.  Most places I've wanted to go related to work have been for conferences or seminars.  Nice to go and learn more but I didn't want to leave and get "the call" and not be able to get home before Danny went in the operating room.

I want to go to Canada for the two days and my head tells me I should but my heart and my gut (yes, stomach aches) tell me "watch out - this could be it".  Danny says go for it too.  A friend of mine told me I need to give myself "permission" to go.  My counselor has told me before I have to learn to give myself permission to be happy.

This is a VERY hard thing to do and I don't understand why my two sides are fighting each other.  I want to be happy and enjoy life as Mary would.  Most people think I am when they see me because they don't see me at night when I am alone.  I had hoped after he was in prison I would get some kind of relief but not yet.  I guess this is just something I'm going to have to work on day by day.

My sisters have been trying for years to get me to go visit them but I won't.  Too far away.  Again with the permission.  We've been called at 1am and at 9am to go to Emory.  It could happen at any moment.  If I was a praying person then what I feel every second could be called praying for it to happen NOW.  The plane trip is only 2 hours but they only fly between 6am and 6 pm.  So I wouldn't be able to get home for those 12 hours.  

What it actually boils down to is this - if something happened to Danny while he was getting his heart and I wasn't there I would never, could never forgive myself.  I am terrified to leave him.  His attitude is so positive he doesn't even voice what I am sure is in his heart (as it would be in mine).  There's always what if.... but no one wants to say it or think it.  He did say he was scared last time we were waiting but the vision of life with a new heart out weighted the what if's.

BUT.... I have to be there to keep watch when the doc's and nurses are busy.

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?  I will get my passport renewed anyway, just in case I can give myself permission.  But that's a freakin' BIG word.   PERMISSION

What is this feeling?

"Fate will put in front of us the very thing that we are running away from."  I heard that in a TV show tonight.

I have been thinking about those 5 minutes I stood in front of that man and poured out my heart. I am still amazed that I didn't burst into a blubbering idiot.  I have never read that statement where I actually finished it without crying.  I was scared that my voice would crack or I would talk in a high squeaky voice.  But these things did not happen.  I stood tall and firm.  I meant every word I said and I wanted to be very clear to him exactly how I felt.  I was someone I have never been before.

I found strength I didn't know existed.  I am NOT who I was before.  I was telling the world what every parent feels when they've lost a child needlessly by the hands of irresponsibility.  And I wanted the world to hear my words clearly.  But, more importantly, I wanted him to understand how life has changed for me and my family.  After all, he's a parent.  How would he feel if his child had been the victim?  

I believe Kerry and Julie found the same strength. And Danny held us together.  

I can be anything, do anything, go through anything now, except this again.

Now What?

I have not done much all week long.  Just don't have the heart to get busy.  This time my mind is clear enough to realize that my body is not working properly.  We went to lunch after court and I couldn't eat much and thought I was going to throw up (which I NEVER do).  But instead my insides just got all out of whack and still are and it's been 5 days.   Will it take just as long this time to get back on track? I didn't get on FB until yesterday.  I haven't written here until this morning.  The posts for this week I just did.  

I did not want to talk about anything.  Just wanted to sit and chill and try to clear my soul.  It's not easy.  Hopefully I will be better when I have to go back to work.  I don't know.  I can still see him sitting in the chair in the court room, not phased by any of the words we spoke so it seemed.  I hope they burned holes in his soul but he hid the scars well.  

Can you imagine how you would feel if you killed someone?  He did not act like he was remorseful at all.  While reading my statement I kept staring at him.  I don't think he looked at me but once.  My mouth got dry and the last few words almost stuck together.  I kept saying I WANT HER BACK.

Gotta go, can't do this anymore.

Chaos... beautiful chaos

This is from Tony's sister.  Her statement.  We did not get to read it. 

It has been nearly two years without Mary. I have tried to write this many times since then- some way to put into words what this has done to my life. Each time I have deleted my worthless attempt. How can he know what he took away in an instant that took her lifetime to build? How can he understand with pictures and words, hollow ghosts of how beautiful she was?

My life completely changed when Mary was killed. Before that, I had believed in plans, in an order to things. At the time I was writing speeches in the U.S. Senate and planning for my brother's wedding. The moment she was killed, the senseless ugliness of it all destroyed that. Then month after month of denial and it not mattering. Him free behind his murder weapon without remorse. And so I left it all. I left the job, the city, my idea of a future.  My brother abandoned their home and we lived in his truck, under stars that still sparkle and days that still pass despite the quicksand of hell that threatened to destroy my brother as well. The slow death of days that no longer matter.

The only thing left to believe is chaos. Chaos that is sometimes the sound of wind chimes and sunrises and sometimes crushing bones and broken bodies. That is what he has done. There is nothing to believe in, there is no point to planning, because someone like him can take it all away.

I am forever haunted by her tragic goodbye to the world. How scared she must have felt when his headlights came slamming into her fragile body. Did she scream for Tony in her final breath of agony? These are the thoughts I have left for the woman I spent a lifetime loving. And the rest of my beautiful moments will be tainted with sadness because she chose to be here and is not. My wedding, our thanksgivings, getting old.

All of the things that we had chosen to share.

OMG

Two years for a life.  How cheap is that?