Great weekend, tough start to the week...

I had a great visit with some friends from NC this past weekend. They drove all the way from the Raleigh area with their two kids just to come see us. Michell would have loved it – both showing off the house and staying up until 2am to talk.

I also loved it – their kids and mine got along great, we got to do several things that are hard to do by myself, and they cooked almost every meal (I don’t think I’ve eaten that well in quite some time…)

Monday and Tuesday were hard. Every time I finish something like this, something that is different than it would have been if Michell was still alive, it forces me to deal with another wave of grief. At my desk at work on Monday, I probably just sat for over an hour, dealing again with the fact that my wife is gone.

Monday evening, Rachel really started having grief of missing Michell. I think seeing our guests operate as a family, especially as a family with a mommy, made her remember all the things she used to do with Michell. I guess I should expect it – if these things stir up my grief, then why not hers as well? It just rips me up, because I can’t fix it.

Then Zoe started fussing at 11pm and didn’t go back to sleep until about 1am, and then I had trouble going to sleep. It’s a good thing Rachel woke up on time – she came and got me up at 7:10 – or we would have been late for school on Tuesday. We were running close as it was!

Tuesday was also not the best day. First, I on the way home from dropping the girls at school, my car died. Just quit running as it came into the neighborhood. Praise God that I was close to home and not with the girls when it happened. Fuel pump, by the way, and should be ready by Thursday.

Then, when I finally got to work after getting the car towed to the shop, I got a call from preschool that Zoe had thrown up. So… away from work to get her, then off to see the doctor, who said “It might be a little cold, or a little virus, or just reflux. She’s fine.” But even this was not all bad, Zoe and I had a fun afternoon at the house together – she clearly wasn’t acting sick, she was playing everywhere (including on top of me).

But now it’s Wednesday. I got better sleep last night (4+3, give or take), Rachel & Zoe were in pretty good moods this morning, and both got up on time and got to school on time. God is good!

Mother's Day

So, how do you prepare for Mother’s Day when your wife, and the mother of your children, passed away a few months ago? Apparently, it doesn’t matter what you do, it doesn’t dull the pain.

Today has been hard. This morning before church, I thought I was going to be OK, but even though we didn’t have a heavily themed service (in fact, service was awesome, despite my pain), it was still a very painful Sunday morning. Fortunately, after church I went to my parents’ house, and that has become such a familiar thing that I didn’t really think about it being Mother’s Day anymore.

I’ve given up trying to describe how bad the hurt is at any particular time, I never seem to be able to explain just how bad it hurts, but church today was the roughest Sunday in quite some time. It follows a rough week, when I tried doing a couple of things on my own that I used to do with Michell.
To celebrate the end of the semester, I went to Knoxville and met my sister to have lunch and do some shopping. Michell and I used to take a “date day” at the end of each semester, and that was our usual agenda. When I was with my sister, things went ok, but both on the drive up and drive home, things were bad. The drive home was especially bad.

I also went out to dinner by myself. Seems a small thing, but I have been avoiding it. Oh, I’ve eaten by myself, but I had not gone out to dinner here in Cookeville alone. I spent most of the meal reading a book, and left the restaurant feeling like the entire evening had been too quiet. That’s become a common feeling for me – that my evenings have been too quiet.

I’ve also begun to feel and express guilt over the fact that I am moving on. I find myself talking out loud to Michell, and telling her that I’m sorry that I have to move on, sorry that I have begin to think of myself as single, sorry that I feel the need to get involved in new communities (I’m thinking of going to my church’s singles group in the next month or so), sorry that the memories of our marriage, great as it was, are not enough to sustain me. I know she wouldn’t be (isn’t) upset, but that doesn’t let me turn off the pain.

I also have to fight the urge to find a girlfriend. I said in a prior post that I really don’t know who I am and what I want to do anymore, and I know I am not in any shape for a serious relationship right now. I still feel this incredible desire for companionship – we were created for community – and I have to continually keep my thoughts in check.

Given the pain I feel at the loss of my wife, I have trouble reconciling my desire to find someone else already being so strong, but maybe it is just a natural response to loss. After God, Michell was the focus of my life, and the Michell-shaped hole looms incredibly large. I trust God to help me with this issue, and pray daily (often more than once) that He will guide my thoughts and desires according to His plan.

Well, that’s more than I set out to write, so I think I will stop now.

A little sleep does wonders...

It really does. Zoe has slept better over the past week – she’s gotten back to only waking up once after my bedtime – and I’m getting 5-6 hours of sleep in a chunk, and then another 1-2 hours more after that. It has really changed my disposition – I am able to concentrate more and have a bit more patience with my girls. I regularly praise God when I get up, because of how long I got to sleep.

Of course, this goes hand in hand with the fact that Zoe hasn’t been sick in a while, either. The last time she went to the doctor’s office, he thought it was allergies. So, she’s now on two allergy medicines, and together they seem to have really made a difference in her health. She’s back to being her happy self, and I thank God for it.

My good days are still getting better, and more frequent, but the bad days and bad times still come. Just last week, I was getting ready for church on Wednesday night, and I thought everything was going well. I was in my closet, and I suddenly turned around and hugged a group of Michell’s clothes and started crying. It probably took me 10 minutes to get through it. Things are like that sometimes – I don’t know when or what will trigger the pain.

I’m still searching for who I am without her (see my previous post). Not the big things – salvation, career, daddy – these things are not in question. It’s the little things – hobbies, interests, “fun” – that I don’t know what I really want to do.

Time is the thing – time to grieve and move forward, time to discover who I am , time for the girls to get older and be able to do more for themselves, time… but I don’t want to stand still, and I certainly don’t want to miss something that’s happening now because I am too anxious to get to later.

What do I want to do?

It seems like a strange question, but I ask it of myself all the time. I was married to Michell for 10 years, and she was my best friend. We always did things together – even things I would not have chosen to do myself were fun because she was doing them with me. Now I don’t know what to do.

I find myself searching for… myself. What do I want to do? What do I like? By myself, what things will be interesting? Most often, anything I think of would be great to have done with Michell, but by myself sounds dull. Or worse yet, sounds like it will just make me miss her more.

And most of the time, even if I could think of something I wanted to go do, I can’t. With a toddler and a kindergartener, I’m back at home for supper every night, and “stuck” at home after bedtime. I do have a sitter come one night a week, and on Wednesday night we go to church, but you get the picture.

I find myself gravitating to TV shows (the few that are worth watching, anyway) and books that I have read many times before. I wonder sometimes if I am just passing time – avoiding the pain – rather than really doing “what I like to do,” because I never can find a good answer to my own question.

I guess I’m having to re-discover who Steven is without Michell. A good friend summed it up well – it was never “just Michell,” it was always “Steven and Michell.”

I miss her fiercely, and I don’t really know who I am without her.

Long Time, No Post...

Wow, it’s been over 2 weeks since I last posted. Lots has happened since then, and some of it good. Zoe’s been sick twice, I’ve been sick once, and Rachel has too. But we’re all better now (though Rachel & I are still on our antibiotics). But the best news of all is that Zoe is sleeping better.

Seems odd to think of it, but she’s now on 2 allergy medicines every day. She had been the queen of nasal drip, but now things are getting better. And last night, she slept from 9:30 pm to 6:45 am. I woke up and praised God – after a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep!

There’s no way I could write everything that’s happened, but just know that there have been some very good moments (like this morning) and some very bad ones (like the visit to the graveyard after they installed the grave marker). In all, the good days are getting better and more frequent, but (at least it seems like) the bad days are getting worse, though they happen less often.

Maybe now I can get back to more regular posting.

Conference call

Went to a conference this week – Sunday-Tuesday in Memphis – and the girls stayed here in Cookeville. It was good, having a chance to be away for two days. I still didn’t sleep very well, but I think that’s just a stage I am in right now. The girls did great (Zoe did better for Sherri than she does for me – maybe I should go out of town more often), so no worries there. And I think this short trip will make it easier for me to go to later conferences that are longer and further away.

Had a really bad moment on the trip, though. I had finished my sessions for the afternoon around 4:30, with nothing left to do before dinner at 6:30. As I walked out of the conference center to cross the street to my hotel, I pulled out my phone and started to call Michell. You see, that’s what I always did at conferences – when I got a break, I called Michell. It was always so good to talk with her.

As I stared at the phone, the reality of her death came crashing in again. It was all I could do to keep from just dropping to the ground. I cried as I walked back to my hotel room, and kept crying when I got there. I miss her so much.

Later that evening at dinner, I saw a few attendees who had brought their families along. That was our plan, too. When the girls were old enough, they would all come along – or, sometimes we would find places for them to stay so that Michell and I could go together. Now, neither can happen. I can’t take the girls, because I can’t watch them during the conference, and Michell isn’t here to go with me anymore.

Going to conferences is part of my job – a part I usually enjoy. Overall, this one was ok, and I hope that in the future I am able to enjoy them more fully. My next on is in July, and it’s usually a very good conference. And God will help me – I know He will.

I experienced great kindness today – from a totally unexpected source. I was in Wal-Mart, getting some groceries, and I went by the portrait studio to cancel an appointment I had made. Rachel got her school pictures, and they were good, so I decided to keep those as her birthday portraits.

The manager there, Emily, has taken most of our pictures since we moved to Cookeville. Michell would regularly stop and talk with her when she walked by the studio, and apparently she made another connection. Emily recently told me she was moving to Knoxville, and I had told her about Michell’s death.

When I told her I was canceling the appointment, she said she had something for me. She handed me an envelope with something I never expected. She had gone back and re-printed some pictures that Michell and I didn’t buy, and gave them to me. When I saw them, I started to cry. It was all I could do to say “thank you” before I had to walk away.

I pulled them out again in the car, and started crying uncontrollably. I sat in the parking lot and cried, and I kept crying all the way home. I thought I was through most of the overwhelming pain, but the pictures brought my loss crashing back – pictures of Michell and the girls, of our whole family, of Michell and I together. We were taking a picture of the two of us to hang in our bedroom – I think one of them is up there, in a frame, waiting for me to find. I’m afraid to find it.

For now, looking at these pictures brings me terrible pain. She still looks just the way I remember – so vibrant, so beautiful, a loving wife and caring mother. I think about how much I miss her, about how much the girls will miss because she won’t be here to love them and care for them, and about how alone I feel without her.

Yet I am so very thankful for this unexpected blessing. I have a few copies of each to share with family and keep for the girls. And because I know someday I will be able to look at them, not with pain, but with joy.