Since you have been gone~ 2 years, 4 months

It is Spring once more, Babe.  This year I have been much better about pulling my head out from the covers and enjoying going outside.  It still was a struggle to see that a new season has come upon us and you are not here, physically to share it with.  Sometimes, I think it was because you passed away in December, two-weeks before Christmas, and I tend to stay in that space too long.  -The space in which it is cold outside and the shortness of the day descends upon me like a shadowy cloak.  I feel invisible during that season.  The feeling is familiar and reassuring, but then, like a surprise, a new season gradually comes upon stretching sunlight into my world. Rather than hide reluctantly from it, as my previous tendency has been, I realize that it will still come and that time will move forward.   

Not a day goes by that I do not speak to you (as you know) and most of the time I hope you can hear me. The rest of the time, I am not so sure because you know I can be long winded and sometimes tend to ramble.  I think you might even know when I am going to do that before I do.  I see the signs you send me, especially all the birds, and I also feel the way you still support me and there are times I really do sense a larger, overall feeling of glowing love with the intensity that can only be from you.  I also think about the year-long period that you were sick.  The heart-breaking moments when you struggled and there was nothing I could do.  

I think about the moments that I used to step out onto the balcony and look at the stars and think that this could not be happening and I would wish with all my might that something might turn around the progression of Pulmonary Fibrosis within your body.  At that time, I also had a sense that what I was praying for was bigger than you and I, almost like I wanted to re-write the stars themselves.  

I stay involved with the Pulmonary Fibrosis community and I have to say, since you have been gone, there have been so many new names and each person has such an individual story that at times I wonder if our individual story has made any kind of a difference at all.  But then, I realize all of our stories, collectively, create's one large entity of its own.  Still, there is not a cure for the disease, although it seems as though there is more conversation regarding a variety of treatments as well as possible links as to why this disease occurs in some people.  I know you always wondered what caused it for you. 

 It even scared your best friend and co-worker enough that he, himself, went and had a CT scan while you were ill. He was afraid it was something environmental that he may have been exposed to as well.  He showed no signs of it.  Of course, he never told you that, but he let me know about the ways your illness affected him, shortly after your funeral.  Speaking of friends, I have to say that there are so many wonderful people who, unfortunately, have become familiar with Pulmonary Fibrosis, either by having it themselves, or through losing a family member to it.  I feel honored to know some of these people and am truly amazed at the support we feel for one another.  

Home is going well.  I planted 4 lilac bushes along our west fence-line and 10 more are due to arrive, soon. It was one of your favorite plants and I won't forget that one time we were sitting at our favorite hamburger shop and you were talking about the Lilac because there were a whole bunch outside.  You were saying how much you enjoyed the smell of them during spring and as you were talking, a really large gust of wind started up outside the window and the Lilacs started to lose petals from their bloom.  It looked like it was snowing Lilac.  That was right about when you wanted to discuss getting married at that exact hamburger shop!  That makes me giggle.  I still go there, but I am glad we found our own perfect spot for our wedding. 

 I think a lot about our wedding, too.  That was a perfect day ~always.  I see your face, the way it looked when I was walking down the aisle toward you.  I know the bride is supposed to be glowing, but you really had a light emulating from you and it made me want to run up the aisle to join you!  I had to pace myself.  I also remember how you got Strawberry Lace cake on the top of my wedding dress because you tried to shove the wedding cake into my face.  Not cool!

Speaking of Strawberries, I planted a whole strawberry patch!  All I could think about the whole time is how much you would have loved if I did that years ago.  We now have six, good sized rows.  I really do feel you guiding me.  It was amazing because about 3 weeks back I kept posting pictures of strawberry stuff on Breathing's Face Book page and that same week at my orthodontist appointment, the assistant and I started talking gardening and she mentioned that she is going to thin out her strawberry patch.  I said, "I'll take them!!!"  and Viola! We have baby strawberries!  

It has really been a Godsend.  Because of the strawberries, and the preparation thereof, I have been wearing my gardening hat at 8:am in the morning.  It feels good.  It feels good on the outside and on the inside.  To be out there, not caring what anyone thinks, and why should I?  I am doing what you and I loved doing together.  Boy, after losing you, I had the hardest time carrying on working in the yard because you and I spent most of our free time together doing it together.  We found it so beautiful and it almost hurt to do it without you.  The same goes for traveling.  Everywhere I went, I remembered everything we ever saw together.  And, we put on a lot of miles with each other.  When I do these things now, I feel it is when I am closest to you.  

Thank Goodness for Spring.  It literally has come to save me.  I love you so much!  ~And I will see you tomorrow in the garden.  

~Breathing