8-26-01

Now the six week countdown begins.

I made the trip to be with you, buddy boy. Sorry there was so much separating us on a day we should have been celebrating together.

On a lighter note, visted the fam last week. They are doing well. The girls are getting so big.

Keep an eye on my LO, okay? Love you.

It is June 25th, again.

Seven years ago March, my cousin and I were checking out a facility to possibly rent for my wedding. She was going to be my matron of honor and I in turn would be in her wedding scheduled about a month before my own. Since we were little girls, we had always heard how much we looked alike. Kinda like the closest thing I had to having my very own sister.

Seven years ago today was a really bad day. I woke up from an awful nightmare that I had about said cousin being shot and killed. It was pretty traumatic. I remember I had to work. My fiance aka buddy boy was still laying in bed and I had just gotten out of the shower and was on the phone arguing with the phone company about transferring our current number to a new residence.  I became SO upset that I started crying when I hung up. I was ticked off to say the least. NKOTB had just been on the TV as well which was strange since they had disbanded 7 years before. I finished getting ready for work and headed to the library. While I was having some down time, I decided to email my cousin. I thought about telling her about the dream but decided against. it. Anyway, I wrote her about the wedding stuff and responded to some other things we had talked about last. Later that day, I checked my email to see if she had responded and found this from her sister:

“hi everyone. i’m writing to let you know that my sister, name omitted, was in a fatal car accident this morning on her way to school…”

I am still in shock about that I think. We still don’t have any conclusive answers about what happened. We know her 2 seater car was crushed after it crossed into oncoming traffic and slammed into the rear axle of a semi truck. She was not wearing her seatbelt, not that it would have mattered. But, she most likely wouldn’t have been flung from her car and on her face when help arrived if she had been strapped in. Adding insult to injury, I guess (pardon the pun).

She left behind her mom, dad, two sisters, her fiance and their 1 yr. old baby boy. He had just turned one a few weeks before. It is still so hard to deal with that. She was just 23 years old. I miss you, biffy.

 

 

Always looking-

To this day I try to find him. Not just in the ways you might think either. I really look. Last week I saw a picture of some soldiers over yonder outside of a tent or something. It was a candid shot but one of the guys had similiar coloring to my husband. I thought, is THAT where he has been? He shows up in various stores too. One day there was this man walking around a Target I think and he was older and looked nothing like my husband but I ‘felt’ him in this man. The WEIRD thing was that when I pointed him out to the friend I was with and she said that she thought he looked like my husband and had just been thinking of this. Then he was gone.

I find him in his dad and his brothers too. I think that is more to be expected though. He looks a lot like his older brother but has many of the same mannerisms of his oldest brother and dad. It is also kinda freaky how they all sound just like him. Okay, not the dad as much but definitely the boys. It feels good to be around them but ever so painful too. I have to wonder if my presence for whatever reason reminds them of him too?

Sometimes I look for him in not so pleasant ways. Shortly after his death, I was told that they might have to exhume his body to do an autopsy (another story, another day). I became quite preoccupied with this horrific thought. I would think my life was destined to crumple around me even further so I just knew any crazy thing was about to happen. I dreamed about and then worried about finding something of his that he was suppose to be wearing in the casket, somewhere else. In my dream it was his underwear and I found them by the grave site. In real life, it was him I actually had to look for in the shower. I had to check because that image was enough to scare the crap out of me and I had to make sure it hadn’t actually happened. CRAZY sounding, I know but grief will get to you that way. Fortunately, I have not found him in my shower and haven’t looked for sometime. Obviously, the thought is still there.

Yes, I pretty much saw him die. I saw him after he died. I saw him at the funeral home looking not so great and for surely dead. Doesn’t stop me from believing and making up all kinds of stories in my head that prove he is actually somewhere, anywhere else. The logical side of my brain knows he loves/loved me. He wouldn’t/couldn’t just up and leave. That he is acutally dead.

It is my hopeful, sad, full of denial spirit that keeps him shopping at Target.