Moment of Silence

I saved my "ExtraBucks" from CVS lately, and bought myself a scented candle last night when I picked up my 4 new scripts. That brings my total for the month of May at 9 scripts. I always *love* (sarcasm) spending time deciding if I need to buy electricity or medicine each month.


But. I splurged and bought a $3 candle.
And my room smells nice. Relaxing.
Reminds me of the candles Wash would buy for me/us. Reminds me of the small signs he cared.

As I was walking home from the pharmacy last night, I realized with some quick math that Wash and I had walked that same stretch at least 600 times together. Probably closer to 800.
I could see the changes, like small photographs being flipped together. Winter, summer, seasons changing. Building being torn down and built up. The first few hundred walks, and then a Ghost Rider bicycle on the corner appears on 10 May 2010.
There are flashing lights, sirens. We are escorted to the other side of the street, and decide to walk home instead of further down the street.

It is now cooler, almost "cold" for Arizona. We are walking, hand in hand as always, Wash to my right side. He is wearing his "GEEK" black knit hat. He is laughing at something. His beard is thick, and I can see all the colours in it. Reds, blondes, browns.

It is a spring night. I am holding his hand with my right, and a bag in my left carrying Ginger Beer for us. He is walking slower now, but still laughs. There is a slight breeze, carrying the spiced scents of the Thai restaurants towards us. He is excited about his upcoming Stand-Up show.

It is summer now, and hot. Blinding. No more shade. Even the birds are standing in a single file row in the 4" of shade cast from a light pole. Wash is at home, no longer able to walk with me.

The photos blur faster. Rewind. I am out of breath pushing him in his wheelchair. We are trying to get early to "Wicked", our last anniversary present. Wash is angry and yelling, I am stressed and tired. Everything feels uphill at that moment.

Backwards. It is late fall. I am tired from work and moving. Wash is tired from moving, work, and school. He stops me from my load of laundry and pulls me outside. It is November 2008. We are on our first walk through our new neighbourhood together. His hand holds my right one. He is pointing out the styles of the apartments, townhomes, brownstones around us. He is wearing his work/welding boot and walking with large steps. I have to remind him to slow down, I cannot walk as fast.

Time ceases to be linear in my mind. It is past and present at the same time. Blank spots for the future. Images imagined of what could-have-been, what should-have-been.

He throws his head back, his neck long and scruffy with red tinged hair. He laughs. He smiles.
He leans closer and kisses me. I am flush with warmth.



I am home. The street is dark. The trees and front flowerbed across the street are gone, along with the kind older woman who tended to them daily, and spoke often to me about plants and gardens. The lights in front of my complex are different, installed a few years ago. The tree in our front yard is missing the large branch that a storm blew into my neighbours' bedroom window three winters ago.
Everything is different, and the same.

But I am now walking alone. The feeling of Wash holding my hand fades.


I walk inside my home. No longer "ours". He is gone. His welding boots are still on the shoe bench by the front door.

I light the candle. The scent takes me back in time again. I eat, I take my pills. I try to sleep.
I snuff the candle, but the smell hangs in the air, light, and comforting.


I am awake now. It is dark, still nighttime. I am hearing shadows of voices. Male? Female? Faint, but untraceable. My house is empty save for the cats and me.
I go back to my dark bedroom and hug Hoban tight. It is faint, but he still smells of Wash. The stuffed bear hold many hugs, and a small stuffed heart kissed by my Love when we had the bear made.


For the first time in weeks, I sleep.
I sleep, and I am thankful I do not dream.


The room is silent now, save for the typing and fans. My candle is lit again.
Tears are falling while I write.

There is a sense of emptiness. The last exhalation before a gasp and holding.
There is Silence.

I am Alone.

There is only physical self. Gaius-Wash is silent today.

Struggles

Redbox is giving me a free rental tomorrow.
Going to see Cloud/Atlas with my mum.
Eating dinner with my family at my favourite Mexican food restaurant.
Going bowling after.
Birthday pie.

I am going to try to enjoy it.

In truth, I am struggling a lot with stopping my brain from just constantly re-living the 25th, 26th, 27th of October 2009. When we found the tumor. When my life changed completely, and my world stopped on its axis.
When my future and dreams were stripped away by a connected group of rogue cells 9cmx5cmx3cm.

Tomorrow will be my first birthday as a Widow. My first birthday without my husband.

Today is even one minute at a time.

I have some great friends who sent me a LEGO set and Fringe. 

If anyone is wanting to send me a little "birthday" something, I do have a amazon wishlist, or the Fundly Site is still running for another two weeks. I do still need to figure out some monetary needs for his memorial service, and to cover back the cost of his body removal/cremation. Not surprisingly, his family did not help with that. Thankfully, we found a place to take care of it as "cost" so it was only a bit over $600... but as I still have not even received my $225.00 "funeral" settlement from Social Security...  there are stresses. 

Now is not the time to talk about those issues though. That just leads me to a place of hurt, anger, and betrayal. 

I've been painting a bit more, trying to take a walk each day, get myself out of the house and bed.

I'm starting to forget what he smelled like. 

Sighs

I let him sleep in for more than an hour today.

Did not help. He woke up physically rested and feeling "strong", but mentally he is off today. He has control issues and keeps showing some obsessive behaviours. He's picking at parts of his face and back and is getting to be a bit bloody. I'm going to speak to his nurses, I can't make him wear gloves every hour. I'm also watching him a lot closer, which takes away any real chance of "free" time for me, I'm stuck being close enough to him to make sure he doesn't dig a hole in his body.

I know it is not him, not my love. This is a side effect of his meds, or scar tissue, or something else. I can still hate it though.

He's so negative and nasty. He thinks he is being funny or clever, but he is just being a horrid human. The things he says... sometimes he is aware of them when I point it out, other times he literally does not remember the words that just came from his mouth. He will attack the people on tv, that is one of his more common ways to express. Gender, sex, race, all these things that I know he has never had an issue with in his life, but he sounds like some horrid extreme opposite of who he was. It always takes me by shock. He's better about not saying things out loud with a few people around us, but I see it come out when he is out in crowds. It's amazing in a horrid way how physically damaging the brain can change people in such complete and fundamental ways.

I always wait for it to pass, and for the most part after a few hours or a good sleep, it will. *My* Wash will come back, along with his sensibilities and his true kindness. Brain injuries and cancer can be so devastating and challenging.

One of the downsides is when he gets in these kinds of moods I get so tired from having to be so patient when he says things that make my head want to burst. I have to be patient and kind, and unlike being polite to a debate opponent I can't just tear apart in front of him WHY it is inappropriate/not kind to say those things. I have to see if he even knows or remembers or is aware he made the statement, tell him, wait for him to calm down, and go over why it is not "ok" to say out loud, or why he may get weird looks if he says it out loud and out side.

I love him, I hate the parts that have been stolen away by cancer and surgeries and a big fucking tumor.

Meanwhile I wait for an apology 8 days overdue. [Not Wash] People I deeply love seem to hurt me the most when I'm let down.

More later, pill time again.