Wash's Words: the e-files

Trying to make myself feel better or distracted from the disturbing trigger I had this morning which sent me into a PTSD spiral of fear and paranoia.

Here is a little taste of what the Wash I knew and fell in love with (before his cancer) was like.


May 29th, 2008

10:03 PM Kevin: BSG re-imagining, so much better than the original.

10:07 PM me: bsg?

  corry, comp slow

 Kevin: It's fine. Battlestar Galactica. Hipper, darker, edgier, deeper, so much cooler.

10:08 PM me: ah never seen it

10:09 PM Kevin: You might like it... I think I have the first couple seasons lying around here. Though everyone I know is just waiting for the DVD of the last couple seasons.

10:10 PM me: don't know if i have time to add another series to my attention, but maybe an episode or two

  whats it about

10:11 PM Kevin: The last people of mankind struggling to survive while hunted by their former creations.

10:12 PM me: robots or clones or aliens?

10:15 PM Kevin: Robots... r at least they used to be.

10:16 PM There's a miniseries premiere that kinda explains it.

  And then the rest of the series raises questions about it the whole way through.

10:18 PM me: ah

10:19 PM Kevin: Plus a huge amount of interesting questions about humanity, what it means to be so, what it takes to get to there, are people with our motivations actually human....

  It's a very rich tapestry filled with iron and allegory. Rare to find in television.

10:22 PM me: hmm'

  what network was it on>

10:23 PM Kevin: SciFi

 me: mmmm

  :)

 Kevin: Might be a reason why you woldn't have watched it.

 me: prolly

  i get the good movies and mini series on dvd

10:24 PM Kevin: It's one of the best series to own... like ever.

 me: haha

  you sound like me and firefly or robin hood

10:25 PM [have to include coupling and buffy since i own the complete series of those too]

6 June 2008
                    Kevin: That you're wierd. Not the standard, not conforming. You're wonderfully                 unique, and I've never met anyone like you. Doubt I ever will.

1:18 AM me: Damn. That's like, the nicest thing I've heard all week.

 Kevin: Well, I'll endeavour to best it before the week is out.

 me: i'm telling you, i don't know how to take compliments. it still weirds me out.

1:19 AM oh gads man. i'm perfectly happy not having an ego. you don't need to help me develop it :)

 Kevin: Who said anything about ego. It's just pure, objective truth.

1:20 AM And I'm really glad to have you around. Grinning Ear-to-ear happy.

1:21 AM me: but it's a truth i cannot see, so it's hard to accept. like, an abstract concept- infinity for example

  hahaha

  i've been singing a lot more at work.

  -apparantly

1:22 AM My being around makes you that happy? Hmmm.

 Kevin: "You're not angry with me are you? You always say 'apparently' when you're really angry"

 me: You do have a nice smile, must admit

  ............ *facepalm

  i really do say that a LOT

1:23 AM my aunt nicknamed me as a kid, Miss "Apparently"

 Kevin: And thanks, Love! :D Yup, ear to ear again.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2:07 AM
Kevin: I really enjoy making you happy. I've always held back until the right woman comes along. Doesn't happen often, and when it does, it's something extraordinary.
Like now. With you.

1st July 2008

 Kevin: That I find a lot of fun, due in no small part to it being with you.

10:25 PM me: haha

  you as well

 Kevin: I Love you.

 me: i love you

10:26 PM Kevin: It's never been like this with anyone else.

  And I like it a lot.

10:27 PM me: good

  just enjoy it then

10:28 PM Kevin: That's my plan. And I cherish it so.

NC-17

I had a quite interesting dream this weekend. I don't feel the need to get into deep details about it at the moment, but Wash was there with and for me. I've felt a bit better overall since then, and am getting a little more sleep.

Last week at my Hospice therapy I was asked to try something for a bit; "talking" to Wash. Out loud. Not like he was/is alive or dead, just as if he was next to or near by me.

It's odd.

I do it with GaiusWash, but that is just in my head, and I know it.

What I noticed pretty fast off; I don't speak anymore. Not really. Literally days can go by without me saying physically a word to another person. I sort of wish that disturbed me more than it does.

But, back to the dream. It was filled with old comforts, symbols of happier times. I feel like there is a point to it, a message. Likely coming from inside my own head, but still important.
I cannot really describe (and I've been trying all weekend) how it feels to be dreaming of one's dead beloved spouse, and being physically close with them in a dream one is aware is a dream... and to have said dead spouse miming that it's "ok" to be close to someone else.
I honestly really have. But, there at last my vocabulary fails me utterly. Because I cannot describe the feelings or sensations, though I do recall them. I can only say it felt like having a tiny, but heavy piece of guilt taken from my heart.

It is an odd sensation to having my internal monologue interrupted by my (dead) husband. He agrees. Which, as it is coming from my own head, of course.

I still think this is a weird "coping tool". But, I said I would give my therapy a real honest attempt, so I am.


I wish I had firm big news. But, trying to make contact with a country 9 hours ahead of my time zone is a bit hard logistics wise. So, it will be Tues before I have real word.
I am nervous. There is so much opportunity for me and yet so much to take care of here in AZ in the next 4 weeks if this is to happen. Everything becomes unknown and scary. But the entire future is unknown and also scary.



I spent some time on Saturday re-reading this blog. I read it in reverse timeline; it felt like a love story with a happier ending. I know exactly how much time he had. 2009 me did not. There was more Hope in the unknown then.


I am left to question. I am left to stand alone.


It feels a little like waking up from a long, long, long, long sleep with a terrible horrid and wonderful dream I remember, and as I wake realize the dream was reality. But the exhaustion is still there, the pain, the dust and cobwebs settled down on the bed on top.
But I am slowly waking, and moving, and breathing again. Still have days of tears and sobs, but also days where I have to start thinking of my own place in society. My own personal value. What I am worth, really? What do I give? What do I leave?
I am not Buffy, Kara or Faith. I reject the idea that my gift is Death, that I am the one to lead to the End.
I am real. My life is often a mirror to the sad and horrid scripted things we entertain ourselves with, but my life is only scripted by me.
I suppose I am now realizing that I don't want it written with a short end.


Saturday I was out after end of Sabbath and walking to get some milk and eggs to bake a cake. At the same cross-street where the bicyclist had been fatally hit back in May of 2010, I was witness on Sat to another car on bicycle accident. I literally watched the car plow right into the cyclist. Honestly, with the way she hit him and how he fell, if he had not been wearing a helmet, I have no doubt he would be dead- or on the way to it. I stayed and gave the Police a statement. Then once I knew the kid was going to be ok, I continued on to get my milk and eggs. [The cake turned out wonderfully.]
I was walking and about 50-60' from the intersection corner when it happened- on my side of the street.
I just remember running towards the kid lying in the street.


Seems I can't just "turn it off", that part of me. I see someone in trouble, in need, I am the person who runs TOWARDS.
Not often, but times like Saturday night do make me reflect and wonder if I am really "done" with the medical field. I was never wanting to work on living patients anyway, and it all became too much after Wash passed. But, I can't just turn it off. I don't think I have it in me to stop helping.
Maybe his death has not pushed me quite all the way to "Evil Genius" member of the Evil League of Evil.

I am working on me. Myself. No longer a "We". The single, lonesome "I".



He was worth it. Even in pain, in tears, I never waver or doubt that.
Wash was worth it. So much more than I could give.

I still say "I love you." out loud. That much I never stopped. Not "loved". Current tense. I still tell him that before I go to sleep each night. I may not speak much, but the last words each night after my Shema are "I love you."
Whenever in Time, Wherever in Space, I love you, Wash.

Hard Words

It's been a while since I've felt comfortable enough, or had the precise words to explain what is going on in my life past the physical details. [Foot not fully broken/fractured, still fraked up for a few weeks.]

Births, marriages, engagements, deaths- too many, pregnancies, jobs, new locations.
This is the excitement and progress of my friends and family.

I am happy for them. I have far more hope for any of them than I hold for myself.

Roger Ebert in one of the short notes he sent to me said that it was alright to write about the horrid parts of life. The nasty parts of cancer not shown in those films with a happy ending. It is ok to share the utter desperation, the desires, the lowering of one's self on the chance for mercy from a world that holds no "fairness".
"Truth is not always a happy ending." R.E.

How very true.


This post might hurt. It hurts to write, and I'm sure for some it will hurt to read. Cancer and dying hurts too. Living and knowing the one person you loved, who loved you back, is gone and will never ever come back- hurts.

"Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." - W. Goldman [The Princess Bride]

When we got married slightly to this theme, that quote meant something so different to me. Wash inscribed my wedding band with "As You Wish" on it.
It's quite amazing how much foreshadowing our relationship has without either of us really picking up on it. I had him nicknamed "Wash" within weeks of us dating. We both knew what happened to Hoban in "Serenity".


I am not "stuck". I am however, mad lately. I'm mad that people around me who have not felt this pain feel it is appropriate to tell me how to deal with my pain. I'm mad that they think there is some magic number of weeks, months, or time that can pass before I should be where they want.
I'm mad that people want the Tashi "back" that does not exist anymore.
She's gone just as surely as her Wash. Never coming back.
I think that acceptance is slowly happening.

I'm mad at myself for hurting at someone else's happiness. I am utterly confused at how it is possible for me to feel so happy to see friends get married, or have a child, or get hired at their dream career, or become pregnant- and so mad at my own life for being deprived of that.
I had 4-6 weeks of marriage before the cancer began to grow in his brain.
Twice we almost stayed pregnant. Twice we both held onto Hope that in some way (biologically at the very least) Wash could continue on. Twice it ended in blood, pain, and tears.
Leto the cat is now the only living part of Wash I still have, or can hold.

I find less and less to talk about, socially. I have little I can relate to with my peers.
The Widow's support group is also made up of people in pain like me, but all so much older. All who had time or a chance at a life with the one they loved. They had children, reasons to wake in the morning and function. They had homes they built up together that they could get comfort from. Years, sometimes decades of memories to hold on to. To recall. To soothe.

I am mad at the people who suggest that because I was "only" married for a short time that I can/could/should "move on" now. That 6 months is enough time to "heal".
I am mad at those who imply I will have or find love again. I had it once. I found him once. I gave my heart and soul once. Who are they to know my intentions? Who besides my own self should say if I even desire to love again?

I am at the age where so many of my peers are married, engaged, pregnant, or having children. Over and over I see milestones I wanted to have myself, and cannot.
I will never have a new birthday card from my husband again. I'll never hear him sing to me that I'm his "Queen of Argyle".

I have pain. I have sorrow. I have tears. I have little Hope to share.
I have a large space to carry pain, to support others. Some days I wake as Atlas, carrying the weight of the world upon myself, and not questioning why I do this. Why I carry this burden.

I am hurt that Cancer keeps stealing people we love. I am tired of this. I am 26 and so tired.
I carry Hope, but it is not a weightless burden.

Hope is painful. Hope does not protect the heart. Or the brain. Hope is irrational, one of the confusing parts of being human I am still trying to comprehend.

When I began this written record I chose "Learning to Hope" in the sense of Hope for my Wash. For his future, for his fight, for us. Now, I think the Hope is for me. How to keep wanting to Hope, when I know so well how much it can hurt. How the nights are spent either awake, afraid of the silence and dark, or sleeping restlessly in a dream of chasing someone I can never catch.
Hope that someday life will become desirable, not just passive, waiting for the moment I breathe out but not in.
How do I continue on, when I still hear him in my head? When I can still read his stories and words? See the world from his eye in his photographs.

He is gone but save a digital footprint of his existence.

And, yet.
Yet...

He is the Gaius to my Six.
Whispering in my ears. Touching my hair. Standing in his kilt. Kissing my neck. He lives in me, in my brain, in the memories he shared and gave to me to hold. I cannot begin to imagine how one can "get over" that.


This is my pain. My grief. My anger. My sadness. My soulmate. My timeline.
My life and future to mourn.


Yes, I still hurt. I can smile, but I ache.
I feel a need to hide away from the happy world. From the lives others are living. I am not living. I exist right now.


Is this the trade-off? Is this the start of my re-payment? A karmic debt I owe?
Is this the price of love? Of the short, but fully complete happiness I once had?

I think I am still too young to say that for certainty. I think I am not omnipotent enough to say that for certainty.

If this pain is the start of the price I now pay, I owe.
I owe this pain, and I own it.

I gave my self and my heart up to him. I willingly gave it. I gave him everything I could.
From 2008-2012 I had his love in return. I had him. I had unconditional love for all of me. I had more than a friend. I had more than a lover. I truly knew Hope, in a painless sense, then.
I had his love.

If this pain is my price, it is mine.
I would do it all over again, in a hummingbird's heartbeat. Knowing the pain, the tears, the sadness, the blood, the loss. I would do it again.
He was worth it. 4 years, or 40 seconds. His love was worth it.
It does not ease the pain, does not put a balm on my wounds, but it is the truth.
I would put myself through every bit of this pain again, for him.


I can wish my story had a happy ending. I can wish it was a different type of cancer, a different disease, a life of health. I can write that we struggled, but overcame and lived happy forever until we both died on the same day, decades after our marriage. I can write we had children, and grandchildren. I can write we both had perfect dream lives.
But I write truth here, not fiction.

There is no "happy ending" in my life. My love story is a tragedy, not a happily ended romance.



Photo is from approx 2004-06 from Wash's Speech Black Book. [Speech and Debators will know this.]
This is his opening selection from "Will the Circle be Unbroken" by Studs Terkel that he used in an Oratory or Dramatic piece.

Afterwards

There is always love in the world.
Even if it does not know you by name.
Even if it does not come with your image.
Even if it travels from around the globe, or across the city.
Love comes from family. Friends. Partners. Soulmates.
Children can love with freedom and enthusiasm that sometimes fades as we age.
There is love for the newly born, and those departed.
There is love for the past, and for the future.

There is love in the smallest of kind acts, and love spread across millions or billions.
There is love from religion, and love from science, and atheism.

It can be hard to see the love around, sometimes. Often when we cannot hear it given directly to us.
But it exists. As surely as there is human capacity to think, reason; there is also the deepest capacity to love.

Happiest Pi day of my life

Android Sheep

Another bad night for me.
Adjusting to Widowhood is not easy. For every reason.

I am sad and missing my husband, my late husband, very much.

I will not be shamed about my choice to be more open and public with my grief.
It is far too stigmatized and misunderstood as is, despite almost all the human population feeling it at some point in their life, or several.

Did I laugh today? Yes.

Am I still sad to be going to bed alone tonight, without the person who should be there? Yes.

Grief is complicated, and unique to every person.
This is mine.

I went grocery shopping today.
I cleaned. Did dishes. Took care of laundry and my cats.
I also spent a half hour sobbing on my kitchen floor. Later on, more tears with a pillow.

There have been more functional days, and days where I've started to have more intense emotions, often overwhelming.

It is a mix every time I wake if I think I'm still dreaming, or if I recall right away that he is gone.

He is my husband. He was my late husband.
Such difference in emotion in those phrases, what information it conveys.

I see time like I never have before.

Soaring

More to come.

Wibbly Wobbly

I grew up with The Doctor.

I even watched the movie of the 8th.

But it was not until I began to date Wash that I learned of the re-launch.
He was SO excited to share it with me, he even did it out of linear order.
The first episode I ever saw with him was "The Forest of the Dead".

Alex Kingston as Prof River Song had me in tears by the end of the episode, with no other context than that one episode.
We were both huge Moffat fans and he wanted a "Grand Moff" episode to reel me in.
It worked.


Then again, maybe there was a reason this was the first episode we saw together.
Things are not always in a ... timeline order.
We saw this before we married. I did not have cable, Wash did. He got BBC and convinced me back in the summer of 2008 to watch an episode.
I was already pretty smitten with Wash by then, but enjoying that episode with him, sharing those moments were so happy. I was able to be myself, to enjoy something "geeky" (it was not NEARLY as popular a few years ago as it is now) and to not be judged but fully accepted.
Wash had some wonderful foresight.

He said I would love Donna. I did.
He said I would love River Song. I did.

"The Doctor, in the TARDIS... Next stop; Everywhere."
"Spoilers!"

4 long years ago. Spoilers, indeed.
So much to come. So much pain. So many happy moments.
A lifetime in the blink of an eye.

I miss him, MY love, MY TimeLord.
It's like living with an echo in my mind.

"You and me. Time and Space. You watch us run."


Doctor: Come on, next chapter's this way.
Song: When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies. And nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever, for one moment, accepted...
Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. 
Not today.
Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all.
Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million day when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call...every body lives.



The time I had with you, Wash, I would not have a line of it re-written.
You live on in me.

Cannot erase our love

Small Photo break today.

I see these Post-It notes he left every day. I see them, read them, and remind myself of his words often.

I have been feeling hurt, angry, and rage filled lately at the opinion of some who by all seeming means, are literally trying to erase me from my husband's life.
Erase what we had.
What he did for me, what I did for him.
Erase the last years of his life.
Erase his happy smiles.

I am angry, because to me, Wash's love for me was just so obvious. Hopefully as my love was to him.
Clear and ever present.
He was the best thing to happen to me, and often said I was the same to him.
That cannot be taken away.


Love find ways to stay, even if the person who loved is no longer around.
His words are. His message. His intent.
His love.

***********************************************************************************

"Future me:
Be excellent to Tashi Today!
Past me"

"Is it possible for me to love my wife... more than I do?
I do hope so."

"Tashi, you deserve far more than what I have to offer. But I'll give you what I can for as long as I can.
Because I love you.
Wash"

3.14159

My husband,

I love you.

Happy 3 years of living our vows, every day.

We've gone through the shit, and we have had a few glorious moments which I can hope I will never forget.

We have had our days and even short weeks of triumph and an even more precious bond.

You still make me laugh. You still teach me things, every day.

You introduced me into a world of new adventures, new images. You taught me what "Steampunk" was (and was NOT), and you welded me a throne- "For my Queen" you said. I still have it, and will as long as I live.

You crafted me matching Steampunk Goggles to your own; but with all the details for me.

The "something blue" from our wedding is kept inside the Codex you made.

You introduced me to the 9th Doctor, and in turn I showed you the 8th, and who *my* Doctor was growing up. We enjoyed laughing at the humour of Tom Baker together.

After our first real and proper date you had my heart when you said you would be happy to just to watch "Serenity" with me- no pressure for anything more than sharing a love of Joss. We did.

You showed me what the Firefly RPG was. I showed you my film collection and musicals; you had me laughing my pants off at your Jeeves & Wooster collection.

You introduced me to so many mediums of Science-Fiction I did not know existed. We bonded over shared hobbies, and you introduced me to some shows and writers I aspire to be like. You introduced me to strong creative women like Jane Espenson, Marti Noxon, and Cherie Priest.

I introduced you to my favourite female authors like Syne Mitchell and Laurie R King.

You were fine and happy that we proposed to each other.

You loved having a bride who wore a Red, not White, dress.

You wore a kilt for me.

We had two days of Honeymoon looking at Steam Trains. My heart was so big to see how happy you were around those engines and steel and steam.

You worked for me, while you could. You wrote for me.

We shared books, and stories.

You had me read "Watchmen"; and we both took a love story from that. Never knowing then how true it would really be.

You respected how having Aspergers' makes me- different. My "death shadow" never scared you. You were interested in learning about what I was in school for. You were not scared that I was around dead humans. You were proud of the work I did. You told me often.

You made me feel that even though it was often confusing, I could in fact, love that deeply.

You helped me to understand my feelings, understand what the stimulus was. Understand the motivation that falls in line with what we consider to be "unconditional love".

You built me a garden. Twice.

You took me to 'Cons. You gave me the chance to meet some of my favourite actors and idols.

You spent years bonding with my cat, even when she was not nice at all.

You care. My Wash, you care.

You have always been supportive of who I am, what I love, and what I care about.

You give me the motivation and inspiration to always be better, to be patient, to be kind, to be loving.

You are the person I want to touch as I fall asleep every night. You are the person I want to speak my last words to every night, "I love you".

You push me to keep living, every day.

Even in the bad times, you are still my best friend.

I will take happily every day I am allowed to wake up next to you, my love. For however long we get.

Happy 3rd Wedding Anniversary.

Whatever I do for you, I can hope it is a reflection of the love you have given to me.

Thank you for these 3 years of being my husband.

Thank you for being my Wash.

I love you.