Happy Sad

     I have a strange mix of emotions these days.  I am so very happy to have found love again and to have found a man who thinks I hung the moon, loves God, loves my kids and grand kids and respects that I will always still love Tom.  But, there always seems to be a "but"  anymore.  As we rapidly approach Christmas there are many, many reminders of what we have all lost.  Just because I am quite happy right now does not mean the loss is any less staggering at times.

     One of our family traditions is to buy each person an ornament each year that has some significance to their life that year.  Our tree is a family history book for us.  A Cheshire cat for the year Jesse got his braces off.  A slice of pizza for when Jordan worked at Round Table Pizza, Disney ornaments from the year we went to Disney World...  They are all constant reminders of where we have been.  Many of you are hanging a turtle on your tree this year in remembrance of Tommy the Turtle as he so proudly called himself after he broke his foot in 3 places while going through chemo and radiation.  Decorating the tree has been a happy sad experience for me the past 2 years.  This year I wanted to let each of the kids pick one of their dad's ornaments but I am just not ready yet.  Not ready to let that go yet.

     I have a dry erase board in my quilting room that has a note Tom wrote to me on it.  Can't bring myself to erase it so I thought I might give it to one of the kids.  They did not want it.  Ouch, that kind of hurts.  It is precious to me but perhaps not appropriate as I get ready to marry Steve.  By the way, he embraces that history and would not mind if I kept it up.

     So, all of this to say that I have been dealing with a lot of stress and unwelcome thoughts.  I worry a lot.  I worry about broken relationships.  I worry about how my kids are dealing with this major life change for me.  I worry about how well I will deal with the life change once we are finally married and living in the same house.   I worry about.....   Since September the panic attacks have amped up.  I had one very, very bad one while we were all in Sunriver and it seems to have started the snowball rolling downhill.

    I read a widows blog and she often writes my life.  Her husband died unexpectedly 2 days before Christmas 2 years ago from the flu.  He was only 30.  She too has panic attacks.  Here is part of what she posted today and I think it rings true for so many of us.  She wrote this after she ended up in the ER with symptoms of a heart attack which were really just a severe panic attack.

The nurse said, "Tricia, for every single thought you have, your body gives a physiological response.  Every single thought.  Your subconscious mind can process 40,000 bits of information per second, while your conscious mind can process 40 per second, and your body is responding to all of these.  Is there an emotional trauma you're dealing with?"

Um, yes.

"You need to take every thought captive.  If your mind starts repeating like a broken record, scratch the record and start over.  Break the thought patterns, and you can change your physiology. And remember, worry is only a prayer for something you don't want."

Family Vacation

Last Friday we went to the beach for the weekend.  All of us.  The girls and their families, Jordan (Elisa had to work), Jesse and his girlfriend, also an Emily, and Steve and I.  It was our first family retreat without Tom and oh, the missing crept in.  I missed him as I packed.  I missed the chaos that seemed to follow Tom wherever he went.  The chaos that drove us all nuts but this weekend we missed so much.  I could picture him sprawled out on the floor acting as a grand-baby jungle gym.  I missed his infectious laughter.  I was doing pretty well until I caught a glimpse of Jesse in the hot tub and at that moment he was the spittin image of his dad.  It was surreal.  I tried not to cry - never a wise decision for me as it almost always leads to a panic attack, which it did.  When I retired to my room I started shaking uncontrollably - my pre-panic attack warning signal.  Steve knows the signs and wrapped his arms around me and let me pour out my grief.  My fears of not knowing who I am or how I fit into this family of mine.  My grief over the fact that my life has not gone at all as I had planned.  Tom and I were a team.  This was supposed to be our team.  These were supposed to be OUR golden years where we basked in the joy of our grandchildren.  Life is just so unfair sometimes.  He so would have loved those babies.
     As for me I am often left to wonder who I am any more.  Being these kids mom and Tom's wife was who I was.  I never desired more.  I was very content in that role and now everything has changed.  They don't need me in the same way anymore and I am no longer Tom's wife.  I was very thankful Steve came because I think my feeling of being lost in this crowd of mine would have been so much worse had I not brought this man who gives me hope that God is not done writing my story.  Hope that God will give me new dreams in place of the ones that will never come true.  Hope that there is love after loss even when it does not make the loss any less of a loss.  I grieve the life I dreamed of.  I grieve the lack of children in my home.  I grieve getting old as Oma and Opa.  Yet, I look forward to what God has in store with hopeful anticipation.  He is not done writing my story and so far I like the way this story begins.  There are days when I can't wait to turn the next page but still many days when I long for the last chapter to be just a little bit longer.  Days when I long for the ending I thought I was going to have.  Days when it feels like yesterday and when it feels like life is just so not fair.

God is a good God who is one step ahead of us all the time.  He knows the plans He has for us.  He plans to give us a hope and a future, even when it may feel like all your dreams have died.  He is a dreamweaver.  The ultimate imagineer.  Oh, Walt Disney would have loved what God could dream up!