It's Not All Bad

It's been almost a year and a half since my husband of 21 years died of bile duct cancer. Grief is still a significant part of my daily life. It is the filter that is applied to nearly all of my experiences whether I like it or not.

Sometimes I do like it. I like being reminded of Brian. I like recognizing his influence in my world. I like when things happen that would make him laugh or when I see something I know he would react to. I like sitting on his bench and feeling connected to his memory. I like hearing the songs that transport me back to 1993 and his blue Chevy Malibu. We fell in love in that car listening to songs like Kashmir, Beth, More Than a Feeling and pretty much anything by Def Leppard. When these memories trigger grief it might look like sorrow or pain, but it's not. It is its own feeling to be felt and it is good to feel it.

I thought I had more to say here, but as it turns out, I don't.

Turkey Legs! AZ Renaissance Fair

Living In My Own World

For the first several months after Brian died, my only goal was to recall the feeling of him being with me. I would smell his clothes in the closet, I would hug his pillows or try to conjure up conversations with him in my mind. I wanted very much to continue living with him in the past. I don't anymore.

People like to tell me that Brian is still with me or that he is proud of me for this or that. I know that these people are trying to be helpful and kind, but nothing causes me more anxiety than thinking Brian can see me or that he cares what I do. It imposes the idea that he still exists on Earth and that I might hurt him with my actions and decisions. 

I am failing by Brian's standards. He would see no value in the time and energy I've spent crying over him. He would probably be upset to find that, after all of the drama and conflict in our marriage over starting a family, I'm actively avoiding having children in my life. He would be completely unhappy to know I've risked losing everything he worked for in order to start my own business, and I can't even begin to imagine what he might think about how I'm managing my social life at the moment. 

One of the most comforting concepts for me in grief is the knowledge that nothing I do has any impact on Brian. I am accountable only to myself and no one else.  Whether he is in heaven or whether he is no more at all, he's not paying any attention to me. I actually like the idea that I'm on my own and that I don't need to concern myself with what Brian thinks or would think of how I'm living my life. 

I loved Brian and the life he built for us, but he's gone now. I believe he is in heaven and that whatever he is experiencing now is so much better than anything he could possibly be missing. I sincerely hope that it would never occur to him to look back on me or this world. Not only do I want these things for him, but it is the only way I have the freedom and autonomy needed to carry on with my own life. 

I lived in Brian's world and it was a fantastic place to be. There were roller coasters and cotton candy and music and popcorn and video games and lots of colorful, sparkly things. I loved living in Brian's world, but the park is closed now and if I stay there, I'll decay with the rest of it. 

Drone footage of the now-abandoned

 Geauga Lake Amusement Park in Ohio.

Where's My Gold Star?

Tomorrow will be the anniversary of my husband, Brian's death. He was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma‎, a rare and aggressive form of cancer on May 7th, 2015 and passed away about six weeks later. He was 42 and I would be 39 for another month and a half.

I remember negotiating with him to hold on until my birthday. I didn't want to be widowed in my thirties. I didn't want to celebrate my 40th birthday without him. The pool was almost done and if he could just hold on until my birthday and swim with me on my birthday, somehow that would make it less bad. The reality of what was happening to him wasn't a part of my thought process.

I don't know if the doctors failed to help me understand or if I just couldn't comprehend it.

On our last day in the hospital, Brian walked himself with a walker and a little help to the bathroom in his hospital room. I encouraged him to try it because I thought he would need to be able to use a walker while he was in hospice care at home and I wanted to make sure he knew how. It must have caused him excruciating pain, but he did it. When it was time to walk back to his bed, he looked at me and asked, "How am I going to do this?"

I assured him that the bedside commode at home was inches from his bed and that if he could do what he had just done, he could do everything he needed to do at home. With the help of an orderly, he walked back to his bed. It was the last time he would ever walk.

The next day he had a drain to help alleviate the pressure in his stomach from the ascites, after that he felt pretty good (for a person dying of bile duct cancer). All of his dietary restrictions had been removed, so he asked me to get him a big breakfast from the McDonald's up the road.

I think in 21 years of marriage, I've never gone through the drive through without something going wrong and this was no different. I was so happy that he wanted McDonalds. Food had been such a struggle and he hadn't wanted to eat...but I wanted to get back to him. I was in a big damned hurry because I was missing out on the limited time I had left while I sat in the drive-through line. I didn't know that it would be his last meal. I might have been in less of a hurry and made sure the order was right before I drove off. Instead, as has been the case every time I've ever ordered breakfast from McDonald's, I didn't have the hotcakes.

I could see how disappointed he was and offered to go back, but he said he wasn't that hungry and it would be ok. A year later I'm still sick to my stomach when I think about messing that up. If you think it wasn't important and that he probably didn't care, you are wrong. He didn't care about the pancakes more than he cares about me. He wouldn't want me to be upset over it. But I promise you that he cared and that it was a huge disappointment and it was entirely my fault.

Somewhere around the middle of the day the hospice transport folks came and put Brian on the kind of gurney that goes in an ambulance and they brought him home.

While he was in the hospital, California Pools had been very busy pouring concrete and trying like hell to get the pool done in time.

The hospice transport guys didn't want Brian to have to walk at all so they lifted him up like you might do with a couch to get him around the area in front of the master bedroom. While he was lifted up he could see the pool through the windows and door. I don't know if he did actually see it, but he looked like he was looking out at it at that moment. There was a lot going on and the transport experience had not been good for him. He was in pain and confused and I was just trying to make sure I understood what I was happening and we never got a chance to talk about the pool. So I don't know if he saw it. 

When the nurse came, she wanted to know our priorities and we told her it was very important for him to be able to go in the pool with me on my birthday. We told everyone we encountered that our goal was just to swim together on my birthday.

I feel like someone, somewhere along the line, should have told us how completely unrealistic that goal was. I guess they didn't know. No one really accepted, I think even the doctors and nurses, didn't really accept that cancer could kill a strong and generally healthy 42-year-old man in a little over a month. It probably seemed reasonable that he would have at least another 3 or 4 weeks. 

But he didn't. 

So now that he was home and in his own bedroom, but he wasn't in his own bed. The hospice bed had a footboard on it and it was about 4 inches too short and he couldn't get the angle right to be comfortable so he was very agitated, but he tried hard not to let me know it. I was agitated too if I'm being honest. It was a lot to deal with. There was no doubt he was going to die. The only thing we had to hope for was more time, but he was in unimaginable pain and so uncomfortable and struggling to catch his breath and the pressure kept building up in his stomach and there was nothing I or anyone else could do for him.

His last day in the hospital was a pretty good day. He was as close to himself as he'd been in a week. The medicines were doing their job, his pain was managed and he wasn't loopy at all. He was able to talk to me and wasn't as drowsy. You may recall he was even able to walk himself to the bathroom. I don't know why, but Hospice of the Valley decided to change every single one of his medications. Instead of Dilaudid, they gave him morphine. Instead of Xanax they gave him Valium. There was an anti-nausea medicine as well but I don't remember what it was - they changed that one too.

I understand that he died of cancer and that the change in medicine did not cause his decline, but he was doing good on his hospital medicine and he did terribly on the new medicine. His pain was unbearable, we had to wait hours for a doctor to increase his dosage and it still wasn't enough. He was hallucinating and a little paranoid and unable to really engage with me or anyone else. He wasn't himself and I don't know if it was the drugs or cancer, but he was good the day before with the old drugs and even walked himself to the bathroom. He was miserable and edgy on the new drugs and I will forever and ever hate them for that.

Hate.

There was no reason to change his drugs.

He was in a restless sleep for the majority of his last days. I have Xbox one with Kinect in the bedroom and in the living room so I set up Skype as a video monitor and watched him struggle to sleep throughout the rest of the day. I slept in our bed beside him on his last night. Every hour he would wake me up to give him more pain medicine and he would say, "Tricia is it time yet?" or "Tricia I think it's time for more morphine"

I was so tired and as much as I don't want this to be true, when he woke me up for the 3 a.m. dose I recall for a moment being annoyed by it. That's how selfish I am.

I don't really remember much leading up to his final moments. It was a struggle to manage his pain and keep the liquid drained from his stomach.

At one point he decided he wanted to sleep in his own bed and managed to crawl over from his cramped hospice bed to the big king sized bed.

We tried to make that work, but we just couldn't get the angle right on the pillows so he could breathe. I'm glad he did it, though because it gave me a chance to cuddle up next to him with my head on his shoulder one last time.

But he couldn't breathe and I could tell he was fighting. I felt like he was fighting just for my benefit and as much as I wanted him not to be gone, I just couldn't stand to see the pain on his face and to watch him struggle with every movement and breath. 

I told him he didn't have to fight if he didn't want to. That I would be ok and he didn't need to hold on for my birthday or anything else.

There was a nurse there when we moved him back to the hospice bed. I don't recall anything about her. I remember the one before her because she reminded me of mom, but this one I can't bring anything about her looks to my mind. You'd think you'd remember the person who tells you you've got only hours left.

Brian's hands and feet had gotten ice cold even though he was sweating and said he was hot. The thermostat had been set at 72 in an attempt to help him feel cool, but nothing worked. His hands and feet were cold, so I covered him with a blanket.

I told him, "I know you think you are hot, but you're freezing." Then I covered him with the blanket and he replied, "Thank you. That's much better," and gave me a little sarcastic grin. I love this moment because it felt like us for a second.

The chaplain was called and Brian said he would like to say the Jesus prayer with the chaplain. I had previously told our friend Jason that he should wait until we got the medicine worked out and brian was less agitated before he came to visit, but I called him back and told him to come over right away. We called Scott for a video chat we had been meaning to set up for a few days. 

It's interesting how even when you know you have no time, you think you have more time.

Brian coughed up some bluish stuff and caught me off guard. I didn't have the little bucket thing ready and it was on him. As I cleaned him up, I promised I would be ready if it happened again.

Jason was there now and we were all just kind of hanging out. I started to get upset and Brian just said, "No, no." So I quieted down and he reassured me that "Today is not the day."

A little while later he started coughing stuff up again. In my mind it's blue, but I can't imagine why that would be. I was ready this time like I said I would be but there was a lot of it and the container I had wasn't enough. I called for my mom. I think my words were "Mom, help him!"

I didn't quite get it. I think it took us all a minute to catch up and understand where we were. Mom instructed Jason to get the suction machine and she was trying to clear the liquid and help him breathe. I had gone around behind him to lift his chest so that he was sitting forward and Jason was I think trying to turn up the suction.

When I figured out what was happening, I asked Jason to come around and hold him up and I ran around to face him. His eyes were all over the place and then they were still. Everything was still. Mom said she thought she felt a faint pulse but couldn't tell.

I was screaming at Brian, "Look at me! I wasn't looking! I didn't know! I wasn't looking! Look at me!"

He then jerked, took a deep breath, looked right at me, coughed a few more times and then his eyes were vacant and I knew he was gone.

I don't know if he intentionally smiled at me with that last look, but he did smile. I don't even know if he knows that he looked at me, but it felt meaningful. It felt like he was engaged at that moment and saying good-bye.

My first words after his death were along the lines of "Please don't leave me. Please. I can't do this." Or something like that. But then I remembered I told him he could go, so I apologized and said I'm ok. I'll be ok. I remember just screaming for a minute and sobbing while Jason and my mom tried to comfort me. 

The chaplain showed up a little bit after that and Rob and Allison came over. I called some people and my mom called some people. Robert came over. I don't think anyone else was there. My dad was flying in the next day.

We sat with Brian's body and the dogs came up and said their own goodbyes. They stayed with him as we dealt with the logistics of the situation.

I couldn't be there when they took him out. I knew from when they brought him home that they would have to treat him like furniture and I just didn't want to have that as a memory.

Jason sat with me in another room while Robert helped my mom get everything taken care of.

I came out and watched the ambulance drive away and then went back into the house not quite sure what to do with myself.

---------
I was told that I would be numb for about a week and that my mind would start to come back after a month or two. I was advised not to make any decisions for at least a year.


I don't know that anyone ever actually set the expectation that it takes a year to grieve a loss of this magnitude, but for some reason, I thought I would be put back together and ready for the rest of my life. I thought after a year I would get a gold star and graduate to some advanced level of widowhood.

A lot has changed, in the past year and I'm much better at living my life with all of this rattling around in my head, but it's still in there and on the anniversaries and birthdays and holidays it overpowers any other thoughts which makes it really hard to function.

I get flashbacks of the traumatic moments. I relive the emotions and am overwhelmed. I think sometimes the pain of it is even deeper in these times because I have a greater understanding of exactly what was lost.

I am not a fully functional human this weekend and expect tomorrow to be the worst day since the last worst day. 

Please recognize that I'm simply documenting this experience and not asking for help with it. Sometimes being alone for this stuff is better. I can experience the emotions at a level of intensity that I would just never get to with another person around and there is value in experiencing these things at that level. 

Dating Games (and Apps)

The thing I'm struggling with at the moment is not something I'm super amped to talk about publicly, but when I started writing about this experience I dedicated myself to being honest about it, so here goes.

I made plans today to hook up with a guy from Tinder just to see what it would feel like. I ended up canceling, but the whole scenario has created something of an identity crisis.

I've been doing really well lately, but every step forward in my new life is a step away from my past life. The further I get from feelings of grief and the pain of losing my husband, the closer I get to the emptiness of being alone. I feel more like a single person and less like a widow and that comes with its own set of grief and pain.

In an attempt to deal with the loneliness, I've been swiping through Tinder and lurking around on Plenty of Fish and considering the idea of dating again.

At first, I was kind of relieved to find that I had no interest in any of the men on these sites. It was an ego boost to swipe left and declare the guy with sleeve tattoos and a Patriots t-shirt inadequate. I felt like I was in control...until I got to the end of the list.

I had rejected everyone within 20 miles of me in just a few hours.

That seemed a little depressing, so I expanded my search criteria and tried again. This time, I tried to be less picky and after a few right swipes, sure enough, someone messaged me.

We talked for a bit and then decided to meet for lunch. He was cute enough, not terribly bright but not intolerably dumb and he seemed polite.

I'm sure he was perfectly nice, but I'll never know because the thought of meeting a man for lunch gave me a panic attack such that I thought I was dying.  My chest was tight and I had intense pain radiating up into my jaw.

(We should pause for a minute and observe the fact that I thought I was dying of a heart attack and made no effort to get any type of medical attention. I like to think I'm doing really well with all of this, but I'm not sure it's a healthy mindset to be completely passive about one's own survival.)

I had to cancel the date which caused a shift in the entire scenario. It went from being something I was in control of to something that sent me spiraling out of control and I was not ok with that.

I can do everything I've done, but I am too afraid to go on a first date? Unacceptable.

So after a day or two, I was back to swiping and this time I was determined to actually go on a date. I made contact with a guy and went out to meet him right in that very moment. I figured if I had no time to think about it, I wouldn't have time to panic about it and I was right.

For anyone who cares, this date did NOT count. There was absolutely no attraction, but I had proven I wasn't too weak or fragile to date and the whole experience was fairly harmless.

Except it wasn't.

It wasn't harmless because it shined a light on a door that I'm so unwilling to walk through, I would rather try to solve the problem by arranging a one night stand.

This particular door includes the potential for rejection - an emotion I'm certain I'm not yet ready to face. It could also mean adding children, ex-wives and who knows what other baggage to my life. It
also raises questions about sexual morality and social norms that I honestly just don't want to deal with.

In my experience, biblical standards for sexual morality are not realistic in today's world, even amongst Christians. Attempting to follow the rules creates confusion and leads to exceptionally poor decision making based on the desire for a biblically sound physical relationship. I stuck to those standards in high school and I am completely convinced that it was a harmful decision.

Going through this door means I have to examine all of those things and figure out where I stand on the morality issues, what I want from a relationship, who I want to be as a partner and how I want to see myself as a woman.

Maybe I can just ignore it and hope it goes away. That's always an effective strategy, right?!

Brian and Tess in Williams, AZ

This story has no end

I've been meaning to write this all out for awhile now, but I'm not 100% sure where it starts and I have absolutely no idea how it ends. Regardless, I really want to get down the things I'm thinking and feeling and the confidence with which recent decisions have been made so that when the going gets tough, I'll have it to look back on.

You are welcome to apply your own logic, reason and life experience to these events and come to whatever conclusions you like, but I am telling this story based on my own logic, reason and life experience. If my interpretation of these events somehow manages to offend you, that's going to have to be your problem.

I'm going to start with my husband's death. Well, actually, I'm going to start with a brief personal history that is more important to the story than I would like it to be.

I grew up Christian. Very, very Christian. I sang in the choir, listened to musicians like Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and if I was feeling particularly spunky, Newsboys or DC Talk. I had been taught that the moment a person accepts Jesus as their personal savior, their life changes in a real and palpable way. It was supposed to be this miraculous event, but no matter how many times I'd recite the magic Jesus prayer, I'd never felt anything special. I attributed this to the fact that I was baptized as a baby and never really knew a life without Jesus in it.

 It would be inaccurate to say that I didn't worry about it, but what could I do?

When I met and married Brian, my faith became a less prominent part of my life. Culturally, I was still a Christian. I held to my Judeo -Christian values for the most part, and if asked, I would claim Christianity as my religion. Brian and I went to church together on the major holidays, and from time to time when things got rough, I'd go to church looking for answers or maybe just the comfort of the tradition and ritual that I'd grown up with.

For reasons, that don't belong in this story, I developed a bit of a fear of praying for things. I was convinced that whatever I might pray for, I would get the opposite. I decided it would be safest to just pray the Lord's Prayer (a simple prayer that Jesus taught his disciples as a template for how to pray) and try to align myself with whatever happened.

When Brian got sick, I knew that it was going to be the rekindling of my faith or the end of it.

Sadly, I could not pray for him. If I prayed for him and he died, I would feel like I killed him.

Throughout his illness, I asked everyone I know for prayer, but I was too afraid to pray anything other than the Lords Prayer. I would just recite it over and over and over in my head.

When Brian was getting ready to come home for hospice care, he had to have a procedure first. While he was having his procedure done, I stood in his room and looked out the window and prayed over and over, "Please heal him." There was nothing left to do and I had nothing left to lose. The chemo wasn't working, it was just a matter of time. So I prayed like a crazy person, wringing my hands and pacing the floor and just begging for my husband's life to be spared.

He died less than 24 hours later.

This is where the story I'm trying to tell actually starts.

I didn't know what to do with my faith at that moment. It felt like a giant "FUCK YOU!" from God himself.

I remember talking with my mom before church a week or so after Brian died and telling her about praying for him and asking if his death was the healing I prayed for or if God was just being mean to me.I don't know what else was said during the sermon that day, but I recall the pastor saying, "God's not being mean to you." It seemed odd that he would use those words, so I decided I wouldn't give up on my faith just yet, but I still was afraid to pray.

We didn't go to church every single Sunday while my parents were in town, but once they left, I went every week. It seemed like every week I would have some pressing question that I couldn't get out of my head and every week I would get a direct answer to my direct question while listening to the sermon. This went on for probably two or maybe three months. I just kept getting answers delivered right to me in plain English. I won't lie, it creeped me out a bit.

I considered that maybe I was deriving answers from the sermons because I really needed them. I know that the pastor could have said anything, and I may have still heard my answer. I considered the fact that my completely dysfunctional widow brain wasn't really evaluating the validity of the answers or that I was self-validating in some way. I had a lot of question and a LOT of doubt, but it felt like going to church was helping me, so I decided I would keep doing what I was doing until it was no longer helpful.

After awhile the sermons stopped feeling like personal messages, but they were still relevant and I was still following what the church was teaching when the pastor preached a message about making Jesus your best friend. He encouraged the congregation to be in "constant communication" with Jesus.

At this point in the story, I was still a little standoffish about Jesus. He had always been an important part of my faith, but there is just something about Jesus that makes him hard to talk about -- and even harder to talk to.

I internalized the constant communication comment as being similar to the way Brian and I used to be. Brian and I were constantly texting or on the phone or in the physical presence of each other and we talked about the most random stuff. I think Brian probably heard every random thought that ever passed through my brain and vice versa. When Brian went to the bathroom he would send me little emoji texts to update me on his progress.

So after church, I headed out to Queen Creek Marketplace to get some stuff from Target and decided I would give it a try. It felt weird and uncomfortable and made me miss my husband, so I told Jesus (out loud), "sorry bro. I just can't have an invisible friend. I need someone who can talk back and who can give me a hug - otherwise, I feel like I'm just talking to myself."

After shopping, I went home and decided to hang out on the back patio and read a book someone had given me. It was a devotional for widows and I hadn't touched it in 3 months. When I opened it to the used up gift card I had been using as a bookmark, the next chapter was titled, "How to get support from an invisible friend."

I thought, OK. I'm not going to brush that off as coincidence.

So the next day while driving to work, I decided I'd try talking to Jesus again. It was still a little weird at first, but it's a 45-minute drive and as I cruised through Tempe, it started to feel more natural.

Somewhere around the Broadway curve, I started telling Jesus about my job and how stressful it had become. I was just going on about this and that when I got a distinct external message of "You need to leave your job." I started in with all of my fears and all of the reasons why leaving would be a bad idea, but I couldn't get over the nagging sense that I was being led to quit my job and start my own business.

As I drove down the Broadway exit ramp, I said out loud "I can't even get people to pay me for my photography, how am I going to run a business?" This objection was based on the fact that one of my photography clients was close to a month behind in paying me for my services.

The very moment I said it, I heard my phone ding with a Facebook message. When I stopped at the stoplight at the bottom of the ramp, I glanced at my phone and saw it was a message from my client asking how to pay me.

I won't lie. I got really amped at that point and was convinced that this meant I was supposed to quit my job right away and start my own agency. The idea was both exciting and terrifying.

TERRIFYING.

What if I fail? What if I go broke and lose the house Brian built for me? What if I'm just talking to myself and none of this is even real? Do I really, honestly believe that Jesus wants me to quit my job? Brian would not have accepted that answer. He would not have been ok with the level of risk and the lack of financial security.

Fear. So much fear.

I didn't like it. So I reached out to my pastor to ask what he thought about it and he said to sit tight and wait for God to reveal a plan. That seemed like reasonable advice, so that's what I did.

A few minutes later, one of my co-workers asked if I was available to do some freelance work for a client. I told him there was a potential conflict of interest, but that I would meet with the client and see how it goes.

I knew when I was driving to meet her that I would have to quit in order to take her on as my own client. I was still attempting to be in constant communication with Jesus and so I just asked him to be very clear in what I was supposed to do and to make my instructions perfectly obvious because I was new to all of this and didn't want to make a poor decision based on faulty assumptions. That was what we talked about for the entire 30-minute drive. "Just be clear. Be very, very clear. I'll do what you say, but I really need clarity in the instruction."

When I got to the woman's place of business not only was she not there, when they called her to find out what was up, she didn't even remember who I was.

That was very disappointing at first and I felt really stupid and started to question the entire scenario. Then I realized, I'd asked for clarity. It doesn't get any more clear than that. Starting my own agency was not the thing I was supposed to do.

After that, I backed off the idea of starting my own business and decided that I would just focus on preparing myself to leave my job. It was the first week of March and I was staring down the barrel of Brian's first post-mortem birthday and the dedication of his memorial bench, so I had enough to worry about.

I had been relying very heavily on the pastor and his wife for support in the time since Brian passed away, but they were to be out of town and out of reach for the weekend before the dedication ceremony.

I had asked the pastor to arrange for someone to serve as a backup for me, but through a series of unfortunate events, that never happened.  So not only did I have all of this clarity going on throughout the week, I had an incredibly disappointing point of clarity over the weekend as well.

My grief and my problems were not a priority to my spiritual leaders. I was not a priority to the people I had trusted with this vulnerability.

I was angry and frustrated and really felt like I had gotten things wrong. I thought maybe I had made the wrong choice back at the start of all of this.

Brian's birthday was March 7. I had asked the pastor to lead the ceremony, but I wasn't feeling very good about that decision. I wasn't sure how much longer the church would be a part of my life and to be perfectly honest, I was angry with the way I had been treated.

After the dedication, things settled down a bit and I thought that maybe it was time to stop all of this silliness. Maybe I had gotten to the point where church was hurting me instead of helping me. I thought maybe participating in the church was confusing me and putting potentially destructive thoughts in my head. I was still unhappy with the church leadership and everything looked very sinister to me at the moment.

I don't really know why I went back to my church group meeting other than the fact that they owed me money for a group gift that I had paid for a few weeks before.

As I was getting ready to go, I prayed and told God that if they didn't pay me, I would be done with them and that would be that. If they did pay me, I would stay for the meeting and attempt to be open minded about it.

The topic of discussion for the evening was "God is real" and at first, I wasn't planning to participate. I had convinced myself that God was my Schizophrenic, grief-stricken dilusion and that I needed a real counselor to help me because I had a real problem that needed a real solution.

As the conversation progressed, it became very relevant to where I was right at that moment and I was reminded of all of the things I knew to be true based on my own experiences both before and after Brian's death. I was reminded of the elaborate orchestration of people and events that put me in a position to survive the tragedy of my loss. I was reminded of the role that these people, the people I was so bitter towards at that moment, had played in keeping my head above water for the past 9 months.

The conversation ran long and even after the group had adjourned I stayed and continued talking to the pastor and his wife. It was 11:20 at night when I finally I recognized my position.

I was at a crossroads and I needed to make a real and committed decision about what I believe and my willingness to act on what I believe. I left knowing where I was, knowing what I thought I should do, but still very very afraid of actually doing it.

So much fear. There is just no way. I don't want to take the risk. I really don't want to take the risk.

I really had to think about it, but in the end, I knew what I knew to be true and I didn't doubt it at all. So I decided I would set a deadline for myself and (with or without a plan) I would put my notice in on June 13, the anniversary of Brian's death. My plan in the meantime was to prepare myself to start my own business and pray for an idea.

The VERY next day, I got the idea for a community publication / magazine. As I thought it through I could see no major flaws with it. I have the knowledge, skills, energy and capacity to produce and monetize such a publication. The business plan poured into my brain in its entirety even before lunch.

I was super amped and couldn's sit still so I decided to slow down, pray about it and go get a coffee.

On my way to get coffee, I was talking to Jesus again and told him, "I'm going to do this unless you tell me to stop."

Right at that moment, I realized I was approaching a stale green light and that if it turned red, I would probably convince myself that Jesus was telling me to stop. Well, not only did the first light not change, but I made it all the way to Dunkin Donuts in Queen Creek without any of the lights turning red.

I don't know that it's a sign that I was right, but it certainly wasn't a sign to stop. So I decided I would just do it. I turned in my 2 weeks notice the following Monday and doors have been flying open for me ever since.

My first issue is due to be published by the first week of June and I couldn't be more excited about it. I have had no trouble developing the business relationships I need to make the magazine a success and I have had nothing but positive and encouraging feedback throughout the community.

I haven't even published my first issue yet and I have quite a way to go before it's profitable, but I feel like I can't fail. There is no fear at all and there hasn't been since the moment I committed to quitting my job.

I feel like this path makes sense. It fits perfectly with the trajectory of my life thus far. Everything Brian and I did brought me to a point where I could successfully do this thing in this community in a way that will both edify the community and pay my bills.

I don't know how this story ends, but I've never been more confident of a decision in my entire life.

Brian and Cooper chillin' at the house in San Tan Valley

Easter Traditions

I invited Brian to join my family for Easter the first year we met. When we got there, my mom exclaims to Brian, "He is risen!" To which Brian replied a very enthusiastic, "thank you!"

He didn't know the tradition of replying with, "He is risen indeed!"

When we explained it to him he found it odd, but no more odd than anything else my family does.

Every Easter for many years, Brian and mom acted out this tradition. She exclaiming, "He is risen!" and Brian replying back "He is risen indeed!" in a silly or grandiose way that was meant to let her know he loved me enough to play along.

Over time, it became a special thing between Brian and mom. It was like a competition to see who would say "he is risen!" first.

For the past few years, Brian made it a priority to say it first, going as far as waking up early or answering the phone with, "he is risen!" as a greeting just in case mom called. He got a big kick out of the whole thing.

It may have looked like he was making fun, but making fun of things was how Brian expressed love.

Brian and Dad with their "fancy coffee" in Lucca, Italy

I Miss Brian Moore

I miss Brian Moore.

Up until recently I've been really focused on myself and my experience of all of this. I've talked about missing my husband and my friend and my playmate and all the things he was to me. I've talked about my loss and the pain of my grief, but this isn't that. This is not about what he was or did for me. It's just about him as a person.

I feel like I'm just now getting around to thinking about Brian outside of his impact on my own life and accepting that he's not just away from me. He's really, really gone. I miss his presence on the Earth, not just his presence in my life.

If you didn't know Brian, you missed out.

He was hysterical and lighthearted and fun. Chances are good he was smarter than you, but the chances you knew it weren't quite as good. When it came to making jokes, no one was off limits - even himself.

He really wanted the people around him to be happy and having fun.  He was generous. He was a fantastic tipper, loved giving gifts and picking up the tab. He really liked money, but not to keep or have. He enjoyed spending big to have nice things and to go on exciting adventures. He was slow to anger, but if you managed to get on his bad side, he would definitely hold a grudge. He was straightforward about it, too. If he didn't like you, you knew it.

He had talking points - bad parents and idiot kids, stupid people, drive-thru incompetence, Apple products, gun rights, and  freedom of thought. He had strong opinions about politics and pop culture controversies.  He had strong opinions about a lot of things, but he wasn't offended by opposing viewpoints.

He used to say, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if they are wrong."

Brian's vocabulary was a bit vulgar, but not in a way that was intended to be offensive. He just didn't take words as seriously as the rest of the world and didn't see the need to censor his thoughts.

He worked hard and did a good job no matter what he was doing, but he didn't love to work. He loved to play. He was quite possibly the most playful person I've ever known.

He didn't love everyone, but for the handful of people (and creatures) he loved, it was with all of his heart and it was special.

So I miss my husband, and I miss my playmate and I miss my soul mate. That's all still very true, but I also miss Brian Moore outside of the context of his relationship with me. I miss who he was as a person.  The world is just not as good without him in it.

Brian hanging out with Oscar the friendly grouch. 

Park Bench Dedication Transcript

Working his way out of poverty, building our beautiful home and being part of a nationally-recognized community was probably the first thing Brian would mention if you asked about his greatest accomplishments. I can not thank the Eastmark Community Life team enough for not only allowing me to memorialize him in this way, but for being so thoughtful about it and for investing themselves emotionally in what I was trying to do. Pastor Darren Nibbelink from Focus 314 provided me with his notes from the dedication of Brian's memorial park bench that took place March 7 (Brian's birthday) and I thought it would be a good idea to share them here.

Brian Moore

Today we are celebrating the life of Brian, a wonderfully sarcastic person that made everyone’s life better, with a simple joke and a look.

On behalf of Tricia, I want to say thank you for being here today. And a very special Thank You to Eastmark for this beautiful gesture.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance

Today is time to remember Brian and thank God for giving us Brian. Thank you Brian for making our lives better. Today we are here to remember Brian and the life he lived. It’s not just the life of Brian, but those he impacted while he was walking among us.

It’s not even about this moment right now, this is the time to remember, but it’s about all the moments that will take place right here in the future. This is a time for this place to be an impactful memorial.

Isaiah 43:18-19 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

One of the amazing attributes of Brian was how hard he worked to build a future for himself and Tricia. We want to dedicate this place for future families to enjoy and make lasting memories. We want to dedicate this place as a place of healing.

Psalm 34:18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

We know there will be those who are hurting, and we pray that this place will be a place of healing. A place to bring comfort to those with a broken heart. Brian was proud to be a part of this community, so let this be a place of healing for the community as well.

We want to dedicate this place to be a place for families.

Proverbs 14:13 Even in laughter the heart may ache, and rejoicing may end in grief.

If there is one verse in the Bible that describes family, that would be it: joy and heart ache. But we understand that moments of laughter are wonderful, and moments of heartache can be horribly wonderful. It’s all the moments of the life we share with those close to us that matter.

Every moment we share. We don’t know what Life has in store for us. We can’t navigate away from the twists and turns, but we put our hope in the Lord. An eternal hope for a better tomorrow, an eternal hope for a brighter day ahead.

The timing of Brian’s passing shows us just how much we don’t know what tomorrow will bring us, and his life teaches us to live every day in the moment before us.

Take each moment and treasure it. We treasure the moments that bring us together. We treasure the moments with friends and family. We live our life with family and friends. Treasure those close to you, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. 

Brian loved to have a good time. He loved a good joke, a great sense of humor. He loved seeing you, almost daring you to, try and embarrass him (which typically ended up with you being the one embarrassed). He enjoyed adventure, playing games, and being with his family. He enjoyed life. He enjoyed every moment of his life. 

I love this quote that Tricia chose for this memorial.

“Remember me and smile, for its better to forget than to remember me and cry.” Dr. Seuss

When we look backward, remember and smile. Understand how much he impacted us, and we live forward changed because of that impact.

We don’t know what tomorrow may bring. Each of us has an unknown future. Let us live every day in the moments that we have and trust our unknown future to a known God.

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but we know where to put our hope and our trust. Let us pray.

God we come before you today. We come before you remembering the life of Brian. We trust that Brian is with you, that you have raised him up and that we will be with him again in eternal life. We dedicate this place to you and to Brian. Teach us, Lord, to trust you more every day. Teach us to enjoy the moments of this life. The moments of joy and the moments of sorrow. Teach us to follow your ways and trust you more every day. Amen

The Man Of My Dreams

I've been thinking about getting a TV projector to use in the back yard and I'm not really sure if the ones in my budget are good enough for use outdoors. I've been researching them for several days and I've figured out some of the key features that I'll need, but I'm still not feeling confident enough to actually make the purchase.

So last night in my dream Brian and I were in Best Buy and I was looking at the projectors they had to offer and thinking about how much I wanted to spend and doing all the fretting that I typically do when purchasing a product that I don't know enough about. Then I turned to Brian and said, "Why am I doing this? You pick one."

I've only recently started having dreams about Brian in which I don't question his presence. They just feel normal - like before. The first one I had, I remember hugging him and telling him "I can feel you, but I know you aren't here, because I cremated you. How can I feel you?" and answering myself with "who cares." I'm not sure what we did together for the rest of the dream, but it was just normal everyday stuff.

I have no idea if this is a part of grief and something that everyone goes through, but until that dream where I acknowledged that I didn't care about the logistics of his presence, any dream he was in seemed supernatural. Like he was a ghost and just there for a visit. These recent dreams feel more like nothing happened. He's just there, like he should be, and we just do normal stuff like shop for electronics at Best Buy.

What's even more interesting is that I don't mind when I wake up and it's over. With the supernatural dreams, I would be very upset to wake up and find that I wasn't in the dream anymore. With the new ones, when I wake up, I feel appreciative. It's like the dreams are a gift. Like I've been given a few more minutes of the life I had before Brian got sick and I'm grateful to remember what that feels like.

 

Relationships are a little weird for me right now

One of the things I'm struggling to get used to is the changes in my identity. I'm a widow. I'm the head of my household. I'm single. I'm independent. I'm strong (who knew?!). These things can be kind of confusing and sometimes I feel like I have to re-learn how to interact with other humans. 

I wanted to share a sample of German coffee with a co-worker, because I thought it was something he would enjoy. I put it in an air tight glass jar and in order to keep it in the dark, I put the jar in a recycled gift bag with red polka-dots. I had the matching red tissue paper handy and decided I'd go ahead and present it like a gift. The next day I asked what he thought of the flavor and we had a nice conversation about coffee snobbery. He seemed to make a point of sharing that his girlfriend appreciated good coffee too. I doubt that my co-worker mistook my kind gesture as a come on, but it's entirely possible and it's just something I've never had to consider before. 

As another example, I have a friend with whom I've had a million and one candid conversations on a variety of interesting, hypothetical and sometimes inappropriate topics. I've known this person for over a decade and for the first time ever, I felt the need to clarify that I'm not interested in romance. It probably wasn't necessary, but it felt like there might have been confusion about the nature and direction of the questions I had for him that day. 

And it's not just weirdness within existing relationships. I've met a new person who is interesting and with whom I have a quite few things in common. I'd like an opportunity to hang out and perhaps become friends, but because he's a man, I don't know how to go about it. I'm not in a place where I'd want to pursue a romantic relationship and I don't want to give the wrong impression. 

As time passes it also becomes increasingly awkward to know how to reveal the whole my-husband-got-sick-and-died-in-the-course-of-a-month-and-I've-been-devastated-ever-since element of my life to people who don't already know. I also don't know how to deal with the conversation that typically follows such a revelation. Keeping it to myself is a viable option for people with whom I expect to have limited interactions, but anyone who has to work with me or interact with me on a regular basis deserves a heads up.  

I'm also struggling to gauge how much I can get away with talking about Brian, our relationship, our stories, his death, my feelings and the grief process. I think if I were a 3rd party in this experience - a friend or co-worker, for example - I might be tired of it by now.  

I'm the first to admit that I'm not a very good person, and I think if it weren't happening directly to me, I'd be completely bored of the conversations. I can totally hear myself saying something like, "Oh lord, here we go again with the dead husband stories..." or something equally selfish and horrible. 

I am painfully aware of how taxing it must be on the people who have decided to stick through this with me. I don't want to be one-dimensional, but at the moment and for the foreseeable future, the experience of this loss is the first thing on my mind in all circumstances and so it's what I tend to talk about. 

I recognize that some of this is my own insecurity and inexperience with single adulthood and I have confidence that I'll get it worked out. In the meantime, if I accidentally flirt with you or your significant other, please disregard it. There's almost no chance it was intentional.

Brian telling what I'm sure was an entertaining story
at the Eastmark wine club event we hosted. 

A Recorded Stream Of Consciousness From Jan. 20

This is a rough transcript of an audio recording I made while driving to work January 20th. My brain decided it was time to process some things and I couldn't get away from it. I felt as though these types of thoughts and emotions need to be published for the benefit of other grieving widows. So I pulled out the voice recorder on my phone to capture them in the moment.  When you are reading this, or listening to the audio, please keep in mind that this wasn't recorded with the intent of publication. I expected to get some thoughts down and then write something later. The reason I'm publishing it this way is because any attempt to edit this will ruin it. This is as close to the raw emotions as it gets for me and I don't want to dilute it with the thoughtfulness that would go into the editing process. 

The audio is admittedly terrible, but quite a bit is lost if you only read it and don't listen.

This is important because it might help somebody. I'm about seven months away from my husband's death.

...seven and a half.

I'm right on the intersection of looking back and looking ahead and wanting to live in the past and wanting to move forward. And being able to have memories, being able to remember without such a sense of loss, without such a sense of wanting to go backwards.

No. Not wanting to go backwards. That's not right. I never wanted to go backwards. I think what I mean to say is not wanting backwards to be forward. Trying to...

Taking comfort in things that don't exist anymore. Symbols of things that don't exist anymore. Taking comfort in my wedding ring, or Brian's wedding ring. It's just a ring. It's metal in a circle.

But you take comfort in it and you think about... you don't think about anything. It's just a way to cling to what you've lost.

It's helpful at first because it's comforting that it's not so far away. That you can still recall feelings and you can still recall a sense of whatever it was.. I don't..you can still recall it. You can still recall everything  that was tied to that object. So, it's comforting and that's helpful.

But at some point you're anchored to it and you can't move forward if  you're anchored. When you're anchored you can only get so far away from that thing that is tying you to the bottom of the lake.

So...what I've done is removed the anchor. I took my rings and put them aside. They still are there. My rings are with brian's rings and they are tucked away like a talisman in a drawer and if I need them I can get them out. I could get each individual ring or I could get the box.. it's all just a symbol so it doesn't matter. Those things are not... they're just metal. Brian's not in them, our marriage isn't in them. But you look at them or you touch them and you can recall what they symbolize.

But what I really think that i'd like to talk about is the random fear. The fear that I'll never be...happy. Or that no one could love me or that Brian was the one person in the whole world who understood me. Brian was the one person in the world who got where I was coming from. I didn't have to...but not always. That's not even really true. Brian didn't even know that I wanted kids. He knew ... well he said he didn't know. He said he didn't know how important it was. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't. Nonetheless...

Brian knew all...everything..it's not dating, you know? Like dating you have to pretend. In marriage you make sacrifice, you have to do things you don't want to do, you have to consider the other person, but in dating... there's risk. Like you can make sacrifices in a marriage and it doesn't feel like a risk. Like.. I'm going to not go to school right now because it's not what's best for the marriage even though it might be what I want or what's I feel is best for me. I'ts not what's best for the marriage so I don't go to school. I make that sacrifice and it's not a risk. There's no risk that I'm going to do this thing for the benefit of the relationship and then the other person is taking advantage. Your spouse does what's best for the relationship too...and they make those sacrifices.  What the fuck am I talking about?

There's a lot of sacrifice in relationships. I'm not afraid of that. What I'm afraid of is .....when someone gets to know me, they won't like me anymore.

I'm a lot cooler on the surface than I am deep down and it happens a lot. So I  fear that...I always felt like I was really lucky to find Brian at such a young age and to not have to deal with all of the crap that people go through in their 20s. And growing up through my 20s and in my 30s I had that confidence that it didn't matter what other people thought because, no matter what, I had B rian. If I didn't have any friends, I didn't need any friends. And I don't like...people. I don't want to have friends.

Those mid-level relationships are just work. I want to have someone who can just come to my house, sit down and watch TV and I don't have to talk to them. Or... whatever. I don't want to have to be...witty. I don't want to have to pretend to laugh at jokes that are stupid.

I don't want to feel like I have to wax my eyebrows and wax my... Brian used to call it a 'stash wax. I don't want to wax my eyebrows. I don't want to shave my legs above the knee. I don't want to wear make up. I don't want to go out to bars or clubs or dancing. I don't want to go dancing.

I like to go...I like to do things that I'm never going to meet anybody doing it. I like to sit at home and play video games or watch tv or go hiking with the dogs.

I do like to go to church. I like my Wednesday group, but everybody in my Wednesday group is married...with kids. Not just married... like.. married is ok. But they all have kids! I can't be friends with people who have kids.

...I mean...I can be friends with people who have kids. That's not true. And actually, I should get over that because I'm never going to have children in my life if I don't have friends that have kids.

That foster care thing is still in the back of my mind. But I'm waiting. This is my time to wait.

Like it or not, it's my time to wait.

It might come up again, but maybe not. Maybe I'll meet somebody and they'll have kids and then we'll have grandkids. Then I can have babies and I don't have to be a parent....that would be alright.
 
Or maybe I'll have friends who have kids and I'll get to be involved in their lives in some way that's meaningful. I don't know. I just feel like that's weird.

I don't necessarily want a boyfriend or a husband or a man in particular, but I don't want to be second. or... I don't mind being second if there's someone for whom I'm first. I want to be the first person that they think of i want to be the person that...

Maybe that's Katie, but I think that she is eventually going to find somebody else. She's still in her 30s, you know. It's different. She's young. She's still thin. She's very pretty.

I don't know. I don't even know why I worry about this, but I do. I think...maybe..I don't know. I don't want...

This is where I'm at. So you can tell, It's just confusion.

A Tale of Two Pillows...and a t-shirt quilt

Right after we found out Brian was sick, but before we knew how serious the situation was, I bought a sewing machine that was on sale in the Amazon gold box. He was convinced I would never ever use it, so when it arrived I went to the fabric store and got some cheap fabric to play with and learn the basics of the machine.

The first thing I made was a small orange pillow that I gave to Brian. It was a silly little thing, but I thought it might be nice to have during treatments and such.

After I gave it to him, I decided it was too small and didn't have enough stuffing to be of any real use, so I made him a larger green pillow out of a fabric that was probably intended to look like the outside of a watermelon.

I also made a pair of PJ pants for Brian to wear, but they didn't fit very well and weren't comfortable. Also, one leg was longer than the other.

As we packed for our first day of chemo, I decided the little orange pillow would have to do. We had too much to carry already and the green one was too bulky (in addition to my laptop, we had toys, games and coloring books from friends to help us pass the time).

As it turns out, Brian really liked the little orange one and kept it with him at home, at the doctor's and eventually in the hospital. I ended up using the green one during overnights at the hospital.

When we found out the chemo wasn't working, I was devastated. Brian has never been terribly emotional and if he wasn't crying for himself, I didn't want to cry in front of him. He was the one who was dying, after all. I would wait for him to sleep then cover my face with the green pillow so he wouldn't hear me.

After Brian passed, in preparation for his memorial, I was showing the pastor (who didn't know either of us at all) some videos so that he would have an idea of what Brian was about. An observation was made about all of Brian's funny t-shirts and it kind of stuck with me that they really were a part of his personality.

I started taking comfort in wearing Brian's t-shirts and when I heard about getting t-shirt quilts made I thought it was a great way to wrap myself in memories and to be comforted by them. After looking up prices to have one made, I decided it might be fun to find instructions on YouTube and just make it myself.

Keep in mind that in total, in my life, I've used a sewing machine to make 2 ridiculously ugly pillows and a lopsided pair of PJ's.

I've had Brian's t-shirts stacked up and ready to go for 6 months, but couldn't bring myself to cut them. When my parents arrived for the holidays, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get this project completed, but I still had a hard time with it. I don't know if the mental block was about cutting up his shirts or just typical procrastination. After three full weeks of vacation, I finally got motivated and got the entire thing done in one day.

Brian didn't think the sewing machine was worth buying because I would never make anything of value, so I'm sure he'd be glad to know my three most prized possessions were all made using that machine (as well as a lopsided pair of pj's). If I never make anything else ever, it will have been well worth the cost.

T-shirt quilt made using several of Brian's favorite t-shirts.

2016 New Year's Resolutions

I'm giving myself the entire year to accomplish the following:

1. Finish the T-Shirt Quilt
2. Get rid of the excess electronics, wires, connectors, routers, tools and other items stored around the house that I can not identify or figure out how to use.
3. Figure out what to plant behind the pool and plant it.
4. Replace the desert willows with low-litter, preferably salt-tolerant trees.
5. Sew something useful with my sewing machine other than the t-shirt quilt.
6. Find nearby dog-friendly recreation spots
7. Go to the doctor at least once.
8. Play all of the games and read all of the books I purchased in 2015.

It should be noted that I organized and cleaned the garage today, thus removing that item from the list and I put the Christmas decorations away which would have also been on this list.

I'm banning myself from the following activities for at least another 6 months and probably the entire year:

1. Calorie counting
2. Taking college classes for something other than entertainment/personal interest.
3. Relocating
4. Job seeking
5. Dating

New Year's Eve 1999-2000 in Paris, France.

One of the most enjoyable adventures we ever had.