When I started this blog I committed to writing it for myself as if no one else would read it and to share even when it's uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable for me to share and it might be uncomfortable for you to read. Please don't feel obligated to read it just because I wrote it. It's not really for you. :)
I love you and I miss you and I wish I could talk to you. I think you'd be surprised at the path my life has taken since you've been gone. I think you'd be really happy about a lot of it and really disappointed in some of it and downright pissed off about some of it, but you're not here so you aren't any of those things.
I don't really know what happened to you when you left. My pastor says when you agreed to have the hospice chaplain come over to say the Jesus prayer that you confirmed your faith and that it didn't matter that he didn't get there in time. His theory is based on the thief on the cross from Luke 23. Mom says you told her you said the magic Jesus prayer at camp when you were a teenager. I know you liked to be contradictory and argue with me about things, but I do think you had at least some faith. There's a verse in 1 Corinthians that says my faith would sanctify you so that our children would be holy. I assume it works even though we couldn't have kids. I should have just said the prayer with you myself, then I wouldn't have this to think about.
Sometimes I think maybe you are just ashes now. Maybe there's nothing more. It bothers me that we burned you, but I think it would bother me if we buried you too. I wish you hadn't made me watch so many horror movies with you. I wish you could just tell me what your experience has been since you left.
I feel like if you were here I would feel your presence, but who knows. I don't feel God's presence most of the time and he's supposedly always here. Sometimes I do feel God's presence. I never feel you. Sometimes I have dreams and you're there as if you never left, but I'm pretty sure that's just in my head. Maybe God's presence is just in my own head too.
I've chosen to believe what I believe because I believe it's a choice that I have. There's no way to know the truth and living as a Christian has been better than not living as a Christian. I am pretty sure you would ridicule how serious I've gotten about it. But you aren't here. So it's really up to me to figure out on my own.
I'm getting better at being self-sufficient. I had to kill a scorpion. Can you believe it?! It was comical. I used my monopod because that was the only melee weapon I had with any range to it. I screamed when it crunched and I cried afterward.
I take the trash out. I carry my own heavy stuff in from the car. I don't like it and I get mad at you sometimes, but I know you wouldn't have left me if you had a choice. I sometimes get mad at God for taking you from me, but there's very little point in that.
I still get mad about the children thing sometimes too. I'm not mad at you anymore. Once you were gone it was entirely up to me and I decided it wasn't actually what I wanted. I'm sorry for how much drama the kid thing was. I wish I could have just gotten over it. I'm still not really over it, but it's taken a backseat to the process of getting over your passing.
I sold our house. I hated to do it, but it didn't make sense to keep it and I wanted to move into my own space. My new house looks very similar though. It's smaller and much easier to afford. The McDowells are still my neighbors. How crazy is that?? Remember when you told me I would be ok and that Allison would be my new best friend after you were gone? You were right.
It's funny to me that she scoffs at my faith when she is the single biggest piece of evidence I have supporting it. That church that mom and I went to up the road has become really important to me.
You would HATE it. You would like all of the people though, but it's one of those places where they raise their hands and get really emotional. I stopped going for a while after I moved out of our house because it was a little too emotional and I was a trainwreck and couldn't take it.
They're making a live action Alladin and Will Smith is going to play the Genie. Remember when I used to fall asleep to that every night in my dorm? Remember the night I fell asleep watching the Lion King and you had food poisoning and threw up on me? I'm still not over that. :)
I wish I had appreciated you more while you were here. I had NO IDEA how much you did for me. I know I can't live in the past and I can't hold on to things like guilt and anger, but I wish I had known how much better you made my life while you were still living. That's probably just how it is. I'm sure I've probably redacted your memory a bit as well. No point holding on to the negative, right?
Tess is 10 now. She's starting to get lumpy the way labs do when they get old. She has that old-dog walk sometimes too. I remember talking once about how much you loved her and that the knowledge that you would outlive her was hard to think about. She's still your dog. She loves me, but not the way she loved you. I love her too, but not the way you loved her.
Cooper is still a shit. He's adorable about it though, so I let him live.
I like to read your old letters from when you were in Kosovo and Iraq and your Facebook posts and I have a few videos of you that I like to watch. It keeps your voice fresh in my head and I can hear your snarky, sarcastic tone in the letters and posts.
Jason flaked out. I don't know what happened, but I don't think it was Lynn's fault like you might think. They got married, by the way. I think he's happy. I like to think that he missed you too much to be around me, but I don't know. He just quit talking to me and eventually I quit talking to him too.
I still see Robert and Jenn from time to time. It's nice to be around people who knew you. Most of the people around me now have never even met you. I wish that weren't the case. I wish I had people around who really knew you who could tell me stories I haven't heard before.
Gary Shull came to your memorial dedication. Oh yeah! You have a memorial bench in Lumiere Garden! I thought you'd like that location. It faces the sunrise, but of course, there are houses and stuff there now so it looks a little different than when we used to walk over that way.
Anyway, Gary came to your memorial and he told me a story about you programming the remote buttons on the mirror of your Monte Carlo to pop some guy's trunk and that when you would drive in to work every day you'd open that guy's trunk. I had never heard that one and I thought it was hysterical. It certainly sounds like something you would do.
I try to tell some of your stories sometimes, but I can't tell a story as well as you could. I wish I had recorded them. We should have thought of that when you first got sick.
I talk to you at your bench and at the places where your ashes are. I don't actually think you can hear me and I know you'll never respond. I just really miss talking to you and no one else who's still living seems to be able to understand me.
I looked into it a bit. Catholics believe in praying to the saints, but there's a sole mediator thing that's really important to Protestants and there's the cloud of witnesses verse that some people seem to interpret as the dead looking down on us, but I don't think that's what it means. I think it's just a reference to the people who came before. It's a figure of speech like standing on the shoulders of giants.
My hope is that whatever you are up to now is so amazing that it wouldn't even occur to you to look back or to check in on me. Also, no offense, but I can't live my life worrying about what you think about the choices I make and how I choose to move forward. I still love the crap outta you, but you're dead and I'm alive and that changes things.
Thank you for 21 years of fun and laughs and sarcasm and conversation and love and tolerance and acceptance and taking the garbage out and carrying the sodas in from the car and being the outgoing one. Thank you for working so hard to buy me things I didn't really need and providing a nice lifestyle. Thank you for being prepared and making sure I had what I needed even after you were gone.
Writing this has been really good. I wonder if it's unhealthy...
I miss talking to you so much and I could probably go on for a really long time. So much has happened. But you are dead so you can't read it anyway and I'm tired. So I'm going to wrap this up and go to bed.
I love you. I miss you.
Tricia
 |
| Tess and Brian at the house in San Tan Valley. |
