I screwed up

Being a parent is hard.

Tonight was the end of a very fun but long day. After church, Rowan and I took advantage of the absolutely gorgeous weather to go play around Green Lake in Seattle for the afternoon. The weather was SO wonderful, I stayed there over an hour later than I should have. It just seemed so, I don't know, magical somehow. I didn't want the day to end.

Once we did get home, everything seemed to be going ok. Bath, TV show, teeth brushing, and eventually Rowan was in bed. But about 10 minutes after I got her down and I collapsed on the couch in exhaustion, I heard her call me and ask me to come back up. I was just so damn tired and not thinking, I said, "Rowan, I am not coming back up there right now. I just left a few minutes ago, and I want you to keep trying to go to sleep."

She almost immediately started crying.

Now under normal circumstances, I'd chalk this up to a tired girl not getting her way. And on any given day that may have been it. But as she started crying I also realized that bedtime has been hard for her lately. And she may not have been looking for an excuse to delay sleep, but some comfort and snuggles from daddy because the sudden quiet left her thinking about her mommy.

Man, can I relate to THAT. My sleep patterns are still a disaster after months of avoiding lying in bed awake.

I took a deep sigh, got up, and headed up to her room. She indeed looked sad. If she'd just been looking for an excuse to stay up, she would have brightened when I came in. Instead, she kept crying, and then broke my heart with, "I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm just a little sad and want a hug."

Many of you will probably tell me it's understandable to be so tired at the end of a long, fun day. You're right. And many others might say that every parent has those moments when we're at the end of our rope, and that I shouldn't be too hard on myself. And you're right as well. But that doesn't change one simple fact. This is not a normal family, and Rowan is not going through something that most children go through. And I know that, just like I know lately has been hard for her. I have to work harder on keeping that in mind before I react, so that I can be better at giving her what she needs.

Luckily, children forgive quickly. I snuggled up to her, and she wrapped her arms around one of mine and cuddled up to me with a sigh. It was only a few moments before her breathing got slower and heavier, and I slipped out of her room and went back downstairs.

Good thing for me, that little child loves me. :)

At least I have no regrets

I don't think I have to start this post by saying that losing Aimee has been the most terrible thing I've ever gone through. If you've been following this blog, I think you get that by now. (If you haven't been and you just stumbled on this post, then may I suggest you start by reading this post first.)

No, this post is not about that. This post is about regrets. Or in this case, how at least I don't have any in regards to Aimee. I know many times when we lose someone close there may have been unresolved conflicts or harsh words we wish we could have back. Maybe the regret is simply that we feel like we didn't express our love enough, or show our appreciation enough, or value them as much as we should have when they were here.

Aimee and I celebrating our first
anniversary a month early in
Victoria, BC. We jokingly told
people we celebrated early because
we weren't sure we'd actually make
it to a whole year.

I am extremely blessed to be able to say that I do not have any of those regrets.

I told Aimee OFTEN how much I loved her. I told her that she was an incredible wife and mother, and that I'd won the marriage lottery when I married her. I explained to her on at least a weekly basis that she fulfilled all my needs and wants and that I'd walk to the ends of the earth for her because of it. And she knew damn well that I meant it. I bought her flowers (on days other than her birthday or Valentine's Day), took her out on dates, and left notes in her car while she was at work or in her purse to find later. I tried hard to be romantic, because I wanted to make her as happy as she made me.

Why did I do all of this? Because she WAS amazing, and because she SHOWED ME by her example how to be a great spouse. In other words, she modeled the type of relationship she wanted, and I was lucky enough to get the hint.

The point of this post isn't to brag about how great at being married we were (though we WERE). The point is to say that when Aimee died, at least I wasn't forced to say "I wish I'd..."

• been more loving,
• appreciated her more,
• told her I loved her,
• been nicer to her,
• helped her more around the house,
• kissed her goodbye.

Two days before her accident, she and Donna left the vacation house to go to the store. She started to leave without giving me a kiss, but I caught up with her right outside the front door and said, "Hey, you aren't leaving without a kiss goodbye, are you?" She smiled and apologized and kissed me. Shortly afterwards, we had the following text message exchange, the last one we'd ever have:

Aimee: "I love you, honey. I am so sorry I forgot to smooch you goodbye. I didn't think you cared but I like it that you do. :)"
Me: ":) I do."

And so one thing I'll always be glad for is that when I saw her that last time at Jacobs Aquatic Center, I kissed her through the chain link fence. It wasn't an easy feat, but I can't tell you how much that would hurt now if I had passed on that last kiss.

No regrets.

I don't want to sound preachy or lecture. I certainly don't want to sound like I'm better than anyone else or that our marriage was all roses and butterflies and everyone else's stinks. That's not at all what I'm trying to say. I am simply trying to encourage everyone who reads this to remember that life is short, and relationships are precious, so value the loved ones in your life, not only in your heart, but with your words and deeds. Love is not just an emotion, but it is also a verb. Love not expressed isn't really much of a love at all.

Don't ever risk being left with regrets.

"You're handling this so well"

Many times over the last four months I've heard, "You're handling this so well." I always take this as a compliment, but I also am not exactly sure what that means. How does one normally handle the unexpected and tragic loss of a spouse? Fall into a drunken stupor? Lock themselves in their bedroom? Run away?

The point is, All of the above and more HAVE been done by people in this type of situation, and I think all of those approaches have their merits, at least for a little while. I'm not going to judge someone else for how they've handled the unimaginable train wreck that this type of event represents in your life. As for me, I've done none of those things (at least not yet). I've kept it together. Gone to work. Kept my daughter fed, bathed, dressed, and in school. Paid my bills. Yada yada yada. Am I some kind of superhero for that? Nope. Staying busy and focused on tasks is how I've coped. It's not better than someone else's way, it's just different. It's probably more logistically productive than some of the others, but that doesn't mean it was a better way to handle it.

The truth is though, I have appreciated hearing it. It's turned out to be one of the things that has motivated me on the harder days to keep my crap together and keep moving forward.

But it's also not always true.

Believe it or not, this is where we
eat dinner.

I can't keep my house straightened up. I AM paying my bills, but barely on time (and a few of them late). My dining room table has been a disaster, with the exception of a two-day span in February, since I got home from Florida. Same with the area around the fireplace. I probably wouldn't get the house cleaned at all, except for the incredible gift from my colleagues who all pitched in to pay a house cleaner who comes every two weeks and cleans most of my house. I'm lucky enough to have her through the end of July.

I have time to get this stuff done, I just can't seem to bring myself to do it. Sometimes I just sit and stare for long stretches and do absolutely nothing but wallow in the pain of this loss (never until after my daughter goes to bed though). My brain goes through 'hiccups' where I do really stupid stuff I wouldn't have done before. I'm eating like crap, and with my sprained ankle, I'm not burning off the calories. Hence, I've put on weight the last few months, and I wasn't exactly scrawny to begin with. What little I do get done at home happens just as I realize I need to go to bed, and then I'm up an extra hour making lunches, doing laundry, etc, and getting even less sleep than the few hours I'd left myself already. (This is also the time when I write most of these posts, like right now - it's 12:38am.) The lack of sleep, I'm sure, is a contributing factor to my space-brain and weight gain. I'm constantly fighting urges to engage in 'retail therapy' sprees I can not afford. And in what is without a doubt the most egregious offense, I STILL have not written thank-you notes to the many amazing people who provided meals, donated to the World Vision fund set up in Aimee's honor, or contributed to our daughter's college fund.

And that's not all. The loneliness is a killer. I ache for companionship, affection, laughter, all the great stuff that goes along with a healthy, loving relationship like Aimee and I had. It's been a real struggle for me, and I hate it.

So, maybe I am handling this well. Or maybe I'm just hiding it well.

My failure

I'm driving down a hill, a city street. The buildings here are not too tall, maybe on average 3-5 stories. The street is fairly narrow, cars parked on both sides. The hill is fairly long, and the street I'm on ends at a waterfront of some sort - a harbor or a river. I have driven here before, the street is somewhat familiar, but normally I am alone. This time, I am not alone.

Aimee is with me.

It takes me a moment to recognize this fact, and then a second later I realize that she's not supposed to be there. She is dead.

And then it hits me: it's my fault.

I start to cry, I put my hand on her arm, near her hand which is resting on her knee. I begin saying over and over, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I want to look into her face, to catch her eye, but I can't. I need to keep my eye on the narrow road. And she won't turn towards me. She is silent, stone-faced. She does not tell me it's ok, or that it's not my fault. She does not blame me, not does she release me from my guilt. She says nothing, her facial expression, at least the sliver of it I can see, moves not at all. No warmth, no love, no nothing. And I feel like my conviction of fault is confirmed.

I wake up.

Sometimes when I dream I carry the emotions into the waking moments immediately following the dream. This time, I didn't. I woke up relieved that it had been a dream, and secure in the feeling I'd had since Aimee's death that there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. There's no way I could know how that day was going to go.

The Atlantic Ocean off of Key Largo. As I waited
for news on Aimee, I stared at this from the deck
of our vacation rental.

It was not my fault.

But that dream tapped into something. And that something was that I KNOW Aimee's death isn't my fault, but that doesn't always mean I don't FEEL, subconsciously, like it was my fault. I mean, I'm a fairly traditional guy, and part of that means I feel it is my job to protect my family. Nothing bad is supposed to happen to my girls on my watch, right?

The night Aimee and I got married, I told her dad Terry that I would take care of her. I meant it, and he knew it. But a small part of me can't help but feel like I failed.