Right when I think this whole grief trip couldn’t get any more funner, it does! I really hit the jack pot this life time on this grief train, didn’t I? My cup runneth over!
We finally unloaded our warehouse unit that we’ve had for 7 years. We got it when we closed our Wizard’s Window metaphysical store. A friend was selling her portable shed, so we took the opportunity to drop the $150 a month storage fee, and bought the shed. Oh yeah, I did the math on how much we spent on that damn storage unit over the years, and was sick about it!
Unfortunately we had to unload our warehouse 2 weeks before we could get the shed because we were going to be out of town promoting the book, and I was NOT going to pay for another month for that damn storage unit. So we have had all this stuff inside our house for 2 weeks now. Our home looks like a scene from the tv show “Hoarders” or “Clean Sweep.”*ugh* How do people live in this kind of clutter, I HATE it!
I’ve been looking for more pictures of Andrew, and when I couldn’t find any, I figured they must have been in the storage unit. I was right. The first batch of pictures I found was when he was like 3 years old. OMG he was just so darn cute! Without a doubt Kaliana has Andrew’s color eyes, at the moment anyways. I hope her eyes stay that color. Even one of Elatia’s Long Horn customers that knew Andrew, noticed that Kaliana had Andrew’s eye color. His eyes just popped in these pictures. Andrew had a chubby wee face and legs at 3 years old. I just wanted to reach in the pictures and grab his chubby cheeks and kiss him all over. I did fine emotionally finding those pictures, they made me smile.I was so excited to have found these photographs. I’m so use to him being so tall, thin and older, it was really wild seeing him so young again.
Yesterday I decided to go through a plastic tub I had put in Andrew’s room that had old school work in it from both Andrew and Elatia. With that tub I did not fare so well. I found pictures from a St Paddy’s Day where Andrew was almost 5 years old. I’m not sure why, but these pictures got to me, especially the one where he was asleep in Martin’s arms sucking his thumb. It reminded me of the recent pictures of Kaliana. Seeing the similarity between Andrew & Kaliana is both wonderful and heart wrenching for me. But this didn’t stop me from digging further into this tub. I really am a glutton for punishment aren’t I?
As I continue to dig, I find school work of Elatia’s when she was quite young. A picture of her for a project she did. Awards she had earned for her school work, cards she had made us, a Valentine’s card she made for us from her and Andrew and more. Apparently they loved us more than ice cream AND cookies! LOL
Middle school was the fun years with her. On every report card there was, “too talkative,” “very talkative,” “talk, talk talk” I was like hahahahaha. But then I think it was actually seeing her school work that got the empty nesthood ball rolling. It hit me right then that this was no longer my life. I no longer had either of my children at home anymore. I was no longer a mother per-say, not in the way I was use to being for so many years. Dammit, it brings tears to my eyes now thinking about it. So much of my life, since I was 19 years old, revolved around my children, and for nearly the past 4 years it has not. I haven’t been able to even deal with empty nesthood feelings because of the grief over losing Andrew. Your mind has a way of putting things out of the way until you are ready to deal with them. I guess it was time for me to deal with the empty nest syndrome now.
It’s hard to explain, but this felt like a sucker punch to me, I felt stunned. It suddenly hit me in that moment, that I had no children at home anymore, and one of them was never coming back. I couldn’t stop crying, I tried, but the tears just kept coming, it was uncontrollable, but it wasn’t the ugly cry though. So I decided to just go with it and let it out. I figured it was just another layer of grief to process and release.
I go to sit in my usual chair to process this turn of events and feelings, and post a Facebook status accordingly. Of course the empty nest hood feelings bring up grief feelings about Andrew as well. That effin grief is forever present. *ugh*As I’m sitting in my chair with tears quietly flowing, a commercial comes on that Andrew usually sends me when I am having one of these sort of moments. It’s the TUMS commercial when the food, a chicken wing or a carnival corn dog starts pimp slapping the guy whose trying to eat it. It always makes me laugh. I didn’t notice the commercial at first, I was too busy updating my Facebook status and having my pity party. Then I felt a nudge to look up. I look up and start laughing and crying. I could feel Andrew’s energy surround me, almost like he was tickling me. As I’m laughing out loud through the tears, I say to Andrew, “You’re such a dumbass and a putz!” Which made me laugh more! The tears were still there but they felt lighter, it’s hard to explain, the tears weren’t from sadness now, I felt almost giddy. I called Andrew a few more choice names before I was done.
What I have learned from all of this is not to fight the emotions of grief as they come up. Not like I really could anyway, I don’t have the energy to fight them. It’s easier to just go with the flow when it happens. It’s really the only way to heal. So, yet another layer dealt with. Grief is like an ogre and an onion, to paraphrase the great philosopher Shrek, “it has many layers.” I’ll say it does! That Shrek knows his stuff.
IT’S ALL GOOD!