A Letter to My Husband in Heaven...

Hi baby,

Wow.  You've been gone 2 years.  I literally woke up crying this morning.  I took two Xanax to sleep last night, hoping it would help with my mood upon waking, but it didn't.

How have you been gone two year babe?  How?  I mean, you were literally just here it feels like.  I can see your face.  I can hear your smile.  I just pressed play on the last voice recording I have of you on my cell phone.  It is of your outgoing message on your cell.  My gosh, I miss your voice.

Baby, I can't believe you're not here.  I can't believe this is my life and Conner's life and you are missing it.

Oh this child of ours....he's gonna give me so many grey hairs.  I NEED you here to help me with him.  I NEED you to help me get through the days.  I NEED your hand to hold and your lips to kiss. I NEED your voice to tell me it's going to be ok and that you love me.  I am so scared he's going to end up like you: dead before he should be.  I am so scared of all the accidents he has, and let me tell you about those.  I am definitely paying for your raising, baby.  Aye aye aye....  He thinks he knows it all!!!  Just like you! lol...  Seriously though, I can't tell him anything because he thinks he already knows it all and is not careful at all.  It reminds me of all the stupid accidents you had over the years, whether it was dropping a gate or a trailer on you somehow, stabbing yourself with a dirty terribly huge cattle needle while working cows, wrecking before we began because your sadness and guilt pushed you to drinking too much, and so much more.

I think about the last accident you had before you died, the one that ended you up in the ER at Mountain View with two broken fingers.  Conner and I were in the ER last week with his knife injury...stabbed himself with your knife while whittling a piece of wood...and we were in the exact same room as you were.  We of course cried as soon as we realized it.  I noticed it first and tried to just ignore it, but it took him a few minutes to realize it was your room and when he did, the poor nurse didn't know what to think.

I was so mad about that freaking concrete plant and that accident just confirmed my hate for it. I remember when you decided you wanted to buy it and you knew I was beyond mad.  You even asked me as we stood in the kitchen together with our cups of coffee, "if I buy this will you still be here?"  I told you maybe this one more time but you had to stop somewhere. You either had to give up the MRWA job and do concrete and dirt work plus manage a few wastewater plants, or you had to quit all of that and just go back to MRWA.  I told you that day something had to change or you were going to kill yourself.  It was too much.  I knew it. Everyone around us knew it.  But you didn't.  And so you died at that freaking plant two years ago today.

I almost surprised you with lunch that day.  Conner and I almost brought you food and thought about just spending the day at the plant watching you, helping you, playing in the gravel piles he loved to climb on.  I feel so guilty about not going.  I wish we had because maybe I would have seen you slip and could have helped you.  I'm so angry that you were alone. I should have been there.  Someone should have been there.

Or you shouldn't have gone.  I knew you didn't feel well that day, so why did you go??? Why didn't you stay home and rest?  I would have cooked for you and it would have been a great day to lay on the couch with our son and watch movies with him. Or to lay in the floor and play with his gazillion Matchbox cars that you two loved to crash into each other.  You should have stayed home that day.  I should have begged you.

My gosh I miss your arms wrapped around me.  I miss so much the way you used to come up behind me while I was standing at the mirror getting ready for work.  I miss the way you would rest your head on my left shoulder and we would look into each other's eyes via the mirror ahead.  You would say, "my gosh, you are beautiful baby, you make me wanna kck-kck."  That was your noise you'd make...lol...to mean you wanted me... totally inappropriate for my blog probably but I'm writing a letter to you so who cares.

I miss how proud you were to be seen with me and how proud you were of me.  You always told me that.  You told me that about taking pictures.  You told me that about teaching.  You told me that about singing...well only like twice because you usually got mad and said, "I don't know why you have to get on stage with those boys and shake your a** for everyone else."  Well ding-dong, in case you didn't know, I was doing that for YOU.  I wanted you to be proud of me.  I never wanted to disappoint you, in all our 13 years together, I never once wanted to disappoint you.

I miss the way you complimented every meal I cooked.  Your boy has taken after you on that.  It's so sweet.  He'll tell me, "oh this is good momma...dad sure would have liked this."  You used to tell me how good everything I cooked was.  Even the first time I actually cooked a full meal at my rental house when we were just freshly dating.  My stupid oven, do you remember it?  That ridiculous thing!  It didn't work right with the temperature setting on bake, so while I had it set at 350 degrees to bake the chicken parmesan, it actually was at like 500 degrees!  My alarm started going off and you walked in with me standing below the alarm, waving a towel to try to get it to shut up, crying like an idiot, and already apologizing profusely for disappointing you.  But remember what you did?  You smiled, opened a window and said, "babe...it'll be ok!  We can just scrape off the black stuff!"  I mean, that was love right there! lol...

I miss so much about you, babe.  And I miss so much about being happy.  And our home...it is beautiful and perfect and I've made the little adjustments to it you always wanted done but didn't want to spend the money to do.  But, even in all it's perfectness, it is so lonely.  It gets so silent.  I miss the thud of your steps that used to make me so mad.  You never could just walk somewhere.  It was like you were on "go" every step of every day... a man on a million missions.  It used to make me mad because you literally stomped through the house and would wake me up.  But, boy what I would give to hear your stomps again.

Michael, you gave me the best years of my life.  You gave me 13 years of fighting, loving, growing, learning, and creating a family.  I wouldn't trade one second of any of it, except the second you took your last breath.  I want to thank you baby for all that you gave me while you were here.  Our son is the most important thing.  So, I am trying to live.  I've been having better days lately. I've been feeling a positive change ahead.  I just know things are going to turn around for us.  Please don't think that means we won't miss you every step of the way because we will.  We always will.

We will celebrate your birthday every February.  I will tell you Happy Anniversary every August. We will visit you every December 29 for the rest of our lives.

But baby, I have to heal.  I have to step forward in life.  I actually feel you right now smiling and nodding yes to me.  I know you want me to, so I'm trying.  Michael, I want to fall in love again.  I want to be wanted and needed like I was with you.  I want to find happiness for our boy.  I want to find a man who loves me and Conner and who will spend time with him, teaching him things a man needs to teach a boy.  I want to find a Godly man, one who will go to church with us.  One who won't work himself to death, but won't just sit on the couch and do nothing either.  One who will love me enough to compliment me every day like you did.  One who will take the boy and me on adventures. One who will help me build a life again for us both.

Know that no matter if and when that happens, I will love you for the rest of my life.  It is going to take one heck of a strong man to deal with this.  To love a woman who loves him, but also loves you. Do you think that's possible?  Do you think it's possible for someone to accept and love me knowing that a piece of me will now, forever, and always times infinity belong to you?  I worry sometimes that it won't happen.  But Michael, I have so much love left inside me to give baby.  I want to love again. And I hope one day I will.

I hope that Heaven has a few dirt roads that you and your dad can drive down today.  I hope it has a field full of green grass and grazing cattle.  I hope that you are sitting in the sunshine today, laughing and smiling at all the memories we made and the love we shared.  You are missed here by so many.

I love you more than words can explain, Michael Richard Hollis.  Thanks for marrying me all those years ago and thanks for making me the happiest I've ever been at least for a while.  Conner, Tristan and I love you and miss you but hope nothing but pure happiness and bliss belong to you now.

Until we meet again my love, and prepare yourself for that day because I plan to come running as hard as I can, keep smiling...keep laughing...and we will keep living as best we can.

NFAxI...
#stillhis
Love,

Your Wife

Crying Into a Bowl of Cereal...at 1:30 am...

What the heck am I doing? How did my husband die on me?  I mean, legit HOW in the world is this my life?

I'm awake as I am most nights, and I'm hungry so I'm eating a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. And crying. I'm pathetic.

But then again, I'm not. I'm just so dang broken.

I mean, we had it all planned out. We were gonna grow old together on this friggin farm and watch our kids and grandkids while we sat on the front porch with our ice tea. We were gonna love each other with all our hearts and souls forEVER. And now I don't even want to be here some days. Some days it's just too painful and I think what the heck?!?! I need to throw a dart and get the heck outta dodge. But then I feel like I would be leaving him.

And here's what I really hate. My memory.

Widow Brain has wreaked havoc on my memory for some normal little day to day tasks that I just completely forget to do or forget when something is supposed to happen when literally I would just have talked about it. Like yesterday my girls' basketball team was playing in a tournament and I was talking with our assistant coach about if we won or lost, when we would play again. Not even an hour later, I had to text another coach to ask when. What the heck? So my memory screws with me and I can't remember stupid little things like that but you wanna know what I do remember?

I distinctly remember the way it felt in the pit of my stomach when I heard the coroner of the neighboring county tell me my husband was dead. I mean he told me over the F-ING phone! I remember shaking and not believing him so I told him, "ummm no, you're wrong. You are totally talking about the wrong person and nope it's not Mike. Thank you," and I hung up. Seriously. That's how my first conversation went with this man. And then the second time I dialed my husband's number, after a few minutes of not really registering but telling our 10 year old son to pray no matter what and rely on God no matter what, this man confirmed again that the love of my life was dead.

I remember falling to the gravel on my knees and the sharpness of the rocks that I didn't even feel until I stood after our son collapsed on the ground beside me. I remember telling him his dad was not coming home.

I remember all the people flooding our home and crying so much and being so drugged up on shock, grief, and Xanax that I literally could not walk to the bathroom by myself. I remember the smell of his coat and his wallet and his last set of work clothes that luckily I hadn't washed yet. I remember hyperventilating when my sister arrived after a 2-hour drive that should have taken 3 1/2. I remember making eye contact with her and not breathing. I remember her coming to me with a cold wet washcloth the hours and days ahead when I would have a complete meltdown. I remember the strange feeling that overtook me and the look I would give to her when it was about to hit.

I remember apologizing to people for these massive meltdowns. I don't know why I did, but I did. I remember thinking, "I hate that this is what my son is seeing but I literally cannot control it."

I just sure wish he was here and none of these memories existed. I wish I could sleep. I wish I could STOP reliving the day he died over and over and over. Or the day we buried him. It was so cold and I was dressed in the traditional black clothing: black sweater and dress pants, hair pulled back on a low pontytail, not one drop of makeup. And his brown, torn, stained, Carhartt coat that smelled of him.

Here is what I want to say to you, folks.

Love.
For the love of all things good, LOVE. Love hard and love as long as you can. Do not hesitate for one second to tell someone how you feel. Do not let fights last for days. Forgive each other. Swallow your pride and say you're sorry. Hold on to each other and hold on tight. End every phone call with an "I love you." If you aren't with anyone right now but you want to be, and he wants to be with you, then by golly GO FOR IT. Risk it. Try it. And if you fail, get back up and try again. But if you already have someone, cherish him. For the love of God, cherish him. Do those little things to spoil him. Make him where there is not ever one ounce of doubt in his mind how much you want him, need him, respect him, appreciate him, and love him.

Mike was sometimes a very hard man to love. He was rough around the edges and sometimes said or did things that hurt me deeply. But I was not going to give up on us. And the day he died, we were happier and more in love than ever.

So, I'm gonna go cry into my cereal a little more and take some Tylenol PM in hopes I drift to sleep soon and forget all the memories that won't let me go.

Much love to all of you. May God bring you peace in whatever area you may need it this Christmas Season and always. Pray for my son, our family and me as we approach two years. December 29 is our least favorite day of all.

#stillhis
Love,
Veronica