All That We Were...

Man, I miss him.
I miss all that we were for 13 years.
I am sitting on my front deck with the warmth radiating across me, but sadness still riddles my heart.

Used to on days like today I would be with him. Conner and I would find Mike wherever he was.
We would ride with him to check cows, the windows down and old country songs playing.
We would take a rare Ranger ride to the top of a hill somewhere on the farm and look across what he was trying to build for us.
We would pack a lunch and take it to him at a concrete job or at that God forsaken concrete plant.

I used to be happy. Back when we were all that we were.

My son used to be happy.

He is experiencing a ton of aggression lately. He is angry about so many things.
The loss of much of the farm builds anger inside Conner partly at his dad for leaving us unable to handle it, and partly at me for being unable to handle it.
The absence of his hero and best friend rips his guts open on an hourly basis. I'm not his dad. I'm not that rough and tough "let's go fix fence" kinda parent for him. Can I fix fence? Well yeah, but I only did it when my husband was here.
I'm not his dad. I can't be his dad and do Guy things with him all the time.
I'm not his dad. I can't tell him manly things or share those guy jokes he and his dad used to share.
I'm not his dad.
I'll never be.
And I'll never understand what it's like for my son.
I'll never know the amount of hurt he feels on a daily basis, but I do know it's excruciating.

He used to be happy.
He used to laugh and be carefree and play.
He used to love the farm and he still does, but he also hates it sometimes too because it's just not the same anymore.

All that we were was a family.

We no longer are whole.
We very rarely get to see or talk to Conner's brother. It is terribly difficult and sad. But we can't force it. So we don't. A relationship has to come naturally and I pray to God that one day it will. We love him. We miss him.

Without Mike we fell apart.

We all still fall apart.

Grief still visits like a thief in the night. It bashes us over the heart with a club and robs us of peace. It happens all the time.

I didn't know grief would still be our constant companion two years later. How naive I have been.
Grief has robbed my son of his childhood.
It has robbed both of us of a family and of happiness.

And even the simplest of moments are filled with pain and loneliness.

All that we were is gone.
And as hard as we try, we will never be the same.
We will never go back.
We will never be whole.

I miss love.
I miss being loved.
I miss romance.
I miss safety.
I miss happiness.
I miss my son's happiness.
I miss my family.

I miss all that we were.

#stillhis

A Widow's Role(S)...

Do what YOU want.
Become who YOU want to be.

It's so easy for outsiders to say.

Did you forget who you were before you were his wife? Did you lose yourself in being his wife and/or a mom? Did you fall right into your roles so happily and fully that they engulfed and became you?

Well I did all of that. I forgot about being Veronica because I was so insanely good at and happy with being Mike's Wife and Conner's Mom.

At 23, I was a divorced first-year teacher. I soon became a girlfriend.

Within two years I fell into the role of Farmer's Wife and made the best jugs of sweet tea and packages of bologna sandwiches you'd ever see. I fell into the role of Mike's Wife with grace and ease, after a few years of hard work. Everything ran like a well-oiled machine and I was happy doing it all. I fell into the role of Conner's Mom the day I learned I was pregnant with him. This role has made me the happiest of all.

So here I am all of a sudden no longer Mike's Wife. I'm no longer a Farmer's Wife. And I miss being those SO SO SO SO much.

But ladies, I can't change that. And neither can you.

We have to find our new roles, our new selves. We may have to redefine our meaning of happiness. And it's just so freaking HARD.

I don't want any of my new roles. I want my old ones back. I don't want a new man. I want mine back.

And taking on these new roles or finding yourself in these new roles is excruciating. It's like trying on a pair of leather pants, three sizes too small. Ya know, where you have to lay on the bed and have your sister use pliers to zip them?? I mean, I've never done that but have watched my mom and aunts help each other plenty of times! No leather was involved. Lol...

But it's just all so dadgum hard!

And I don't want a new man, but I also don't want to be alone forever. But you know what? The ones I've dealt with so far sure have burst my bubble pretty dang quick and easy! I get my feelings hurt so easily. I like people so easily. I am just so vulnerable and ready to feel loved and appreciated and wanted just like my husband did for me, but I just feel like what if it's not in my cards??

What if I'm SUPPOSED to stay Mike's Wife? What if I'm supposed to be his widow forever? What if he WAS my one true love and soulmate and God gave us 13 years and now I'm done? Just what if?

Ugh. Just having a little "widow whine Wednesday" I guess. I'm tired. This is all so hard and I have to buck up, grit my teeth, and clench my fists to get through because if I fall apart every time I feel like it and want to, my son suffers.

So, I will plow through until I find me. I will trudge through the hard turns God throws my way until I find my new role(S). Just know that I was blissfully happy with all my roles before. And I wish I had them still.

Much love to you...
Find YOU...I'm hoping I find ME soon.



#stillhis
Love,
Veronica

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

Unexplainable...

Dear Michael,

I miss you.

We participated in Thanksgiving this year as opposed to last year when we just had to avoid all things related to the Holiday. The entire time my mind was racing with thoughts of you. I forced myself to participate.

I prepared a good meal, all the while remembering all of the times you were here for dinner with the family. Conner even commented as he sat down with his plate, with tears welled up in his eyes, "Dad sure would like this food, mom." We just had a quiet moment looking at each other and nodding while everyone else was still filling their own plates.

I miss you.

My mom wanted a real tree for Christmas this year so we drove the farm, everyone loaded into your truck, and searched for the perfect tree. I drove in silence most of the way and cried. Mom sat beside me, patted  me on the leg and said, "I love you," over and over. I found no joy in what should have been a beautiful moment: Mom'a three grandchildren and her two daughters doing the old fashioned Christmas tree hunt. Instead though, I was sad.

I miss you.

I have found that I am SO much more quiet and drained than I ever have been before. I can't explain it to people. The only ones who understand are unfortunately the ones who are part of widowhood themselves. I can't explain the tug at my stomach that literally stays with me as I walk through every day, nauseated with nerves. I can't explain the switch that has been flipped that seriously requires each moment of laughter, each glimmer of a smile, to be forced. I have never had to FORCE myself to smile or laugh or enjoy life's most precious moments. But here I am, forcing just about everything.

I miss you.

I miss your laugh, your light. I miss your hands to hold and your broad shoulders to lean on. I miss your kisses and your compliments. I miss your presence in all things, whether it meant that your were physically home from work or just that I knew you would be coming home from work. The reality always existed that you WOULD be coming home. And now that reality is gone. And that is the most difficult thing to imagine or to try to explain.

Conner told me the other day, while he and I had a snuggle fest in his bed, "Mom, sometimes when I think about Dad, I have to look at a picture because I can't see his face perfect anymore." And he feels guilty about that. He feels guilty that his image of you is beginning to not be as clear as it was two years ago. And it's not that Conner has forgotten what you look like; it's just that enough time has passed that he is scared to death of forgetting what you look like. He's afraid of forgetting your voice. I cannot begin to explain to anyone how much this hurts and literally kills a piece of me.

I miss you... but HE misses you so much more because YOU are missing him growing up.

You are missing these mood swings that sometimes just about push me over the edge. Ugh...12 is SO HARD and I can't imagine what it's like without a dad. Our son literally has NO male influences in his life. Not ones that actually come around. I mean, so many of them SAY they will but then rarely, if ever, actually show up. I can't begin to fathom what goes through Conner's mind when he needs his dad. Anger, disappointment, sorrow, frustration, confusion, isolation, abandonment, fear....so on and so on.

Everyday I carry so much that it is weighing me down and robbing me of my soul's happiness. I am not happy. I am not ok. But I have to fake it every day just to get through. I have a job and bills and a son to raise. My own inner guilt and turmoil of knowing, KNOWING, that I have to move forward, that I cannot give up, that our son needs me more than ever, that I HAVE to be his everything, weighs more heavily on me with every passing day. I've heard so many times it makes me want to puke that "time heals all wounds." I call BS. No it doesn't. In my case, it often feels like time or making things worse for me. And it is unexplainable.

I wish you hadn't left us. I wish you had been happy with our 182 acre farm at Garwood and never brought us to this train wreck I'm in now, alone. I wish you had been happy with a "normal" job and paycheck and hadn't let your gazillion money ideas consume you and what time we should have had with you. I wish fall and winter were not such dreaded times for us now because they used to be our favorites. I wish you hadn't left me so much debt. I wish you hadn't gone to work that day, by that you had rested like I wanted you to. I wish so much, babe.

But more than anything, I wish our little boy's heart wasn't so broken and that mine would begin to heal. Because I have accepted reality, and it sucks, I now know that you're never coming back and that my life will never be the same. But it's so unexplainable to others how this makes us feel every moments of the day.

I miss you.
We miss you.

#stillhis
Love,
Your Wife

An Empty Chair...

Tomorrow for Thanksgiving families and friends will gather for a beautiful meal. Laughter will carry across the dinner rolls and the pie plates. Memories will be made and homes will be filled with love.

For many families during the holidays unfortunately, there will be an empty chair. An empty place setting at the table.

An empty chair sits at our table because Mike is not there. An empty chair means that we look around for him but he is nowhere to be found. 

All that remains is a void, a space where he should be. I'm trying to push this reality from my mind but after I loaded my vehicle down with holiday groceries earlier today, I had a full on breakdown the entire drive home. I haven't had a good "can't breathe, sob out loud, can't see the road" kind of cry in a while. And stupid pecan pie and cinnamon rolls did it.

The day my husband died I made cinnamon rolls. I literally have not been able to eat a cinnamon roll since that day. I had baked them and called Mike to tell him they were done. I asked if he wanted me to bring him some but he had already left the farm. Just a few hours later, when the cinnamon rolls had grown cold, the love of my life died, alone, at our concrete plant, and was found half hanging out of the concrete chute. His legs and hips were exposed but his front end was not visible, as it rested lifeless in the chute.

So cinnamon rolls, the kind from a can  that we can freshly bake on our own, are just one of my nemeses. And then there is pecan pie.

This Thanksgiving staple makes my chest tighten and my breaths become labored. Crazy, right? Mike loved pecan pie and one year it was my mom's duty to provide the sweets. Mike ate that pie and raved about how good it was, offering compliment after compliment to my mom. The evening continued and when he went back for another piece, he complimented again saying , "Good job on the pie, Jackie." To which mom replied, "oh, well I didn't make it...it's Marie Callendar."  Mike laughed so hard! He was like, I complimented her multiple times today and she never came clean until the very end and she literally just forgot she had actually bought it instead of made it!! For the Thanksgivings Mike was still alive after that, he teased my mom always with, "where's that famous pecan pie you make, Jackie?"

Goodness. So two foods that usually fill homes during Thanksgivig and Christmas are two that I just can no longer handle.

But the foods that cause me to go into near convulsive sobs don't hold a light to the empty chair. And it's not just the empty chair during the holidays but literally sometimes I catch myself while sitting in my recliner just looking over at my couch and it's just blank; there is no one there. 

Mike should be sitting right here... My husband, Conner's dad, Chris' son. But it remains empty.

And sure there could be someone in the chair to fill that space, but that chair might end up being empty for the rest of my life because I have set my standards high. Michael set them high, not only with what he did or said, but also with what he didn't do or say. So my standards, my expectations, my bare minimums that I will tolerate and fall in love with, are high. Not because I'm better than anyone by any stretch, but because I deserve good.

I deserve attention and affection. I had those with Michael and because of his attention and affection, I never doubted that my husband loved me in all my flaws.

I deserve honesty and openness. I THOUGHT I always had those with my husband; I have learned that I didn't. Not to the extent I should have. Otherwise, I would not be in probate court; life insurance policies would have all been correct; debt would not have been such an overwhelming surprise.

I deserve commitment and trust and loyalty.  Mike had his infidelities before me but I did not worry about his lack of commitment to me and to our son; however, as the years passed it seemed often that his commitment was directed more toward making money to pay for his business endeavors. And he didn't even know if either of his sons wanted a part of it all, but he committed his life to providing a dream for them and I'm angry about it because that's what killed him. He committed so hard to it that he got us both in so deep, he could never stop. Until it killed him.

I deserve laughter and compliments and love so deep. I deserve happiness and security and longevity. I deserve love unmatched.

That chair might be empty for the next 40 years, I don't know.  But I do know that for now, on the cusp of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the two year mark, I will look at the empty chair and I will miss all of the good things about my husband that made me fall so hard in love with a dark-haired, dark complected, hard-working, generous man.

Please say a prayer for peaceful hearts and survival for all widows/widowers and their children and families.  Invite a widow to dinner! Open your home and heart to love and kindness and generosity and patience.

Grieving is a terribly difficult journey. Our empty chairs will always be a part of our lives, whether physically or metaphorically. Our loves are gone and we will miss them for the rest of our breaths.

May your home be filled with love and laughter, good food and good company, and may your chairs be filled with people you love.

God bless you all from The Hollis Family.
#stillhis
Love,
Veronica 

An Epic Fail...

WARNING--REALITY of widowhood post ahead. DO NOT comment statements of pity as that is NOT what I am looking for. I just need to vent and I think many people really have no idea the reality of solo life. Especially a young solo life.

Here I sit in my recliner, defeated and angry once again. I feel like I am DONE right now. D.O.N.E.

I am a mom.
My son is healthy and ornery and drives me insane but is my best blessing of all. I prayed for him. For years I prayed for the chance to be a mom. Yes, my son sometimes sends me into moments of near rage, but I would not be able to live one day without him.

I am a principal.
I have worked hard for my degrees and have had success in the education field. I have worked hard at any job I've held since I was 13 years old. I've always worked hard.

I am a widow.
A WIDOW. Wow. Not a role for which I bargained and often time I feel that I am an EPIC FAIL.

I did NOT pray for this title.
I did NOT work hard to earn it.

And I'm stuck with it!

Today I am drained. Physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually drained.

I started with an idea of what I was going to accomplish today, starting with building a dog kennel since our dog has begun wandering to the neighbors. I hate having to keep her tied so I decided she needs a pen.

Last weekend while Conner and I were riding around the farm, we stumbled upon a pile of things and found pieces for a chain link pen. What the heck?!?! I literally didn't even know we had one...or excuse me, that Michael had one. Angry at first that there was yet another thing I didn't know until after my husband died, I decided to push the anger at Michael to the side and put my newly found dog pen to good use. Not having to spend the money on a new pen was a relief.

I decided today that I would build it. I gathered, with Conner's help, the six pieces of chain link pen, fence posts to secure corners to, fence post driver which weighs a ton, wire to attach to fence posts, sledge hammer, regular hammer, and tin to cover a portion of the pen. A woman on a mission!

I loaded everything into the bed of the truck and began to unload at a spot in the yard where I could actually envision the pen and how well it would serve our dog Molly. I began working. Yep, I was gonna do it. It would be so cool to show people I did it myself.

I drove one fence post and began hammering the ends of the first piece of the chain link pen into the ground and things began to go wrong. And things continued to go wrong. I failed. I dropped everything and went to sit and cry.

I began messaging people asking for help. They all have lives and chores and jobs and families and no time for me and my ridiculous problems today. And I do not begrudge a single one of them for this!!! As a matter of fact, I am so incredibly happy that my friends have what I had almost two years ago.

My friends are such amazing people. They spend time with their children. They spend time with their spouses. They go to birthday parties and baby showers; they go watch movies together as a family; they are happily busy living their lives. Please know that I am so proud of each of you. You, the dear friends to whom I reached out today, are living the dream...my dream: a busy, happy, whole family. A husband, wife, and child(ten). I love you all...so I apologize for asking for help like I did today, but then declining invitations at other times.

I avoid birthday parties and baby showers. I am so sorry to all of you who have invited us over the past two years to your moments of celebration. But I just can't. I've tried, and I have found that I'm so focused on the absence of my husband and I look at our son and know that is exactly what he's thinking as well that I end up in tears or have to leave quickly so that I can cry on the drive home. I know that we have turned down dinner invitations or movie invitations. We have turned down just coming over to hang out.

I have also avoided attending church services often. I have such mixed emotions when I attend church and I cry, sometimes uncontrollably, every visit. I love The Lord and feel incredibly blessed and grateful for all He has given to me and to our son. But I am also sometimes so angry and sad, and sometimes it's over stupid little things like the epic fail of preparing a dog pen, that I cannot face The Lord. I feel guilty for being angry. And also we avoid it sometimes for the looks. We avoid everything and everyone sometimes because of the looks. And don't get me wrong, I know that the people who love us and care for us are only concerned for us and see that I am a different person than before. The looks mean genuine concern and I know that, BUT still it makes me feel like my absolute despair shows so loudly on my face, and I HATE that this is who I am now.

I am so incredibly sorry. But know that when I reply "I'm not feeling well", or "Conner isn't feeling well," I'm not lying. Depression, the bone aching kind, has settled into me and I can't seem to shake it off. I try. Believe me I try. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day I try.

But some days, and today is one of those days, I can't. I'm done. I can't face people or pretend one second of today. I pretend all day most days and sometimes the pretending ends up bringing me genuine laughter and genuine smiles. But many more times it is still just all forced.

So today I reached out for help again because I am an EPIC FAIL as a solo ANYTHING (and for sure as a dog pen builder) and I ended up realizing I owe so many of my family and friends an apology. To some I'm sure it seems like the only time I reach out is when I need something. I HATE being THAT person. I'm sorry. I truly am. I am grateful to each of you, whether all of our memories are old or we still try to make new ones when we have time. A few of you are still the diehard amazing people who text me regularly to check on us. Please know I want to return with all of my heart, I really do. I'm still trying and I still need your love, support, and prayers. I promise I won't be an EPIC FAIL at friendship and family, or at love and happiness forever.

I just still miss my husband and love and happiness and holding a handsome man's hand. I'm just still really sad.

Love,
Veronica