It’s been real.

Thanks for reading and for all of your support.

But this does not mean my blogging days are over. I’ve started a new chapter in life and with it a new blog. It will be packed with humor, photos, video, parenting tales documenting life as a single mom and a fledgling blended family, do-it-yourself projects, green living, gardening and did I mention humor?

It’s in the prototype stages now, but please check in often. I’ll be adding entries daily if possible.

Please click on http://www.itsokeydokey.com.

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Namaste,

CP

Dinny brought them back yesterday and flew out of Birmingham today. About an hour before she left, Avery asked if he could go back to NM with her. “Just for a day.” And then he asked why she couldn’t stay here longer. Oh God, I knew what was coming. A big burst of tears after he said goodbye to her at the airport. Absolute sobbing. And I thought to myself, “I don’t remember him crying like this after his dad died.” Of course, he was three then and surely didn’t know the ramifications of what had happened to his dad.

“We’re not going to see grandma for a long time,” he said in the car.

A mere two hours later Marley came to me in tears. Our neighbors Anton and Lena and their children–my children’s best friends–are moving to New York tommorrow, and of course she doesn’t want them to leave. And Lena is also Marley’s piano teacher. Damn, I think, my kids have had more than their fair share of loss in their short little lives. And then I start crying, too. Almost two years ago to the date, their best friends at the time, Patton and Taiyou moved away. Within a week Anton and Lena moved in three doors down. And less than two months later, Mike died.

Flash knows all of this, and empathizes with my children’s pain, but says, “but they are also about to get a daddy,” referring to his moving over here sometime early this fall.

But my kids don’t know that. Yet.

Neither does anyone on Mike’s side of the family. Hell, I agonized about telling Dinny that I had a boyfriend for weeks before I told her about Flash. Just isn’t a normal rite of passage you read about in Dear Abby, telling your beloved mother in law about her late son’s replacement. Yikes. So it wasn’t with great joy that I introduced the two last night. Slightly uncomfortable for all of us, I imagine. Cordial enough we all were as we sipped Smirnoff and nibbled appetizers. But I felt bad for everybody and strangely guilty about it all. Such an unlikely and unnatural meeting.

Luckily, Michael’s nickname is “Flash.” He is funny, sweet, creative, generous and understands and accepts my past and present grief. And he loves my children. And I love his daugher.

He has had his experiences with death, too. Brother, mother, grandmother.

Marley and Avery have been with their dad’s Mom and her husband in NM all month. I’m so proud of them. It’s broken up my 21 month string of single motherhood and only now, after three weeks, am I decompressing from the constant vigilance of it all.

Why am I surprised that I still miss Mike every day? I suppose a piece of my heart will forever be broken over what happened.

Sometimes it’s worse, especially when the pain of my children becomes apparent. When Avery says “I really want a dad. If I could just have a chance…” as earnest and wistful as if he were trying out for the baseball team. Or when Marley becomes upset that she is different from everyone in her class and I ask her what she means, and she says that she is the only one whose dad has died.

Those things make me very very sad.

At times I think about how difficult this has been for all of us and I just want to cry. Sometimes I do. I feel like a refugee in many ways. Haunted by a past life that is simultaneously vivid and dreamlike, but unreachable. Gone.

This week, I am going to get some beehives put in my yard. May be getting some chickens in a few weeks, too. Both just kind of fell into my lap through friends of friends.. Mike and I had always talked about doing these things together.

He had a passion for gardening, sustainability, good food. I mourn this connection that we had and am haunted by the fact that we never will get to share these new barnyard hobbies.

Flash does not share these particular passions with me. But he has a passion for my passions and is a really good sport about it.

How can life be so strange and wonderful, sad and dark all at the same time?

I never knew.

After my last post, this month has had a much more positive hue, due 100% to the kind and generous souls that I am so lucky to have crossed paths with:

The short list–thank you’s for the last three weeks:

To Ashley and Jeremy for being such good friends to me and my kids and for letting me borrow your dog and for watching both of my kids so I could have a night out with adults–such a rare and special treat! To everyone who showed up to the Aquarian Birthday bash–it was so much fun!!!! Too many to name here. To Paige for making me laugh and laugh last night. To Michael for being with me and being Flash. To Mary and Fred for your consistent love, support, and food!! And running partnership!! To Gwen, my bestest friend in the whole world. To Julie, for her funny and quirky ways, and for being the bread fairy amongst other roles (boy coach in particular as of late!) To Jennifer Sanders for offering childcare so I could meditate for 3 hours TWICE in one week. To my mom, for bringing dinner and hanging with the kids and taking them to school. To Samantha for her wise words of encouragement, including on this year’s b-day card. To Kelli and Marcie for their friendship and support. To Suzanne, such a loving, healing, fun soul. And the best massage therapist in Birmingham. To Andy, for great conversation with dinner and other connections. To Anton for raking my leaves and sitting in my livingroom with a crowbar when I thought a crazy guy was going to come to my house. To Lena for being such a great person, neighbor and teacher. To Janet and Dad for the flowers. To Sharron for her words of encouragement, resources, and upbeat positive energy. And Marley and Avery, my beautiful children.

I’m sure I’ve left people out of this list, so thank you to those I have forgotten, too. Am I not lucky? I cherish all that you have given me and hope that in some small measure I have been able to be a positive force in your lives.

Today was one of those days where the contrast of “before” (intact, nuclear family with its occasional rough patches and frequent feelings of contentment and joy) and “after” (frequent rough patches and occasional feelings of contentment and joy, but none with the depth that I felt before Mike’s death.)

First, at church, I was in a class with Marley and Avery where we were all to take turns describing our family. I cringed as I heard what we were about to do. Marley asked me in a whisper if she could include her father and our two dogs that died when it was her turn to describe our family. I said “sure.”

Then the kids were told to draw a picture of their family on a mural. She drew four of us.

She’s not deluded, she’s just as tired as I am of explaining our situation, as she explained to me later. Can’t say I blame her.

Later in the afternoon, a fundraiser from my college alma mater called, trying to raise money for the French department. And of course, the inevitable questions about employment came up. When I said I wasn’t working, she asked if I was a stay at home mom. “No, I’m a recent widow with two failing businesses. And at this rate I’ll likely lose my house,” said I. That didn’t stop her from asking for $150. Good grief.

That kind of shit really gets to me.

Finally, even later in the afternoon, someone in a book club that I had been active in a while back asked if I was going to start up again. I would LOVE to be lucky enough to just be able to say “yes,” but of course, as always, childcare is an issue. And I am weary of the ceaseless arranging I have to do to have a night out, and besides, I can’t afford a babysitter, all of which I explained to her.

All of this comounded by the beautiful weather which made me want to get out in the garden and work. Except I’ve got 2,000 other things on my to do list first.

I am tired, weary, alone, and on days like this it is beyond me what I’m supposed to do about it.

Crying for an hour didn’t seem to help either.

Life really sucks.

And I question whether things are ever going to be better, feel normal, or even just okay.

Instead of celebrating, I am trying to live in the moment and trying not  to project anything too far in the future, lest I get panicky.  I feel stuck, like I’m spinning my wheels and not really progressing at all. 

Watching other people take for granted their holiday plans that have always been there for them takes its toll on me.  It is painful knowing that the vast majority of people with children have someone who either takes their kids on the weekends (so they can have a social life or time to reflect/renew) or actually have an intact family and with it, some measure of support from another adult.

I no longer have such luxury.

I know no mentors in that fit my category.  Not that I’d wish this fate on anyone.  But if they are out there, please give me some advice.

And yes, I guess I’m bitter.

For whatever reason, this is my path.  And I can accept that, mostly.  What I hate is how my children suffer because of it.

I don’t understand it.  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.  I do want to avoid a full-time job, unless it could somehow miraculously closely match the hours my kids are in school.  Currently, I am failing in the world of self employment.  It would be so much more simple if I didn’t have to worry about childcare all of the time.

But I do.

Nothing is given.  One year from now, I could be out of savings and forced into working full time.  It’s difficult to imagine things getting easier.  I’ve done an enormous amount of backsliding economically in the past year. (And it is extremely annoying how so many say “yes, times are tough for everyone.” )

Yet, none of these people have lost their spouse AND see their businesses slipping away AND are quickly draining their savings AND might have to move AND change the school their children attend AND have no one who can take care of their kids, etc, etc.

I guess I should feel lucky that I’ve had a cushion to figure things out for so long.  But mostly I’m perplexed because no good or easy answers have materialized.

Maybe Mike’s spirit can give me some answers/help me see a path that has promise for my anniversary present.  It’s the least he could do for his children who miss him immensely and who will lose out big time if their mother can’t be around much of the time either.

I’ve been working with these problems for a while now, employing both practical and intuitive means, to little avail.

Thanks to all who have helped in big and small ways.

I hope I can be of service, too.

Namaste