There is no getting away from it, is there?
You can try to be okay, try to not think about it, tell yourself the reason there are no new posts is that he's in Costa Rica even though you know that's bullshit because you were IN Georgia... you can go on falling alseep and waking the hell back up and not cleaning the house, you can go grocery shopping, make a low-country boil, watch TV... you can do any goddamned thing you can think of and it's still the same... still sitting there, just waiting for you to even begin to think about lowering your defenses so it can kick you right in the heart all over again and make you cry... again.
Right? Right. Jesus FUCK, Rob.This shit HURTS, Pappy. Is it ever gonna get any easier?
Will it ever not make me cry to realize that you're....
not in Costa Rica? Why?
Why you? You wanna ask "why NOT you?" Shit.
Got the rest of eternity, do ya? A million reason why not you. They all boil down to love, mostly.
Love, need, realness, honesty, strength... all of which there isn't enough of in this world, except need.
And, godalmightydamn, do I still need you. I don't need anything from you.
Just need you to still be there.
Still there, showing me the way through the hardest thing I've ever had to do... surviving losing you. You got me out of a hell I didn't even realize the sheer extent of, til I was out of it and took a look back at it. I thought that was the ultimate.
But... I was wrong, Rob. That wasn't the worst hell, the hardest thing.
This is. This deafening fuckin' silence.
This re-realization that you're reeeeally not on vacation somewhere.
This having to put up with a buncha dickheads and know-it-alls and assholes by myself. And, yeah, I can still have a good idea of what you'd tell me... "fuck 'em, Darlin'. You just say whatcha wanna say and if they can't handle it, that's their pc, stupid-assed OWN weak-kneed ball-less problem, not yours." But, knowing you would say that and knowing you could say that are two different things.
Especially the part where I can't escape knowing that you CAN'T say that now. And, neither can anybody else with the same meaning and impact that you said it.
Hell, I can say it to myself and all it does is sound like your voice in my head and then remind me that it's not. That it can't ever be again. God.... This keeps body-slamming my heart at the oddest times.
Earlier today, we were all at this discount store we like to go to once in a while.
While the guys were loading the car, I was gathering shit outta my "console".
Mostly what I was doing was gathering receipts to be able to keep some kinda half assed track of the money flow around here and I really only need the ones from since Jr. got here. As I'm doing this, I'm reading the dates on said receipts. I see 6/28, 6/25/, 7/5... alla these dates. And, I know what happened on some of 'em.
Not s'much on others. I actually had to ask if Jr. got here before or after I went to Georgia. I truly did not know. THAT'S how fuckin' fried my brain was, is and what? Will be?
For how long?
And, without benefit of weed...
imagine that. One goddamned incident on one goddamned day has done my brain (heart, memory, self, sense, life) more damage than a career spanning over twenty years of smokin' weed. I've lost more people than the populations of some TOWNS in my life and none of them, not all of them put together, have impacted my life like losing you has, Rob. How is that possible? How is you being gone forever possible? And, how is it possible to get through this, to get through losing you, WITHOUT you? Yeah, I know "life goes on".
What I'd like to know is why does it bother to?
What's the point, really? And, really... that's wrong.
Life doesn't always "just go on", or you'd still be here. I think a better trite saying for this shit would be "Life still sucks" or something. Because... life sucks anyway and now it sucks worse, right?
(Right.)
And, the only way life doesn't suck anymore is when ya don't hafta deal with it anymore.
Right?
I'm sure.
Right.
Just ask you, huh? So.
I guess I oughta quit lying to myself and other people when I get asked how I'm doing with alla this.
I keep saying "okay".
And, I kinda thought I was.
But...
apparently, I'm not, s'much. In fact, I think I might be doing terrible. I'm not facing this.
I'm not dealing with this.
I don't even know HOW to right now.
I don't know where the path is outta here without you lighting the way like you have been for me for so long. And, the longer I don't face, handle, deal with... WHATEVER... this, the longer it's just gonna keep sitting there, waiting for me to be vulnerable to it kickin' my ass some more. They say you don't know what you have til it's gone. That's not always true. I did know.
I knew all along, Rob. I ate a lot of shit and still am, for how I was... AM... about you. "You never even met the men..."
That means "you never even FUCKED the man". So? As easily as sex without love can exist and does, so can love without sex. In fact, I firmly believe you can have a better, more REAL love without muddying it up with sex. Anybody wanna try to tell me I can't love somebody I've never fucked? How about my DAD, dickheads?
How about my own Dad? Never fucked HIM and I'd kill any one of you for even looking at him wrong. Now, tell me again how never meeting, a.k.a. "fucking", Rob means I can't possibly love him to the extent that my heart is broken over losing him. Tell me again what an "ass-kissing, groupie, hypocrite cunt" I am. And, go on boring me to death with how "wrong" I was about him and a few other things. I may have never been face-to-face with Rob, but... I was heart-to-heart with him on a few levels.
Levels that matter more than a roll in the sack. In all that time, it was never a matter of the mind, of what I thought. It was what I felt, what I KNEW, without having to be told. The man was only an open book if only you had the heart, the sense and the eyes with which to really see and understand him. But... ya had to WANT to.
He didn't make it easy.
If it'd been EASY, any asshole coulda done it and the last thing he EVER needed was another asshole in his life. But... he had 'em.
BOY, did he have 'em. And, what coulda made this come out any differently?
Could ANYTHING have changed this course of events, made it turn out some other way?
Was there something I could've done?
Something I shoulda done? I have this nagging feeling there was.
But, I guess I'll never know in this life.
You can rest assured this'll be one of the first things I ask whoever's in charge of where I go next, though. Fuck.
me.
runnin'. It hurts to breathe. It hurts every time my heart beats. "Rob'sgone, rob'sgone, rob'sgone..." Shut the fuck up, already.
I know that, even if I can't accept it, okay heart? Maybe I shouldn't have been trying to avoid this all this time.
Maybe then it wouldn't have me pinned right now with it's smelly armpit across my face, like some stupid wrestler, making breathing a chore I'd rather not do. I don't know. I don't know about THIS and I don't know about ANYTHING anymore. If a man as big as Rob in as many ways as Rob, as 10 by, as nationwide... WORLDWIDE... as everything as Rob was can be reduced to a small box of ashes... what IS there to know that can be trusted? Not a lot that I can see right this minute. And, maybe nothing at all. Should I go get one of his shirts?
Would that help?
Guy's shirts have been givng me comfort since I was a little kid, sleeping with one of my Dad's shirts when he was on nightshift, so I wouldn't hafta be home "alone" with my fuckin' mom. I can go do that.
I just don't know if it'll help or hurt worse this time. I've got 'em upstairs, in my room.
Where they've been since they got here.
Where I've walked past 'em every day, a coupla times a day and have yet to stop once and so much as look at one. Just like with Rob, just knowing they're there is all that matters. And, they're not going anywhere. They're not gonna be there one day and gone the next. Well, good then.
That means I can wait on that.
'Cause right now it's enough to look up those six inches or so and see the bumpersticker.
Knowing how I finally got it is what's too much.
And, before I even get to the bumpersticker, there's his reading glasses, sitting on top of the computer, in that ceramic bear's lap, ready in case I find myself squinting at shit I'm trying to read. Those glasses... those grocery-store magnifying-glass glasses.... I have been trying FOREVER, it seems, to find a pair of those damned things at the local stores that work for me.
Either none of 'em pass the "eye chart test" at the store, or they do and when I get 'em home and try to use 'em here, at the computer, I find out then that they're wrong.
But, his? Friggin' PERFECT. Of course. I haven't worn my eyes out ONCE since they got here. And, with them, I don't hafta hold books farther away than I used to to read 'em.
Like, "Midnight".
It was those glasses I had on when I started that book. Not wearin' 'em right now, though. Seems the endless tears are keeping my eyes "fresh". I do, however, have a headache.
Which ain't SHIT, compared to the heartache.
But, in fact, it is kinda "distracting" me from the heart part and I know if I go take some aspirin to get rid of it all that'll be left is the heart part which no drug can "cure", soooo....
Headache it is. Christ.
I sound like that Mickey Gilley song, "Headache tomorrow or a heartache tonight". Which is actually GOOD, because he's drowning out Garth fuckin' BROOKS and his "coulda missed the pain, but then I'd have had to miss the dance", which just kills me because it is SO TRUE. See why I hate country?
It's MURDEROUS. Shit. Maybe I oughta go splice the damned speaker wire on my big CD player (that some smart-assed cat musta chewed on) and put some Ozzy Osbourne or something.
Crazy Train... yeah.
On repeat.
For about 12 hours.
Or, til I get the damned house clean, whichever comes first. Knowing my luck, the dumb thing would somehow end up on "Mama, I'm comin' home" and drop me to my knees.
That song sounds like Rob alternately talking to Jennifer, then, with the signature line, talkin' to his Mama. But, Crazy Train... that's so loud, so frenetic... if I can just have that on repeat for a few hours.... ah man... if I could just have Rob on repeat for a few years....
Comments
1
You're grieving Stevie, and everything that you're thinking, saying and feeling is all a part of it. So is the mindfucking...all of the "woulda/coulda/shouda thoughts that are going through your head. It's all a normal reaction to a really shitty and devastating thing. And anyone who doesn't understand your feelings or how you can love someone you've never met, just tell them to fuck off. No one understands, until it happens to them.
After a loss, I think a form of self preservation kicks in that cushions the blow for us. Once the shock wears off, reality sets in and the reality of it all just plain sucks. As the saying goes, you can run from it, but you just can't hide. It always catches up with you.
I didn't allow myself to cry when my husband died. I felt I had to be strong for my kids and I was afraid that if I acknowledged my pain, if I allowed myself to break, that I would break into so many pieces that I'd never be able to put myself back together again. I kept the pain inside, and it just festered, it never went away. One day, all of the walls I had thrown up to protect myself crumbled, and the grief inside of me just started pouring out. It the worst time in my life, but it's what it took for me to be able to go on.
Allow yourself to cry it out. Get angry at the unfairness of it all. Fall apart for a bit, because that's what it takes to get through it. There's just no getting around grief Stevie, you literally have to make yourself go through it in order to learn to "accept what you cannot change". With acceptance comes at least a little feeling of peace. The gut wrenching pain we feel at the beginning eventually turns into sadness. The sadness never goes away, but it does ease with time.
And Stevie, listen to his voice in your head. Physically he's gone, but he does live on in your heart. Talk to him, then listen to your heart for his answers.
After a loss, I think a form of self preservation kicks in that cushions the blow for us. Once the shock wears off, reality sets in and the reality of it all just plain sucks. As the saying goes, you can run from it, but you just can't hide. It always catches up with you.
I didn't allow myself to cry when my husband died. I felt I had to be strong for my kids and I was afraid that if I acknowledged my pain, if I allowed myself to break, that I would break into so many pieces that I'd never be able to put myself back together again. I kept the pain inside, and it just festered, it never went away. One day, all of the walls I had thrown up to protect myself crumbled, and the grief inside of me just started pouring out. It the worst time in my life, but it's what it took for me to be able to go on.
Allow yourself to cry it out. Get angry at the unfairness of it all. Fall apart for a bit, because that's what it takes to get through it. There's just no getting around grief Stevie, you literally have to make yourself go through it in order to learn to "accept what you cannot change". With acceptance comes at least a little feeling of peace. The gut wrenching pain we feel at the beginning eventually turns into sadness. The sadness never goes away, but it does ease with time.
And Stevie, listen to his voice in your head. Physically he's gone, but he does live on in your heart. Talk to him, then listen to your heart for his answers.
Posted by: Deb at July 22, 2006 06:26 AM (wocRc)
2
Yup...what Deb said. Above all, don't let anyone tell you what you should or should not feel. I never laid eyes on him either, yet I've grieved enough for real-life friends to know that what I'm feeling IS as real as it gets...I dare anyone to tell me otherwise.
Posted by: Chablis at July 22, 2006 07:25 AM (tMoUV)
3
Nodding...at everything Deb and Chablis said.
I can't add anything more except - yes - it does eventually get a little better. It does eventually get to the place when it doesn't knock you on your ass every day - just sometimes. Does it ever stop hurting? No, not in my experience. But it does become bearable.
And sometimes...all you can do to make it through is keep putting one foot in front of another - and not thinking at all. Just keep on going - even though you don't want to, or feel like it - or even think you can. Thinking of you, Stevie...grief is the most horrible pain of all.
I can't add anything more except - yes - it does eventually get a little better. It does eventually get to the place when it doesn't knock you on your ass every day - just sometimes. Does it ever stop hurting? No, not in my experience. But it does become bearable.
And sometimes...all you can do to make it through is keep putting one foot in front of another - and not thinking at all. Just keep on going - even though you don't want to, or feel like it - or even think you can. Thinking of you, Stevie...grief is the most horrible pain of all.
Posted by: Sandy in NC at July 22, 2006 04:55 PM (cgDdB)
4
Oh Stevie, sorry it's been such a difficult day. Unfortunately there's no way out of grief but living through it - one day at a time. Sounds to me like you need a really good long hard cry. I'll bet you've been so busy you haven't had time to really let yourself feel the grief yet.
It will get better or least easier to live with.
It will get better or least easier to live with.
Posted by: Libby at July 22, 2006 08:15 PM (DGO1F)
Processing 0.01, elapsed 0.0075 seconds.
18 queries taking 0.0053 seconds, 12 records returned.
Page size 17 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.