I have so much gratitude for this blog. It helped me get through the worst of my grief. I can't tell you how much I have cherished and appreciated those who have commented and contacted me personally. Thank you.
Having said that, I have decided to follow a dream and I have started a new blog. One that chronicles not just my journey into the second year and beyond but also how I am going to use what I've learned in my grief to chase my dreams. To chase life. This one stays, just as it is. I will be linking to it from my new site for anybody who might need it. I hope it helps somebody who needs validation or to connect to raw emotion.
When you're ready, please come find me in my new place, www.rachelrumbelow.com.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Monday, April 10, 2017
Writing to get through
The Pain of Dreams
There is a place
Where you are
With your smile, that smile
Eyes gleaming like stars
You have been waiting for me
I collapse in your arms
There is so much you want me to see
Oh, how I have missed your charm
I collapse in your arms
There is so much you want me to see
Oh, how I have missed your charm
We dance and laugh and make love
I never want to leave
You are all I ever want to be a part of
I take in all of you and I believe
I never want to leave
You are all I ever want to be a part of
I take in all of you and I believe
We can be together forever, again
You are my soul and I am yours
But then I feel you pull away as you grin
I know what this is and everything blurs
You are my soul and I am yours
But then I feel you pull away as you grin
I know what this is and everything blurs
"One more night for us." You whisper gently as you fade away
My tears turn to sobs as I feel you go
"But I need forever!" I wail
It's too late and once more, the world is hollow
My tears turn to sobs as I feel you go
"But I need forever!" I wail
It's too late and once more, the world is hollow
********
A poem I wrote during a rough time. It is a reminder of pain and how far I've come. The book I'm working on will have all of the writing/poetry/rants/raw grief that I channeled in my first year. I am actually quite excited to release it and show how pure pain can turn into hope and joy finding their way in with the grief and a new way to see the world. xoxo
Monday, February 27, 2017
What's in a Year?
My darling,
A year ago, I got the call. The call that I didn’t realize
was you shuffling off this mortal coil. I was home because I was getting rest.
I was getting rest because the doctors and nurses all told me that you were
coming home in a few weeks and that I would have to monitor you and take care
of your IV antibiotics. I needed to be rested up for that. Nobody ever told me
that these would be my last few days with you.
You died on a Saturday. You had a stress test scheduled for
the following Monday. I have often wondered if they remembered to cancel or if
the doctor giving the stress test waited for you at your scheduled time and
then had to call to find out that you weren’t actually skipping out, you were
dead. Why do I wonder that? Because it seems like the medical community here
doesn’t communicate much. I have had to tell several doctors and nurses about
your death when they called to schedule appointments or ask why you didn’t make
it to an appointment that had been scheduled months ago. I had assumed that is
something they would put on your chart. I guess not.
If only I had known. If only the doctors had known. My love,
I would have demanded a cot and slept next to you every single night of the
short time you had left. I would have held you and hugged you as much as your
pain would have let me. I would have cherished every moment knowing that there
wouldn’t be more left. Your children would have known to come. I would have told them sooner, I would have done so much more. How could nobody have known? How? How could you be so alive one day and then just gone the next? Just the day before, you
had asked the doctors if you would be well enough to shoot a film down in
Atlanta in March. Always the workaholic. Always, right to the end. My love. My
S. I miss you with every cell in my body.
I can’t believe it’s been a year. It feels like so much less
and at the same time, so much more. It’s not the same world you left…in so many
ways. Your youngest daughter got married, your grandchildren are growing up, the world continues and goes on. I’m not the same woman you left. I feel like a new person every month.
The forced growth and new life that I have begrudgingly succumbed to is full of
so many different things that I wish I could tell you about. Oh sure, I tell
you about them. I talk to the empty air in our apartment every day. But like a
widow friend said the other day, I want you to answer! I want to have a
conversation that you participate in again. I want to hear what you think, I
want to hear the jokes you would make (and you would), I want to hear you
laugh, I want to feel your hug. I want to fucking feel your hug again, S. I
need it. Why aren’t you here? My heart aches for you.
The pain never goes away. You learn how to endure it. You
learn how to let it exist alongside joy. You figure out how to join the world
again with this pain always there in the background, to the side, all around
you but you ignore it or you make friends with it or you take a quiet moment to
cry and let the pain envelop you so that you can shake it off and keep going on
as if you are a normal person who isn’t surrounded by this torment that you’ve
learned to live with. You know all about that. You had to do the same thing
with your oldest daughter’s death. You had so much pain. My only consolation is that
you are free from that now. Free from your emotional pain as well as your
physical pain.
I now face another year ahead of me without you. What will
this one bring? More joy and sadness. I know this is a definite. More sadness
and joy. More living without you and more me becoming somebody else, a
different woman than you knew. That hurts. It hurts so much. You wouldn’t even
recognize me, S. If only I could hug you right now, a real hug, a long and
lingering hug that lasts forever. It’s all I want in the world right now. I
would give anything.
This won’t happen. But what I do have is a stronger bond
with your children and people from your past. That is something I cherish. If I
can’t have you, at least I still have parts of you and your history. Your mark
in this world. I am working to make that mark bigger with your work but I have
no illusions that the people in your life are where you left the biggest mark
and that is so valuable.
Value has such a different meaning to me now. Am I thankful
for that? I don’t know. So much clarity and depth comes from so much pain. But
at least there is that? Who knows? I ramble when I’m sad. I ramble when I’m
happy. I ramble when I’m both. You had endless patience and endurance for my
rambling. I miss that. I miss that so much. Today, I am sad and today I ramble
in hopes that you are listening. In hopes that you are here smiling at me the way that you would as I
go on and on.
What’s in a year? A fucking lot and yet, not enough. My
perception of time is different now. My perception of everything is different
now. I am different and that is the only thing that won’t change. I hope you
can still find me as I continue to morph, evolve, grow wings I don’t recognize…
I am still waiting for you in my dreams. I will wait
forever. I don’t want to face another year without you. But I will. I have to.
I can’t stop it. I can't stop any of this. I love you, S. I miss you, S. Forever.
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