And the colored girls go doo, do doo, do doo, do do doo...

There we all were, enjoying a hot, sunny day on the beach in Cholla Bay in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico. Al, me, Alison & Brad. It was really hot, just the way we like it. We were doing what you do when you’re on the beach in Mexico. We girls sat on our camp chairs in the water as we drank Oso Negro Vodka and Squirt. The boys were sitting under the canopy just relaxing and drinking cold Pacificos. The blistering sun steadily made its way across the sky and the ice chest slowly emptied. Drinking all day and sitting in the heat, Al told us he was ready to go. Brad had joined us to cool off. Just a little bit longer we called from the water. A little bit longer turned in to an hour and when we grabbed our chairs to come up the beach Al’s camp chair under the canopy was empty. We figured he had walked down the beach to JJ’s to have a beer while he waited for us. Brad said he’d go get him but came back alone.

We got in the car and drove on the dirt road in Cholla to look for him. Nothing. Back to our spot on the beach. Nothing. Panic started to set in as we wondered where he could possibly be. Hours of sitting in the sun drinking too much beer and he’s gone? In Mexico? More searching. Alison went to the little policía station at the entrance of Cholla Bay to see if they’d seen him or worse….picked him up for something. Crap, we’ve got a bit of a language barrier here. The policía there didn’t speak Inglés and Alison spoke very little Español. “ Mi padre….muy borracho.” Oh, this wasn’t going well. “Mi padre, muy grande, muy alto, ummm, walking…..mi padre, muy borracho.” Then she took her two fingers and made them walk. Finally they understood and told her no, they hadn’t seen him.

By this time it was starting to get dark and my mind was racing. I just knew we’d find my husband dead in a ditch somewhere and I was pretty upset. This was several years ago and anyone who knows the way the road to Cholla used to be, it wandered through the barren desert once outside of Cholla and made its way to “Rodeo Drive.” The resort road wasn’t an option when going to or from Cholla since the resorts were under construction; the road was dirt and blocked from through traffic. We got back to our little hotel, Rosa del Desierto and noticed the light was on in our room. We peeked in through the opening in the curtains and there he was….laying in bed watching TV!! We opened the door with the only key issued and Brad jumped on the bed and started bouncing up and down…. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. “Where were you? We were searching all over. How did you get here?” he sang. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. All the tension and anger I felt dissolved as Brad kept jumping on the bed, lightening the mood.

Turns out when Al has had enough, Al has had enough. As Alison, Brad and I were hanging out in the water, Al got up and walked up the hill to the road and made his way through Cholla (obviously past the policía station) and then took the road towards the resort where vehicles can’t go, hit the beach in front of the resort construction, got IN the water to cool off and swam along the shoreline for quite a while, got out and walked some more where he hitched a ride in the back of a pick up truck with a bunch of Mexican construction workers where they took him straight to our hotel and he somehow communicated to the Spanish speaking front office staff that he needed a key or to be let in to the room. Un-freakin-believable.

Later back at home in Tucson as we talked about this he started singing, “Hey Babe, take a walk on the wild side. Said hey honey, take a walk on the wild side.”

I miss that crazy man.

Sing it Sister Sledge ~ We Are Family...

I’ve been thinking about this for the past couple of weeks and have more or less made the decision not to keep going to my grief support group. It was helpful for a while and I’m truly grateful that I spent two months attending weekly group sessions. I may attend on occasion when I’m having a difficult week or even to report back to everyone when things are going exceptionally well.

The experience showed me something very valuable. I am not going crazy and I am normal. Because believe me, there were times before this group when I thought I was in serious need of behavioral health professionals. Crying at the drop of a hat, talking to him as if he was still here, smelling his clothes and keeping his things in the same place in our closet, seeing and believing the signs he sends me, and worst of all - the physical ache. The ache where it feels like your chest is ready to rip open, where you actually feel paralyzed and weak and your body deceives you. When you judge yourself and you feel like you can’t tell anyone what you’re feeling and how terribly it hurts because you don’t want to burden them. But from that very first night when I joined my fellow mourners, as I listened to them say out loud what I was holding inside, I felt relief.

But as much as I admire and respect every single person in that group, I feel that I’ve gotten what I’m going to get out of it for now. I’m trying to move forward and I fear that I’m spending too much time focusing on my sadness each week. I’ve always been an extremely positive person (at times much to my husband’s dismay) and someone who chooses to move forward in all situations. And for that very thing and to stay true to who I am, I need to let the group go.

That doesn’t mean I won’t have bad days or days when moving forward in my life feels like I’m swimming in quicksand. With that said, I’ll need the support of my family more than ever. I need to know that while they love and miss Al, that I’m important to them too.

Sometimes my grief swallows me whole and what saves me is knowing that my family is there to pull me from the mouth of that monster. I need the love and support of each and every one of them and am dependent on them to love me when I’m sad, mad, happy, goofy, blasé, pitiful, angry or joyful. They are my family after all. And isn’t that what family does?

365 Days of Firsts

The year of firsts is done and gone. This first year without Al at times felt like a decade. It’s been a year filled with so many emotions ranging from pain, fear and hopeLESSness to wonder, confidence and hopeFULness.

I made it through this year of firsts. The first night sleeping in our bed without him, the first Father’s Day king crab leg dinner without him, hearing the first sound of the summer cicadas without him, taking the first trip to Hatch for green chiles without him, picking out the first Christmas tree without him, sitting down for a family dinner for the first time without him….

As those firsts have all ticked down I feel him slowly slipping away from me. I know this is normal and the way it’s supposed to be but it doesn’t make it any easier. Sometimes I look at the pictures on my dresser and see his smiling face and think to myself that he’s just on vacation. He went to see his dad in California, he’s on his annual golf trip with his high school buddies, he went on a Toyota trip with Brian. It gives me an instant of happiness that feels warm in my heart before the reality hits and I remind myself that he’s never coming back.

I observed the passing of this first year with a trip to the beach in Mexico. It’s the place we relaxed and enjoyed together and one of the places I feel closest to him. I really wanted the trip to be with me and my kids. My son Marshall couldn’t make it since he had just gone back to work after a three month paternity leave so it was just me and my two daughters, Alison & Lesley. It was a beautiful weekend filled with warmth, sunshine and relaxation. That’s not to say there wasn’t some sadness too. The toughest time for me was watching a couple that reminded me of Al & I as they enjoyed a meal at Flavio’s, affectionately touching each other as they laughed and joked on the patio with the sun setting behind them. That 50-something couple should have been me and Al and the sadness rose up within me. But I tried hard not to let those kinds of feelings mar the weekend and really tried to enjoy the time with my daughters. We spent Sunday, March 13 in a way Al would have liked. We started off by going to Cholla Bay, we then hit JJs, spent the day on the beach and ended with a great dinner up on the hill overlooking the town on one side and the malecon/playa on the other. It was there that the three of us toasted him and told him we loved him.

I know I have to start rebuilding, adjusting and spend time figuring out what my new normal is. And I am. I have my setbacks but for the most part I am starting to move on. Time goes on, life is forever changing and the pain is slowly lessening. They say time heals all wounds but I don’t think that’s true. Time doesn’t HEAL the wound, it gives us an opportunity to experience things that help us learn how to live with the ache in our hearts that never really goes away. The ache isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It reminds us of how deeply we loved.

Diminished Capacity

Funny how people who haven’t experienced it have a specific timeframe in mind when talking about grief; typically one year. Like there is some magical number of days or months that you’re given to go through your grieving period and then you should be done. Yeah, if it was only that easy.

The one-year anniversary of Al’s passing is coming on March 13. Someone actually said something to me along the lines of the year being up and that it's time to basically, move on. I can’t remember the exact words right now because to be honest I was dumbstruck when they came out of this person’s mouth. That feeling quickly turned to anger but anger isn’t an emotion I choose to hang on to so I had to think about what I knew or didn’t know about death and grief before I lost Al.

What this person doesn’t know and I didn’t know until now is that there is no timeline for grief. Through grief counseling I've learned that while many think the “five stages of grief” is gospel, it isn’t. People often skip steps or never experience some of them. One person’s experience is 180 degrees from another person’s. Many, if not most of us, operate at diminished capacity for the first two years. Our brains simply don’t function in the same way. We’re going to have bad days, it’s a given. I myself typically hold it all together almost every single day. It’s not that I want to appear strong, it’s that if I let go for a minute I’m scared I won’t get it back.

I’m thankful for my support system and those that are helping me through this from my children, extended family, friends and coworkers. I’m glad they all seem to understand that this process takes its own sweet time and that they are patient with me.

So to that person who naively and I hope innocently decided that enough time had lapsed, that I should be done with this process, I can only say that I hope you never have to experience the ache I feel in my heart.

Beisbol has bean berry, berry goood to me

Sports were always a part of Al's life. From playing baseball as a kid, football during college, golf, bowling, basketball, hunting, softball and volleyball throughout his adulthood and finally armchair quarterback.

When Al & I were first married and I moved in to his house I decided to clean out one of the closets while he was at work. On one of the shelves was a collection of dusty trophies. They were several years old and obviously hadn't been displayed in a long time so I threw them away. (!) It was probably six months later that he noticed and was quite upset about it. You see in my mind, they were just old, dusty tokens but in his mind they represented something. He would joke over the years about me tossing them out but I wish I could have gone back in time and had a "do over."

When Marshall was a baby, Al convined me to join a co-ed volleyball league. I tried, I really did but I sucked. I was scared of the ball and the players were vicious with their spikes. One day while off court a ball came flying my direction like a streaming comet and smacked me on the side of the face. I never saw it coming and that was it for me. I told him I didn't want to play anymore. I think our team was secretly cheering about that decision.

Hunting became a family event in Tucson. We'd all camp out in the desert for the occasional quail hunt, Marshall and Al would go deer and elk hunting but it was the annual dove hunt that we all enjoyed. It was back when NW Tucson wasn't as inhabited and we could drive to any spot off Silverbell and hunt. Afternoon hunts were always the most fun. After the birds made their way to their evening roost, we'd all hang out on the edge of the riverbed - the adults drinking beer and shooting the breeze and the kids running around, playing in the mud of the Santa Cruz or as we called it "the poo and pee river."

Al always played golf and was really good. During his Post Office days he joined the Tucson Postal Golf Group and served on their board in various positions including president. He started Marshall off with a set of plastic baby golf clubs and was so excited to set Marsh up with his first set of real clubs. All the kids would take turns going with Al on the occasional golf outing. It was a real treat for them to hang out with their dad and drive the golf cart.

Softball played a big role in our lives for a number of years. He'd play in leagues around town and then Sportspark opened and all games were played there which was great for us since it's close to home. Al would play, I'd watch and cheer him on and the kids would play on the playground and run around the park all evening. We'd eat dinner at the snack bar and chow down on the best pizza around.

After the games the guys and the wives would all hang out on the upper deck and have a beer or two sitting around the tables watching the next game. When the hydrotubes were built the kids would spend time on the tubes while Al played. Good times.

My son-in-law Trevor is now playing softball on a league that plays at Sportspark. My daughter Lesley thought I'd enjoy going and spending some time there with them. She and I watched and cheered Trevor on and let Isla play in the stands. We went upstairs to the snackbar and in to the game room to let Isla run around in a safer, enclosed environment for a while. It brought back such good memories to be there at Sportspark. Sure it brought a tear to my eye as I silently reminisced a bit but I think I felt Al smile down on us too as he watched history repeating itself with this beautiful young family.

The really sad part of the whole evening? The pizza sucks now!