They Said It Best

~Ah! You can die, the world can collapse, I have lost the one I love. I must now live in this terrible solitude where memories are torture. ~Albert Camus

December has threatened, taunted my every day. The December of two thousand nine, and now the December in two thousand ten. December 31, 2009 torturing my every memory with the smells of the hospital, the faces of my family as they entered the room. The room. The hospital staff had us wait there, until the doctor himself came in and asked me questions. Does your husband have tattoos? Where are they? What shoes did your husband have on when he went to the gym? My answers. "Mrs. Shriner, something tragic has happened. Your husband suffered a massive heart attack. We worked on him for a good long time, but there was nothing we could do. I am so sorry."

Am I here? Who's banging the table...that's the heart beat in my ears. Is it New Year's Eve, we have a dinner reservation to keep? If I dig my nails into my arm, I will wake up. Why am I bleeding, people don't bleed in dreams. I can't breath. I need my husband. Something awful has just happened, and I need to speak with my husband...

From that moment forward, the only speaking Dan and I have done, has been me, talking to him, across our worlds.

~Why do our faces search the empty sky? Is there something we have forgotten, some precious thing wandering in strange lands?~Arna Bontemps

Nine days ago, as the first of December descended upon me, I rose for the day with a heavy heart. As each day passes, and the temperatures grow colder, so does my perspective:

Wow, what a year. You look tired. Your face looks older than you are. You survived the year, even though you didn't want to, and at times begged not to, you survived. You completed the half marathon you and Dan signed up to do in April. You began to write, smile, joke, and laugh again, sometimes without faking it. You ran a half marathon in October and another this month, 4 days ago. Three in one year, Dan would be proud. You are working, making friends, keeping friends, and welcoming new love around you as well as new lives into the world. Good for you. So, What is the reward? Oh right, another year to endure without your husband.

When I went to the "Minute-Clinic" at CVS the other day, the doctor had to check my blood pressure six times. It was so high the first three times he checked it, he thought that his machine was broken, so he took it by hand. Still high. He sat back in the chair and asked me what was going on. I bet he's sorry he asked. As I walked out of the room that day, he took my hand. He looked at me in my eyes and said, "You have a very nice persona about you, Tiffin. I will be praying for you."

Thank you Lord, for I know that you place these prayer warriors strategically in my path, to help carry me down this precarious road. Forgive my cynicism, for I find it hard to be joyous with the hollow loss of my Dan echoing so loudly in my heart.

~Of all duties, prayer certainly is the sweetest, and most easy.~ Laurence Sterne

The sun is going to continue to come up every day. The Earth will continue to turn, and the moon will rise at night. It will do this on Dan's "Angel-Date" and the first of the year after that. I will continue to have times when I know I am going to be OK, and I will have moments when I can't pick myself up off the floor. I will also continue to share my journey, and appreciate the allowance to do so.

~One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book. Give it, give it all, give it now.~Annie Dillard

I want December to speed away, and leave me be. I want the days to grow longer and the click of my heat to stop sounding on. There are many "wants" on my list these days but above all, I want the courage, the strength, and the wisdom to get me through.

Allow me to not lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas. For, it is because of Jesus Christ's birth and then death, that I will be able to see my Dan again, one fine day.

~Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion, a hint of the resurrection.~Arthur Schopenhauer