Dissecting the Brick

This year is slow and steady. I’m still writing. I’m still creating. I’m still helping others. Though I’ve realized, quickly into this year, that staying busy has been more reactive than proactive. Every piece of work I share is done with love, but its delivery and creation is pushed through by unprocessed trauma. And when I say trauma, I’m not simply referring to my husband dying suddenly, though that is definitely a player in my life. I have had pieces buried even before he died. They piled on top of each other, one-by-one. I always shoved them aside. I didn’t want to fuss with issues of the past. Why kick a dead horse? Except, the horse was still very much alive within me. So I’ve made the decision to refocus in on myself and my children. To quiet the outside noise always telling me to hustle. I’ve made the choice to live right now, exactly as we are. Messy. Beautiful. And free. Free to try new things. New sports for them, new hobbies for me. The stress hasn’t depleted—I’m still a solo parent raising kids that overwhelmingly miss their dad. Our days haven’t become less packed, they’ve been shaped differently. And though I’m at a point where I accept my husband being gone (whether I like it or not), there are other areas of my life and my past I still need to accept. 

While my husband and I did share a lot with each other, neither of us revealed everything. And whether that was to spare ourselves or spare each other—add it to the box of “never knows.” I never shared with him that I had horrifying flashbacks when I was in labor with our first son. He could tell I “went away,” but had no idea that the ways my body was abused years before I was even married came flooding back to me. I always wonder if that’s why my body shut down and we ended up in emergency surgery. But that’s also when I truly discovered the power of visualizations. I practiced it throughout my pregnancy and it kept me calm in early labor and pulled me back to the present moment in the last few hours. I kept that ability with me every day since. I used it for my husband’s funeral, too. From the night he died until the day of his service, if I wasn’t having to interact with anyone, I was visualizing myself standing tall and standing strong and keeping a steady breath through his showing and through his service and through his wake. I visualized myself greeting people. I envisioned awkward comments not changing my demeanor. Once I knew our children wanted to and were going to speak at his funeral, I began visualizing that as well. Nothing can really prepare you for those moments, but it did help me remain calm. Just like no one knew I was fighting flashbacks while giving life, no one knew the images racing through my mind while saying goodbye to a life. 

While I pulled myself back to the present moment during the birth of our son, I used visualizations as a way to stay detached through the funeral weekend. I was able to read and breathe through nasty texts from family members. I was able to stand in front of a crowd and only see my children, my husband’s casket, and me. I was able to shake hands and give hugs and greet people one night and wake up to do it again the next morning. Some people were a surprise to see, some people brought love and joy, some people were strangers, and others I could have done without seeing or hearing. That last set of people I was able to use for comic relief rather than anger. And almost everyone was greeted in the same manner. 

I continued visualizing every morning and throughout every day the weeks following his death. It is what helped me celebrate my son’s 5th birthday. It is what helped me enjoy Halloween night. It is, again, what helped me stay calm while I was given unsolicited advice, unneeded comments, and reading unnecessary texts sent to my husband’s phone from people who very much knew he was dead. Once that first month passed I was able to focus on the present. On my children. On myself. On all the paperwork that piled up before me. And when I felt tied down and trapped beneath a pile of bricks, I was able to visualize myself removing those bricks so that I could breathe again, stand again, move again, and speak again. I created that visualization and mastered it so well that I can now (three years later) replay it standing in line somewhere when I see something that reminds me of him, or when we’re getting ready for the day and my youngest unexpectedly asks if he can wear one of his dad’s ties. It’s now a quick reset. I stay present and no longer need to detach in those moments.

I’ve stepped out of survival mode. With death and drama and heartache and betrayal, I lived there longer than I ever wanted to. And I realized I was already living there longer than I ever knew. Yet, it feels like I’m at a standstill. There’s this one brick I need to break through in order to truly see and live freely, but it’s cemented down tight. I’ve broken through the surrounding bricks. I’ve stripped down. I’ve stood up with the weight of the world on me. But there’s one heavy brick that keeps throwing me off balance. And I need to really ask myself: 

Is this cemented in so deep because it shouldn’t be moved? 

The amount of pain and heartache that is buried in that brick, will it finally be released or will it spread across my body and slow me down even more? Or is it as easily removed as the others once I grab it? 

The fear of what may happen when I unblock it is nothing compared to the freedom that will happen once I crush it. 

So many of us have that brick, especially if your partner died suddenly and there was no conversation and no redemption. It was just this is our life and it was beautiful and now you are gone and I see the missteps and the mess—and that truckload of bricks pulled up almost immediately. But as I’ve said before, you can’t smoke it away. You can’t drink it away. You can’t fuck it away. And you can’t distract yourself enough to make it go away. And while you feel lighter now, having finally gotten rid of all those other bricks, there’s still that one. That one right in the center of your chest. And after years of carrying it with you, it’s now slowing you down and starting to mess with your thinking and then you realize: it’s time to break this one up, too. 

But maybe instead of a hammer, I’ll chisel away at it. I’ll dissect it slowly. I’ll make sure I take a look at it all and really understand the reality of what was, what never was, and begin to forgive myself for the missteps I didn’t notice before. And begin to accept everything I’ll find underneath and within that brick. 

I write about living life as a widow. I write about parenting as a widow. I write about the love and the loss and the gratitude and the forgiveness and some of the hurt and a lot of the pain. But I rarely share anything directly about my husband. I rarely share the inner workings of our relationship. And I rarely share much more about me beyond the branding of widowhood that was forced upon me. And I don’t write about it because it’s mine. And I don’t write about it because it’s sacred. It’s all I have left of him. But I also don’t write about us as individual people because it makes it real. It makes our private life public. It makes every happy moment and every upsetting moment a written truth that I cannot erase. But I do know what my body remembers. What my mind remembers. What my heart remembers. Aligning myself to receive clarity has helped me with that. Now when I visualize, I see my future. I visualize everything I will accomplish. I stop and remove the extra bricks whenever I need to. I know the only way I can chisel that last brick free is with the might of a pen. 

And with every piece I unveil and discover, I learn more about myself. Whether it’s ugly or beautiful, it’s almost always inspiring. It’s inspiring because it tells my story. It reminds me how I love. It reminds me of the way I give love. And it shows me how I receive love. I’m a hopeless romantic in the sense that there is always more than the eye can see. Every house tells a different story. Every person is greater than their introduction. Humans. We mess it up a lot. None of us are above that. And, to me, that’s the beauty of life. Without the ugly, everything would simply be ordinary.