Still Dead

 

Glenn & I are at the beach this week.  (Sara didn't want to come. Who can blame her?  Who wants to be around this?)  Trying to make a go of "remembering Nick" without losing my mind.  I am not succeeding at this.  It has been very sad.  It will always be sad.  I posted this picture because Nick always loved the beach.  This is a great picture of Nick with his hat and reading....he was always reading something. Such a waste of a great mind.  Nick wanted to make things better for people in this world.  His Nalgene bottle is there by the chair.  We still have that bottle.  Sara uses it all the time.  Nick's scruffy beard, his long fingers.  What strikes me about this picture?  He looks so healthy!  The images in my mind are of the sick days.  Images that are stark reminders of how fast even a healthy, strapping young guy can descend into a frail and ill shadow of his former self.  I am exhausted after two days of being here.  Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come here.  

Today was the day Nick died at Johns Hopkins hospital.  Today is the day the statute of limitations expires on my ability to bring a lawsuit against those people who did NOT do their job when it came to Nick. That makes me so angry and upset....nothing I can do now.  Just got away with another one J-Hop, you sons of bitches!  Don't act like you don't know what you did and more importantly what you didnt' do when it came to Nick's lungs.  Hey, but no worries though, right?  Just another family devastated by f*cking stupid cancer!  There's a million bazillion of us out there....."nothing we could do, so sorry for your loss!"  WTF-ever....I don't think one doctor even expressed sorrow to me on that horrid, horrid, day...one time, maybe about a year after Nick died,  I was at a concert at Pier Six (Avett Brothers) and I saw one of Nick's doctors...he didn't see me though, didn't notice me, didn't remember me, walked right by....his life goes on.  Mine is shattered into a million pieces.  

How do I pick up those pieces and put them back together?  I can't even find some of those pieces.  The pieces of my life are shattered, frayed, and fractured. I can't put that back together into a "new" picture.  I am crazy.  Crazy with grief and pain that never goes away.  Maybe others are better equipped with skills to cope with this kind of thing, I guess I am not.  I am barely hanging on by my finger nails.  But in this world of "grieving", people don't really notice.  I am permanently maimed but there are no prosthetics for a broken heart. Some grieving people find a place to be that isn't so horrible.  I think I missed that turn off of the grief highway.  Maybe the exit is way farther down the road?  I don't know, but, I know my car is running out of gas and I have lost the map.  Was there ever a map for this kind of journey?  

At 5:40PM today, I guess I will be on the beach with Nick's ashes.  I will sit there and look for a "sign."  Then I will try to figure out how that is supposed to help me.  Later tonight, we are hoping to send up some wish lanterns.  All symbolic bullshit....whatever.  Nick is still dead.  

Not sure how long I will have internet now, so I am posting whatever has spewed forth from my head and heart to this point.  Couldn't sleep last nite so I am running on empty, emotionally and physically.  This is supposed to be a "vacation!"  HA!!!!!!!!  When I get back I will have a shit load of people asking me how my "vacation" was....and wondering why I don't look refreshed and happy. 

Here is a picture of why I won't look refreshed and happy...just one of many "images" burned into my brain forever. My poor boy strapped down in that horrendous radiation mask, upside down, unable to breathe. (His lungs were already bad at this point and he was wearing oxygen full time.)  They had to tape an oxygen mask onto that mask so he could breathe through the treatments.  I don't know how he did it.  His emaciated body still fighting a relentless cancer, while his lungs were being attacked by some "unknown" and undiagnosed killer.  This is the side of cancer most people don't see. They don't want to even think about it.  They have no idea about all this stuff.  It is barbaric and literally torture!  Nick willingly submitted to this and yet even at this point, his life was on a downhill trajectory and all the positive thinking in the world wasn't going to change it.  Perhaps some better medical care would have....all a moot point now. Nick is still dead.  So three years later, here I am...what am I supposed to do? 

Three seconds, three minutes, three hours, three weeks, three months, three years? 

1,095 Days 

Days of sorrow and longing.   

Days of aching pain that is beyond description.

Days of anger and rage. 

Days of stress and anxiety.

Days of waiting for relief that does not come, of answers that won’t be found.  

Days of watching myself decline into a numbing abyss of darkness. 

Days of feeling guilty that I can’t pull myself out of this downward spiral.

Days of missing you at holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and family milestones.  

Days of watching your friends go on with their own lives, while you will never live again.

Days that feel like nothing has changed, while those of us who loved you will never be the same.

Days of wondering where you are, feeling lost without your love. 

Days without my only son and the stories of his life. 

Days of uncontrollable emotions that erupt from the most painful images of your suffering and your death.

Days of not seeing your smile, hearing your voice, holding your hand, or hugging your neck.

Days of endless mourning for you my sweet boy.  

© bigD  8/13/2012

I love you always and forever Nickolas.  You are well loved and never forgotten.  This however cannot console my broken heart and shattered dreams.  Please come home soon, Mom