5 year Angelversary

12:15pm passes. It’s officially been 5 years. I take a break from work and sit outside reflecting. 

This one feels big. 5 years is one of those milestones seemingly different than 2,3 & 4 years. As momentous as 1 year, but in a different way. 

1 year was acknowledging pure survival. One full cycle through this new life. 5 years is acknowledging this significant passing of time and many cycles through this new life.

I look for visual cues of the time passed. The back yard is so different from when we all sat on the deck that evening 5 years ago.  The wall between the kitchen and living room where we whispered grim updates is gone.  But the greatest reminder of the time gone by is Aria. A newborn then, and now a 5 year old. Only 10 weeks of difference between the life changing events of birth and death. 

I’m still not sure how this grieving thing goes. I can honestly say that not a single day has gone by in 5 years that I have not thought of Brandon. I don’t speak of him every day, but I am reminded of him every day. 

I miss him just as much as I did 5 years ago and the depth at which it hurts is the same then and now. But yet it’s very different.

Shock, fear, anger and disorientation all accompanied that pain then.  It was nearly constant and all consuming.  Now acceptance and normalization bring some sweet relief when I visit my pain. I’m reminded of how far I’ve come and how I’ve incorporated this loss into life, and no longer  desperately battling to bring back life into loss. 

It hurts as deeply and intensely as it did then, but I have more strength to hold it now and it’s more familiar now. I know I can set it down when I need to and sit with it without fear when I need to.  I’ve even come to take some comfort in my grief, that despite the years accumulating my soul has not forgotten him and still aches just the same over the loss of him.

I do have to work harder to retrieve memories and remember his favorite things and his little quirks. It used to be so familiar.  But as time passes some things fade. And that’s hard.

But I never need to dive deep to remember how he loved me. I still feel it today, and that’s truly eye opening to me.  How  impactful how we make others feel really is.  

Friends still cry with me, or tear up or voices crack when remembering Brandon. Sorry, not sorry, but it’s incredibly comforting to me to experience those moments. It lets me know the depth at which he touched so many and the love that so many have for him.

I can finally say I don’t identify myself first as a widow. I am widowed, and will always be. Being in another relationship or married will never undo my experience. But it’s not my greatest identity anymore I think because the effects of being widowed do not consume the majority of my life anymore.  Thank goodness for that. 

I often wonder what 10 years will be like. I wonder if 5 years from now I’ll be sitting in this backyard reflecting as I have for so many years now.  I imagine so - but one thing I’ve learned is that life takes crazy turns, and whether I’m sitting here or somewhere else, this day will always hold so much weight I know I will never forget.

4th Celebration of Life

 

Post from my Social Media on Brandon’s Birthday.

I add this now because I intend to use this blog to help Aria understand when she is older. 

Today is Brandon’s birthday. He would have been 38 this year.  

This picture was taken on his last earthly birthday hours after getting released from the hospital, only to go right back just after this picture. 

With all the happy memories on this day from the years prior, and the friends and family gathering each year since, this memory still is strongest to this day. 

Just last year I finally threw away the bag of birthday decorations that had welcomed him home only to be removed with sadness and shoved in a bag that sat in my basement collecting dust and tears each time I saw it.  I don’t want this day to bring sadness, but it does. 

In years passed I’ve tried to embrace the “celebration” of his life without allowing the balance of the sadness of the loss of his life, which only lead me to a lot of unrest with my feelings. But I now know I need to be able to hold space for both, or actually all of the feelings on these trigger days. Sadness, anger, resentment, guilt, pity, nostalgia, gratitude, love...and so many more contradictory emotions. 

Today is a day to remember Brandon, and all that came with his presence in this world. All the memories that bring a smile from his bantering, that bring gratitude from his words of wisdom and insight, that bring a chuckle and an eye roll remembering his love of sports, guns and video games. 

But also the memories of the struggle, the sacrifice, and the pain that he and we all have endured in this loss, that should awaken us to live fully and treasure our loved ones deeply because we have experienced what it is to loose. 

In honor of Brandon today, tell someone how important they are to you. Really tell them. Those words will live on forever. And celebrate the impact that he made in your life with a bittersweet mix of emotions. 

Later that evening:

This. Just this. This is what life is about. Community. We don’t see each other often these days, with kids, careers, activities, proximity. But we did life together deeply and authentically, making it easy to pick up where we left off.  A part of Brandon is woven through each of us, and I am so incredibly grateful for this evening and these people. (And all of you who couldn’t make it too, I know you’d be here if you could have.) Thank you all for continuing to honor Brandon’s memory.  I am so uplifted by you all. 💜