I have been writing in my head for a days. Possibly weeks, if I add all the days. I really dont know. Time just goes- and I like that it does.
A huge part of my brain asks, "Where did the summer go?"
Because I remember July 12. I can breathe it in so simple. Where I would wake to a husband putting on cargo shorts and a black leather belt, running to True Value and picking up two quarts of paint, in two shades, that the house did not get painted in. (Maybe if we did not do that, you would not have dove Jas... Nor would I have carried those cargo shorts in my van for a week, wraping myself up with them, only to smell the river and you.)
He set the paint colors on the bathroom furniture that remained in the front room, but that was okay, because we just finished the floor and the bathroom could wait, because the day was beautiful and we are doing what we loved.
He called our friends, dropped the boys off for a birthday party......I worked out with the girls, completely kicked my own butt and thought, "If anything ever happeded to Jason, I could be enough!!" (why would I think that?) He walked through the door, laughed at me doing a Tony Horton Squat Run, shrieking Wizard of Oz -wicked witch of the west, "na-na-na-na-na-na". My girls rolled on the floor in laughter and Jas smiled with a raised brow at me sweating away in my swim suit making entertainment for the girls. We packed up and left. The day was great. We walked the beach, held hands, laughed with our friends, toasted a birthday and lived like we normally do when we go to the river. Fully.
I was sitting in his lap in a sun chair not three minutes before he dove. But I never saw it. I was on the phone. If I had seen it, I would have said, "no! It's too shallow..." (But maybe that would have been too late Jas.) I swam past the boat that day, he didn't. No one was in the water...he didn't know.
But Kyla heard.
Kyla heard her daddy.
A barely vocal, "help, Help, help."
He was caught between the boat, the sand and the tide.
And I heard, "something is wrong with your husband..."
I watched them carry him out of the river.
Jas said-
"I think I broke my neck, I think I broke C5 or 6."
I said, "no..."
He said, "I can't feel my body..."
and we all went from there.
Not just Jason or the girls or myself. Everyone that was there when it happened, felt it. And those that got phone calls- They felt it; the shift between control and the complete unknown.
So we ALL went from there. In a maze. Haze. Fever. Headache. Fear. Tears. Disbelief. Exhaustion. Grief. Anger. Irritation. hope. Nausia. Love. Fear. Fear. Fear. Acceptance.
and so much more....
But here we are now. No more summer left. Kids going back to school. Fourth of July was just here..... Nope. That was another life. Cruel.
But here we are now, His trach is out. Celebration!
And here we are now. Here I am now.
In a beautiful mix of gratitude and grief.
Gratitute and beauty for all the light that has been contagious through the world. Gratude for all the help and love. For fixing our van, for loving our children, for donating service, time, energy, kindness, Love, participation, gifts, Love, food, Hugs, Help, listening, Love. Gratitude for showing up. Showing up and living. Showing up to greet life.
Gratitude for all the people that have visited Jason, for all the support, prayers, optmisim, tears, courage, Nurses, Doctors and five foot hoola hoops that keep my body busy in the early morning hours.
The Grief if momentary, but the gratitude goes on and on...down to the beautiful hands that strummed a guitar that brought my daughter to tears, or the twistable crayons that are simply a tool for her butterfly creations that decorate his room.
Kyla says, "Daddy is a catapillar here. When he goes to rehab, he will be in his cocooon, and when he comes home...he will SHINE like a butterfly."
Thank you Ky. Thank you for Hearing your Daddy.