It isn’t a constant emotion. It can linger, but there’s no permanence in grief. It comes in with such force, you never see it coming, and then it leaves when its ready. The amount of time that transpires between coming and leaving varies. For me, it feels like I’m being completely taken over from the inside out. The pain has truly created a wound, I hurt from inside right in the middle, clear on out. It’s like a huge wave hits me, and I lose. I’m on the ground, done. I don’t fight it, I let it go. I might get angry, yell, kick my feet, scream, I took a bat to an old end table a few months ago, but I let it do its thing to me. When I don’t fight it, I reserve energy. Grief is exhaustive. I try to avoid it, pretending the stupid shit that brought it on, didn’t just happen, but I knew it did. I was fighting it then. It made me so tired. I couldn’t get out of bed to even make cereal for Jason. I knew then I would never be the same.

Now, if I have to cry, I just walk away, alone, and go do that. I try to avoid people because they all want to comfort me, but they don’t understand how that very act makes me cry harder. I know they’re being the good people they are and I’m grateful, but I cannot describe it except to say I have no control over my emotions right now. The actual type of crying I do now is different. I heard there are different types of cries, but I never experienced this until now. It’s a wave of hurt, and it attacks from inside, a place you can’t mend. My face has never felt uglier. I’ve been swollen, dehydrated, created tissue stucco on my cheeks, snotted up, and utterly tearless altogether. Sometimes it feels like my eyes are going to dry right out of my head from all the salt comes out of them. Sometimes my body cries, I don’t tear up or anything but I just lay in my bed and kind of wince and twitch. I mean I’m not doing it, my body is and I just lay there waiting for it to stop.

I close my eyes and picture his face. I can see those massive green eyes staring straight back at me. I loved how his face lit up when my eyes met his, or maybe it was my face lighting up and he just responded. I’d hear him say, “there’s mama” and I remember how much it aggravated me, but for the life of me I can’t even remember why now. I know what he meant by “mama” but my sad little ego was bruising as though it was a cheap shot, when in fact it was a compliment. I was such a fool! I wish I could hear that now “here’s mama” I wish he’d still come lay down next to me on the sofa, lay his head in my lap, grab my hands, and put them over his face like he did so many times in my life, and ask “touch me babe. Rub my head, please” The thought, or knowing that I’ll never do that again as long as I live destroys me inside, subtly, methodically, just enough everyday.

(I’ve taken a good hiatus from my blog, and any meaningful writing for some time. I can’t really explain why except to say that my brain seems to take over sometimes, and it apparently can only approach one task at a time. In any case, writing my court impact statement has lit a fire under me, and it’s time to get back to what I do. I have a reputation to clean up, and as long as he has me on his side, he’ll never need to worry about actually being here. I am his voice)

How do I sum up all those years in two paragraphs? Jason can’t be condensed into two bits of text. Jason was a good man, a great son, the best friend you ever had, an incredible father, and the love of my life. He still is the love of my life, even now. This tragedy has ripped my heart into pieces, and I’ll never be the same woman I was with him. Sure, some day I’ll move on, but I’ll never cease loving him. He gave me the world. He taught me love, and patience, and understanding. He showed me what sacrifice looks like, he was strong, therefore I felt strong. Jason worked very hard for us, he was our sole provider and he helped put me through college. He was my rock, he encouraged me, he was there when I was hurt, during failures, and successes. There wasn’t very many events that took place in the twenty seven years that we were together, that we weren’t a part of for one another. We grew, together. Now, I took a leave from school, I intend on going back, but I have to concentrate on my children now. I am looking into new fields of interest, professionally, so I have some plans for the near future.

However, now that our boys have only me, I tend to stay fairly busy taking care of them. They are all athletes, so our schedule is sometimes grueling. I cannot put into to words the loss my children feel without their dad around. They are completely broken hearted, and forever changed as well. Our oldest son’s 18th birthday was not ideal, he was depressed all day. Our middle son is wrestling for the first time this year, and is excelling at it. Our youngest is going to be 13 years old this July, and I’m very sad to say his dad will not be around to see his youngest son turn into a teenager. This is wrong. A man’s life was taken, albeit an accident, but still he’s gone. My boys and I have a void we’ll ache to fill, and never will. Jason was our everything, and we are left to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives, on our own. Your honor, I understand it was an accident, but my husband laid on the ground in the cold rain without anyone that loved him there, and he died there, alone. I would give anything to have had one last moment to tell him I loved him. On June 26th, 2013, I kissed my husband Jason goodbye, packed his lunch, and said “Have a good one, babe!” He never came home from work that day. I woke my children up, one by one and told them what happened to their dad. Our lives ended there, and this new normal began. This is the impact of losing the man I love.