Three Years

If Mike wasn’t going hunting, he was still never more in his element than going on a drive out in the woods or hiking to some remote spot. And his ridiculous assortment of zip up jackets for the fall/winter was out of control. Patagonia, Mountain Hardware, Columbia, he could never have enough and insisted each one served a different purpose for different conditions. When I think of Mike, I think of hats, Carhartts, long sleeve shirts under t-shirts, zip up fleece jackets, hot chili base layer clothing, scruffy facial hair, campfires, travel coffee mugs, frost, seeing your breath in the air, bundling up in gloves and scarves, snuggling up on the couch at his parents’ house during the holidays, and overwhelming amounts of hunting gear that I don’t have a grasp of what it’s for but I know it cost us a lot of money.

I just feel Mike in the fall. And by “feel” I don’t mean his presence, because I’ve never felt that since he died. I just mean the time of year is full of déjà vu of Mike. I feel the memory of him more strongly; I naturally think about him more, I’m transported back to my life with him more, I miss him more. It’s wonderful and painful.

But why haven’t I ever felt his presence since he’s been gone? Is it because I’m not spiritual enough to even allow that type of feeling or experience? I dream about Mike randomly once every few months and I usually wake up crying. But that’s just a dream. I don’t feel as if he’s visiting me to tell me something or comfort me. I even ask him to visit me on occasion but he doesn’t listen. Or do I not “feel” his presence because I’m strong enough and “okay” enough that he doesn’t need to be present in my life? Or is it simply because that type of thing isn’t real? Maybe we never really have anyone’s spiritual presence after their body has died. Maybe some people create that feeling because they want it so bad and I’m just too much of a realist to do that. I don’t know. Nobody really knows until it (death) happens to us. And although some might claim they “know” what happens to us when we die, their definition of the word “know” is different than the technical definition of the word. There would be better words to describe their faith in what they believe happens than “know.” However, I wish I could share their conviction.

Three years has changed a lot. I’ve now been to six out of seven continents. I’ve gotten to travel by myself and meet lots of new people as well as being fortunate enough to travel with my mom and a dear friend. I bought a condo in Maui, I’ve gotten a couple tattoos, as have many of Mike’s family members. Unfortunately, I don’t think any of us would have ever considered getting tattoos without Mike having gone through what he did. I’ve established my job in a new location making Chewelah my home once again, and I’ve fallen in love and bought a beautiful house. All of these things have been wonderful, although Mike’s absence from these experiences has been palpable.

The people closest to Mike have all changed in at least some way. His void left behind is forever felt by those who loved him most. I’m a little more cynical about life, but I think I’m also more empathetic and generous towards people (I hope). I cry easier. People who come into the pharmacy with cancer or have a spouse with cancer make me cry all the time. In my relationship I am more patient. I try to take my time in reacting and try to be more kind. Life is too short to lose minutes to anger and irrationality. Griffey and I both sleep worse sometimes. I’m often content and happy as I snuggle up to Chris at night, feeling loved. And all it takes is one thought or memory to pop into my head before I’m lying there silently crying and unable to sleep. So I often read in bed until I fall asleep. Griffey has panic attacks that he never used to have, believe it or not. He’ll wake up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night trembling and panting and running around like he’s lost his sanity. I have no idea why. One veterinarian said, in his older age, he just has “a little neurosis.” Don’t we all?

The way everyone’s lives go on and change after someone is gone makes me sad. It drives me nuts not being able to tell Mike about things that are going on. I wish he was here to see his nieces and nephews grow up, see our friends all getting married and having babies, see our TV shows change, watch Griffey chase deer out of the yard, and be there with me when Griffey eventually gets old. I’m terrified of losing Griffey. I can hardly bear to think about it. Not only is he my baby, he’s my daily connection between my current life and my old life. He shared everything with us. Griffey will turn 10 this November and I wish I could stop the clock. But I think it would be important to Mike that I go on living. Sometimes I feel guilty having dreams or goals, as if doing so is me saying my life is somehow more significant or deserving of having a destiny than his. At the same time, I feel like I owe it to Mike to have him live on through me somehow.

Earlier this month I took some time to go through things in my garage that I would’ve rather avoided simply because of the emotional toll it took on me. After Mike passed away, I paid like $80 to obtain copies of all his medical records at UCLA. I guess I figured I might want it someday to reflect on or refer to. It came in the mail a few weeks after he passed and was a stack of papers about 2 inches thick. Going through my disorganized file cabinet a couple weekends ago, I allowed myself to flip through some of the doctor’s chart notes. One thing I took note of is how some of the doctors chose to insert some of their own subjective comments about Mike in the dictations. Over and over I saw things like “very pleasant 27 year old male” or “very unfortunate 27 year old male with widespread metastatic disease” or “his wife and him are very good historians.” I appreciated that they inserted their own little opinions about Mike. Reading the chart notes gave me the same panicky, chest constricting fear I remember at the time. Reading the phrases “ultimately very poor prognosis” and “widely progressive metastatic disease” made me feel like I’m once again, refusing to believe the worst.

I also came across a plastic bag full of cards. You people showered me with an unbelievable amount of love and support during and following Mike’s passing. I hadn’t read these cards in almost three years, so I reread most of them and was bawling within minutes. People I’d never met or hardly knew took the time to send cards and letters. People wrote me pages and pages of words of encouragement and descriptions of their own similar experiences in their lives. It was deeply moving.

I try to make this day, September 26th, always about Mike. I think of him especially on his birthday and our anniversary, but I reserve this day to be pathetic. I give myself permission to wallow in memories, waste hours poring over pictures or words, and cry as much as I want. And I try to reserve the next day to recover and hide my puffy swollen eyes from the public. My hope is to watch his memorial slide show each year on this day. It takes a lot out of me and ruins me for the rest of the day. Leading up to this day, I have felt the anticipation creeping in; a dread of this day, like I’m obligated to be miserable. I don’t actually believe I have to cry all day; it’s that I kind of want to. But at the same time, I dread the physical headache, the dry eyes, the lingering ability to cry at the most insignificant thing, the exhaustion, the lack of productivity. I don’t cry regularly anymore, only when it hits me. About 95% of the time, I have a surface grasp of the fact that I’m a widow and I lost my husband. It’s a fact I acknowledge with little emotion. When I talk to a patient in the pharmacy and tell them that I understand and I went through something similar, I may tear up but it’s usually for them, not me. The other 5% of the time, I’m shocked and devastated – and those words hardly do it justice – that Mike Carpenter is gone. When I really take the time to think about the depth of it, I realize I lost my best friend and love. He literally doesn’t exist anymore, as far as this world is concerned. His life, his plans, his “destiny” were all clipped short. I have a hard time reconciling the concept that the fun-loving, silly, kind friend I had in high school is the same person who ended up being my best friend, love, and husband and that of all the people I know, he is the one that left. I can’t emphasize it enough; he was the best person I’ve ever known. How did this happen? It still hits me sometimes, so powerfully, that he is actually gone and I can’t tell him something or won’t ever be able to, and I gasp a deep breath in and can’t seem to get it out. When I do, it’s accompanied by a loud sob I don’t expect and can’t contain. The memory of a healthy Mike and an unhealthy Mike are equally painful; I literally can’t decide which is worse. Today, looking through old pictures of Mike and imagining his laugh, it’s almost unbearable, honestly.

Thank you for a being a part of this journey with me, both 3 years ago, and still today. Most everything I write here is possibly old news to you, but the details haunt me still and feel like a stab in the heart. Being able to talk about it, relive it in detail, helps me in some small way. It’s like each time I write about a chapter in the “story,” I can put it behind me a little more. The process of reading my journal from that time, really thinking about how I felt, how Mike was at that time, considering the difference in how I perceived things then versus now, it’s all a part of my process in moving forward. I have to revisit each day in order to set it aside. So thank you for letting me do that and supporting me along the way.