Crazy Sexy Cancer

Like a random picture in an attic box, at some point we are all just forgotten.

- Crazy Sexy Cancer

Holidaze

My first holidays without Steve started a mere four months after he died. My generous friends and family showed up for me in the ways they could, but I spent Thanksgiving pushed beyond my limits and Christmas day alone. What I remember is blurry and full of darkness. Along the way I was made to feel a failure because I couldn't manage to help cook in my own house and because I kept slipping off to do my crying in private. I was called selfish for wanting to spend Christmas at our home. I was told "he's dead, he isn't coming back, get over it," a week before Christmas. I was chastised and scolded for upsetting family with what I thought would be a welcome written message from Steve. Though I tried to focus on the positive, I look back and wonder how I ever managed to make it through. No wonder the following three months were the worst of my grieving.

My second set of holidays started off promising enough. Maybe I had a little Post Traumatic Stress from the holidays before, cause though I was invited out for Thanksgiving, my panic attacks grew worse and more frequent over the three days I was away from home. Watching a young family starting out in life, full of hopes and dreams and possibilities was beautiful. As I stood on a staircase landing listening to their plans for the future, I suddenly realized that my family's hope and dreams weren't going to be realized. We got the time we were meant to have and it was over. At thirty-seven I was a bit old to start over entirely, no young children for me, my life is half over already. In that moment I realized there are opportunities lost to me that I will never regain.

Christmas was better. I spent it back in New York, where it all began. I spent a few days in the city and then Christmas with his cousin, who we had stayed with exactly ten years earlier. Ten years prior when Steve asked me to marry him. Steve was born and raised in New York so every street corner held memories. I visited some of our old haunts, his old neighborhood, places we wanted to go together but never got around to visiting. Beautiful memories. And they kept me warm on those blustery winter streets.

Christmas with Steve's family was bittersweet. I kept expecting him to pop from around a corner at any moment. I saw how much the children had grown since we had last seen them. Marveled at his cousin's new house in Steve's place. Saw his twinkling eyes in his family's faces, heard his laughter emanate from his family's mouths, watched his gestures from his family's hands. And though he was rarely mentioned, we all acknowledged his presence. I felt as though I was there in his place; to see, and hear, and support those he loved most. That was my gift to Steve, my gift to his family, my gift to myself.

This is my third set of holidays since Steve died. There are a whole new set of complications this year. This year I'm spending the holidays with my boyfriend and his children. Two beautiful young girls who keep me laughing, and guessing, and completely in the moment. A man who makes me happy, worries about stepping on memories of Steve, never allows me to cry alone, and puts the biggest smile on my face when he walks into the room.

I spent the night before Thanksgiving looking around my house, imagining what it would look like if Steve were alive. What it looked like in years past as we prepared to host another feast. I thought about the past two Thanksgivings since Steve died. I wondered how I managed to survive this long without him when I never believed I could make it a day. And I got the crying out of my system. I spent Thanksgiving day navigating new traditions, navigating youthful meltdowns and jubilations, navigating the complications and the joys of a new life.

This is my third holiday season without Steve. Each year it hurts. Each year it hurts differently. But each year it gets a little easier. This year, it's finally getting to be a life. My life. My life after Steve.

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Today's post is part of a monthly blog-hop (first Wednesday of each month). It's a way to find other widow/er bloggers to read, interact with, discuss, and follow. Feel free to leave comments, send e-mails, share and interact. The following links are to other blogs participating in this month's hop. Hope you find someone and something new that helps you.

Samantha of the Crazy Courage blog
Ferree of Widow’s Christian Place
Red’s The M3 Blog
Marriott of Miracles and Answers to the Prayers in the Life of Marriott Cole
Christine of Widow Island
Robin of The Fresh Widow
Tim’s Diary of a Widower

March 13th

There are few days anymore where I know what Steve and I would be doing if he were alive. The most I can figure any given week would be his normal work schedule: drive up to DC on Sunday night around nine PM and drive home on Thursday night getting home around eight PM. If a Packer game is on I can bet we'd be home, Steve would have cooked a big spread, and we'd watch the game. Outside of that I have to lean on major holidays like Christmas, birthdays, Super Bowl Sunday.

Today is a birthday. It's my father's seventy-sixth birthday and the day is gorgeous. We'd have driven out to dad's house in the convertible with the top down, cause it's just that warm out, and Stevie would have cooked something special. Matter of fact, this may have even been the first top-down-on-the-convertible day for the year.

Last year was a big birthday for dad, seventy-five. We managed to throw a surprise party with guests coming in all the way from Florida and North Carolina. Steve and I had wanted to get his band over to dad's house to play a personal birthday gig for him. I'm sorry we never got to do that; when Steve died the band had never played anywhere outside practice. Instead, Steve had to be in Seattle for Microsoft training for three weeks. Steve hated being away for dad's landmark birthday but we knew postponing that training could have put a serious crimp in his career over the next year. We didn't know Steve had a ticking time bomb in his chest with a countdown remaining of only four months.

Dad's health has been bad the last few years. Matter of fact, Steve and I thought there was a real possibility that dad wouldn't make it to his seventy-sixth birthday. Which made Steve not being here for the landmark year even more difficult. I know that Steve would have made as big a deal of this birthday as possible to make up for having missed last year's. This year, maybe, he would have even gotten the band to come out and play. As it turns out, today would have been a gorgeous day for it.

There are few days anymore where I can walk this earth and have any certainty of where my husband would be and what he'd be doing if he were still walking the earth. So please excuse me while I cry into my coffee trying to create happy pictures of what might have been.

My favorite Christmas gift

Steve's oldest brother, Butch, has been a Godsend to me since my husband died. He has called me once or twice a week, every week. He has held my hand over the long distance wire as I have cried and screamed, he has made me laugh til my face hurts, he has made phone calls on my behalf to credit card companies. He has let me know that I'll always be a DeRose.

Butch and I are  both a little old school. My old school shows up in choosing to wear black for the first year after Steve's death. Since so many people wear black all the time I don't know if my choice is really noticed. Unless you know I like wearing bright and funky colors, you just see me and think 'there goes an aging goth chick'. Butch, as a sign of respect to his brother's life, has decided to go even more old school. He forewent Christmas. No cards, no decorations, no special meal, no saying Merry Christmas. But he's been worried about me and my first Christmas without Steve. And though he wouldn't call it a Christmas gift, on Christmas day he e-mailed me a photograph of him and Steve as a baby. It's the first baby picture I've ever seen of Steve. And it's the best damn Christmas gift I didn't get this year.

And knowing that Butch cares enough to break his rule for me - that gift of love is priceless.

"Christmas greetings!" from Steve

Steve wrote this on Christmas day in 2005 and posted it on his sports blog, which he shared with another guy also named Steve. They each took a type of beer as their last name, my Stevie adopting Samichlaus as his. Which explains why, if you know my husband and me, you may be greatly confused about who the Samichlaus’s are – they’re us. I thought of switching in our actual last name but am loath to change even a mistype in his writings. So here it is, five years later, and I thought I’d share a Christmas greeting to all from the one I love the most.

Christmas greetings! – December 25, 2005

Christmas is a time for family and fun in the Samichlaus house. It’s also the time for our yearly visit to church for midnight service. I hesitate to call it midnight mass (which by its sheer alliteration sounds better) because evidentially the non-Catholic denominations don’t call it “Mass”. In retrospect, that’s probably a good idea. I’m not sure what a “mass” is, except for a heinous growth somewhere on your body that should be removed immediately. Just like Catholicism now that I think about it.

So for Christmas Eve Mrs. Samichlaus and I headed down to the local Methodist church and were ready to enjoy a good hour of prayer and reflection. Things were going well until we got to the singing. Specifically it was the second verse of “What Child is This?” where the whole evening began to go south. As we sang the line “Why lies he in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding?” Mrs. Claus and I simultaneously started to giggle like we were two twelve year olds. It was then that the giggle shifted to laughter, compounded by my sudden inspiration to make the universal symbol for “flying asshole” and pretend that it was feeding on Mrs. Claus’s sleeve.

After that everything seemed funny to us. When the pastor told how Jesus was laid in the manger I thought “See, he DID get laid”. And when the angel appeared to the shepards in their fields to proclaim that “Unto this day a savior is born in the city of David”, I imagined that the shepards reaction was not “We must go to this city”, but rather “WHAT the FUCK was THAT?” This became a dialogue between two shepards. Pick up the scene after the choir of angels have finished their Hosannas and have left. The shepards are walking home.

Don: Holy fucknuts, I shit my tunic. You ever see anything like that?
Phil: No fuckin way. Fuck! I pissed my sandals.
Don: Shit Phil, didn’t Deb just pick those up for you?
Phil: Yep. They were brand new. Fuck. Look, tomorrow I need to go to Wal-Mart in the city of David to pick up new sandals. You want to go? Maybe there’s something to this savior thing. We could check it out.
Don: Sure, what the fuck, but I’ll put on some “Depends” just in case.
Phil: Good call.

Mrs. Samichlaus came up with the pissing on the sandals.

Happy holidays to all!

Trying for a bright Christmas

This year for Christmas the only thing I wanted to get done was the decorations. I didn't care if I mailed Christmas cards, bought and exchanged gifts, or even cooked a meal on Christmas day. All I wanted was to get the tree up, the lights outside, and buy two poinsettias for the coffee table. Everything else was moot.

I didn't do it all on my own, though. I had amazing help. Dan helped me with the outside lights over two days. Climbing trees like a monkey man in temperatures that kept me running inside to "check on something" every five minutes, When we pulled the lights for outside, every string that Steve and I had used in previous years, every single string, was burnt out. Luckily, a couple of years ago I went out and bought every surplus set of stringed lights I could get my hands on at seventy-five percent off. By the time that particular price point came around, all that was available were red lights. My house doesn't quiet look like a Christmas whore house but it's a near miss.

A few days later Holly came over to help me get the tree set up. It's a giant task because when Steve finally caved to the fact that live trees give me hives, he bought the best fake tree he could find. It comes in three pieces, has fiber optics and came pre-strung with thousands of multi-colored lights. Guess what happened after putting it together and plugging it in? Yep. Nearly every string was burnt out. So we pulled off all the lights, I went out the the garage to grab more surplus lights, and now my inside tree is red too.

It's truly starting to look like a hoochie house around here.

If Dan hadn't been with me when I realized all the outside lights were burnt out, I would have cried, given up and gone back inside. If Holly hadn't been with me three days later when I realized the same about my Christmas tree I'd still be curled in a ball rocking and humming to myself while hiding under the bed. Instead, I laughed. I laughed and blamed my husband.

Christmas was Steve's favorite holiday. He liked it bright, tacky, and loads of fun. He liked it so damn much he took my freaking Christmas lights with him. And maybe he was sending me a message: time to do something new for Christmas. So on Christmas day, while everyone else is unwrapping gifts, watching the kids get hopped up on sugar and eating their special meal; I'll be working at the local soup kitchen handing out gifts and new coats. It's a little scary switching things up like this, but these days everything is scary. I've gotten this far because of all the wonderful people in my life - it's time I give back.

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Just a few pictures from the Christmas tree this year. Everything looks pink because of the red lights on the tree. Don't blame me. Blame Steve. He's the one who stole my lights.

A gift for our first Christmas from Steve's brother Butch. I keep the card he and his wife sent with this ornament in it's box. Every year it was the first ornament on the tree - after the placing of our two dozen small disco balls, that is.

Since Elvis drove us to and sang at our wedding, I bought a little Elvis to hang on the tree for our first Christmas. This Elvis looks a little girly to my eyes but I figure it's only fair. The Elvis that worked our wedding wore more makeup than all the woman there put together.

We picked this little pink monkey up during our trip to China. I've always been known as the monkey in my family and Steve got a great kick out of trying to increase my collection. Funny. Now when I look at monkeys I think of Steve.

 

For several years I cross stitched ornaments for the family. One year I made little stockings. All of them had a rose theme - a play off their last name. This one I made specifically for Steve. He loved all my creations and took great pride that I had learned needlework at my grandmother's knee.

Steve bought me donkey because he's a scooch. And I love any fellow scooch I can find.

This little white bird I bought a week ago for my Steve. He liked birds, had a couple as pets as a child. Our tree in the backyard is covered in bird feeders. We enjoyed sitting on the back deck and watching them go at it. I think of them as Steve's birds. I guess I think of Steve whenever I see a bird. Looks like I have something new to collect. My house is going to look like the wild kingdom.

Tinsel & Tears

As the holidays approach, there is great pressure to be here, go there, do this, that, something-or-other-else. Some widows want to go away for the holidays, spend it anywhere but home. I understand. I've gone on two trips since Steve died and those were the only times I felt I outside the pressure cooker. I still cried but only because I miss my husband. Not because I don't know how to do something or can't find something he put away or stumbled across something I wasn't expecting. There's a relief in being able to mourn the death of my husband without the everyday frustrations of him being gone to work through as well.

There are others, like me, who want to be home with our familiar surroundings. I feel closest to Steve in our home because I have so many memories of us celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas around our table. It scares the crap outta me to stay home for the holidays. So much so I've nearly picked up the phone to say "yes, book the ticket, I'll come to you".

I have already faced a lot of firsts since Steve died. The first trip to the grocery store without Steve, the first overnight stay away from home without Steve, the first party without Steve. Each time I face a 'first' the pain cuts through me like a hot knife. This will be the first Christmas. I could go away and celebrate out of town, but next year or the year after, I'll have to be home for Christmas. Without my husband. That would be another important first. I would rather combine the first Christmas without Steve and the first Christmas at home without Steve into one year. This year.

Just think of me as a pull-the-band-aid-off-quickly kinda gal.

The other part of being where Steve has been, everywhere that holds a memory of Steve is a good memory. It brings me huge comfort to, say, see a dollar we hung on a ceiling and know I can come back and see it again in another five years or watch him play his guitar once more. The comfort of my memories with Steve gets me through the hot knife moments.

So, yes, this year I'll be home for Christmas. I have a couple of firsts to knock off my list. Trust that I have fabulous memories to keep me company.