It's funny that every year a different birthday of Darrell's has special significance. One year it was the birthday I had a surprise birthday dinner for him while we lived in Tulsa. Last year it was the birthday I surprised him with a weekend away. But this year, for some reason this year, our first year to celebrate his birthday is haunting me. It was his 40th birthday and I took him to a restaurant known for its seafood, his favorite. The candlelight and soft music are still there in my memories, but most of all I remember his happiness. His utter happiness to be celebrating his birthday with me.
After those memories washed over me, nearly choking me in Costco parking lot of all places, I wondered why I remember the first now. Four years since I celebrated his last birthday with him, why suddenly the first? I wonder if I'm ready to really let him go.
I can remember so many firsts but I struggle with the lasts. For the past hour I've tried to remember his last birthday for the life of me, I can't. I can't remember the last time we held hands. Or the last time we made love. I can't remember what I made him for dinner the night before his accident. Or the last time he said "I love you." Our last kiss is but a vague memory, a quick kiss as he left the house to go fly his plane. We remember the firsts, forever etched in our brains, but the lasts are locked away in the fog of our memories.
I'm no longer the Denise Swank who was married to Darrell. I've changed, evolved, adapted to my new life sometimes drug through it all kicking, screaming and wailing. I've not always done it gracefully, but I've done it my way. I sometimes wonder if Darrell would recognize the person I am today. Would he love the new me? I'm not so sure he would. But that's okay (and this is what makes me realize I'm ready to let go) because I can't change a thing. And I'll go so far as to say I wouldn't change a thing. The way I behaved, the person I've become was created through the birth of fire. Literally. I defy anyone to do that gracefully.
Over the next few weeks, I plan on doing some posts covering my journey through the first six months of grief. Some of those times, I won't look very pretty. But the cold hard fact is that grief is ugly business. It's high time someone finally admitted it.
5 comments:
This is a beautiful post-and although I don't know who the "old" Denise was-it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't love the new one.
Thank you for sharing your journey with us-both your family's journey and your grieving journey.
Hugs.
This is beautiful, Denise. I hope your healing continues.
It's strange, that I would find this post today. My father died when I was 6 years old and I don't often think of him, but in the shower today, I was immobilized with questions: Did I miss him? Was I *sorry* he had died? I felt bad for my mother, but for me?
I know the daughter he did raise (mine was a second family) and I know that his influence would have been great and very different from the way my life has turned out. I like who I am. That is not to say I wouldn't have liked who I would have been, but I don't feel badly. I am the only of his four children who has not signed up for the military. I am the only of his four children who has embraced and pursued her creative urges (though at least two others have them). Would I be so different, or would I be exactly who I am, with an estranged father? Would life have been more painful had he lived and I bucked him? Would I have bucked him and always wondered who I could have been? Or did his death at my young an age cause my life to have trials that were necessary to who I have become, have always been meant to be?
These are the things I wonder this Solstice, and thank God the days are getting longer.
Love you and I truly admire both Denise's, old and new. Although I never had the chance to meet Darrell, from everything I do know, he would be very, very proud of you.
Denise, I'm not sure what to say. It is a beautiful post with touching memories of the life you & Darrell shared but saying that doesn't at all describe the emotions that this post evoked. Although you are healing it hurts me to my soul that you had to experience this type of pain.
Write it all. The good, the bad, the ugly and the downright disgusting. As they say, the truth will set you free.
WOW. WOW. I thought I was reading a new book. What an incredible writer you are by being able to share your experiences and feelings. Amazing.
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