Life Lesson From Nintendo

There has been a few times in life where I've hit the reset or pause buttons.  You know, the one that the old Nintendo sitting on your shelf collecting dust has?  You would be happily playing a game, getting further and further along, and suddenly, you would have to go to school, or a friend would come over to play outside (and I still firmly believe that being outside with friends is better than any video game), or your parents would realize that you hadn't cleaned your room and yell at you to get the hell off of the Nintendo and do as you're told...

Press the pause button.

It was the rudimentary "save" function.  You couldn't turn the system off, and the if the power went out, your game was reset yet again, but most of the time, it worked out ok.  You could think of nothing else but going back to your little electronic world once you were ripped out of it, but you had to have confidence that it would still be there, waiting for you to pick right back up where you left off if you just stepped back and took care of your responsibilities first.  Logic and odds dictated that the smart thing to do was to simply press pause, and revisit it later.

But there was always a worse scenario.  Again, you would be happily playing a game, almost to completion, slaying enemies or toadstools or winning the final race, and the game would freeze.  You had one and only option at that point.

Hit the reset button.

Old video game systems never had a true "save" function.  No matter how much progress you had made, it was all lost the minute the game froze, the power went out, or you ran out of lives.  The only way to earn back the progress you had made was to hit the reset button and start all over.

But it was different than the first time you played the game.  You had experience.  You knew where those enemies were hiding, where you needed to jump, and where you needed to slow down and figure out a puzzle, because you had done it all before.  It was frustrating to have to go through it all again when you felt so accomplished the first time, but the end goal was still the same, to progress further and ultimately, beat the game.  You might not have remembered everything from the first run through, but you damn sure had it a little easier.  There was never a question of putting the controller down and walking away...the game was there, and it must be won.

I knew all of this when I was 8 years old.  It now amazes me that at 34, it took me this long to realize that Megan's death has shown me the same thing as Mario and Luigi did all those years ago.  I was happily playing the game of life until her first transplant, in 2011, where we had to hit the pause button while she healed from the surgery, and all we could think about was picking it right back up and progressing further.  We were in the final boss battle in 2014, where we hit the pause button yet again in order to take care of responsibilities, but there was a glitch in the system, the game froze, and she ran out of lives.  Game over.

My only choice was to hit the reset button.  I have the experience of going through the game the first time and I'm able to remember how it's played, but there are always things that I don't recall because it was such a long and epic game.

Weird thing is, I've found a secret level that I've never seen before prior to this run-through.  It's shiny and new and interesting and most of the time, fun to play, but it's difficult, because I don't know all of the ins and outs and where the enemies and special jumps and hidden spots are.  I know how to use the controller in this game in general, I'm very experienced with it, but not necessarily in this level.  I've already had to hit the pause button just to keep my composure and not want to toss the controller at the TV.  I have to have confidence that the power's not going to go out, but I can't help but worry that the game will freeze while I do other things and take care of responsibilities, and I'll have to start all over yet again.  This secret level is almost an entirely new game for me, and I can't stop thinking about sitting back down and playing it.  Even with the difficulty and unknowns, it's one of the most interesting parts of the entire game...i just wish there was a strategy guide for it, because I'm flyin pretty fuckin blind right now.

So, it's paused while I search for my own guidebook, when hopefully, I can come back, sit down, and just enjoy playing it without ever having to press the reset button.

"Until my Dying Day..."

"...until my last breath."  My wife Megan and I had those words tattooed onto our forearms on February 8th, 2014.  It was my suggestion, and she was completely taken aback by it.  Not because she wasn't sold on the idea of a little ink (she had sixteen tattoos already), but because I suggested it and came up with the whole plan.  I only had two tattoos at the time, so it wasn't my "thing", and she found it one of the most romantic gestures I had ever made.  Yeah, we were weird like that.  

Megan and her younger brother were born with Cystic Fibrosis.  I won't get into the details of it, but in summary, the symptoms are effectively like having permanent pneumonia.  Look it up if you're interested, but prepare to be depressed at what some people have to go through just to live.  Her brother Jason only made it to age 19.  I was at his bedside with Megan in 2005 when he passed.  I was 24 years old.  That is the very moment that I knew that I would be seeing this scene play out again, probably before I turned 40 years old, but it would be my wife lying in that bed.  Four days after her brother died, Megan and I were married, in the same church where Jason's funeral was to be conducted the next day.

Talk about sobering.  She was sick before I even met her in 2002, just after being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps.  She was sick when I proposed to her, at the hospital, no less, in 2004.  She was sick when we married, and she was sick in 2007, when our daughter Shelby was born.  She was sick until 2011, when she received a double lung transplant, and we finally got three healthy years where we maximized every moment we had, not worrying about when her time would come, but knowing in the back of our minds that it would come entirely too early.  She wasn't sick again until January 2014, when the "pop" was felt when we were at Crossfit together.  That "pop" was the first sign of those recycled lungs beginning to be rejected by her immune system.

On November 19th, 2014, at age 33, Megan took her last breath.  I held her hand and watched as her heart rate went from 90 beats per minute to 3, then zero.  The tattoo, after spending less than a year on her body, had just taken on its true meaning. 

So here I am, writing about my dead wife on the internet.  At age 34, with an eight year old daughter, I'm a widower.  I was gifted 12 years with an amazing woman.  My perspective is somewhat unique, because after the initial shock of losing her, I came to the realization that I don't feel "cheated" like many other widow(er)s justifiably do.  I made a deal with the devil, because I loved Megan "in sickness and in health, until death do us part.  There wasn't any fine print on that contract.  It was all there in big capital letters: IF YOU MARRY HER, SHE WILL BE DEAD BEFORE YOU'RE 40.  

I simply refuse to let something that I knew and accepted would happen someday destroy my life.  It's not too bad.  It's too soon.  Of course, I wanted more time with her, and would have sacrificed anything to grow old with her and never have to be here, where I am, right now.  She would have never let me do that though.  She was guiding me long before she died, and she's still doing it now.  I can't help but think that she actually lived, and gave her life, for Shelby and I, and I am eternally grateful.   

Did her death change my life?  Obviously, but it did not destroy me.  I still get mood swings or bad days like everyone else, full of rage and hate and pain and fear of self, but generally those days are followed by ambition and an intense need to scream out that I will not let life take me down.  Those bad days are the ones that let me know that I'm human, so I wipe the snot off of my face, get the hell off of the couch, and get shit done.  Feeling sorry for myself accomplishes nothing.  When that switch flips from suffering to determination, it is simply not possible to feel more powerful.     

All of my strength and love and fire went into Megan, involuntarily, for 12 years, and now that she's gone, I've got one hell of a surplus outside of Shelby.  I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it all, but I've got a pretty good idea that it shouldn't be left to collect dust.  The odd part, and the part I've still got to figure out, is that I don't get to just decide where that all of that fire gets applied.  She's somewhere, still stoking and handing out those flames to whomever she sees fit, and I have no choice in the matter but to awkwardly accept it.

Her smart-ass personality (and her brother's) will find it hilarious to watch me flounder around, but I know she only wants what right for Shelby and I.  I'm falling down life's staircase, and she's at the top, laughing her ass off at my misfortune as always, but still helping me crawl back up by bringing people and events into my life that even I don't understand yet.

Breathe easy babe.

This was written for the Widow's Voice blog, located at http://widowsvoice-sslf.blogspot.com/ as my introductory post.  Hence the "rehash" of things.  

Trigger Songs: Slipknot - Goodbye

It's amazing how a random song popping up in my playlist can strike at me.  I put so much weight into the lyrics and meanings of songs.  Some can be triggers for grief, some can be triggers for happiness, some for anger, and some can be triggers for me to want to help and or explain myself to others.  I like writing about my "trigger" songs once in awhile.  

Maybe we can all recognize a moment of silence

Maybe we can finally agree on the same point of view

A long time ago we believed and we were united

So the last thing on Earth I am ready to do is say goodbye

This should be easy enough. Good song, deep meaning to me, and even if you don't like Slipknot, you have to simply read a portion of the lyrics to see why. Let me break down what it means to me, and you can draw your own opinions. I've had my moment of silence.  It was those very early days, when all I wanted to do was crawl into a dark place and mourn in the cold hollow shell of my own mind.  Let's all agree that while we need to mourn, and we need to have bad days or moments, that really, in the grand scheme of things, it's not mourning or grief that moves us forward.  Those two things are simply reminders of where we are in the process, and when they rear their ugly heads, they remind us that life itself is a test, and the grades are handed out during the test, not after.

Megan and I believed in each other.  We believed that a shitty fucking disease would not stop us from being "normal".  

So no, I'm not ready to say goodbye to Megan.  Fuck, I never will be, and I refuse to do so.  I accept that she is no longer here in the physical sense, but why the hell would I say "goodbye" as if everything she helped me to become is null and void at this point?  Goodbye is not the same as "see you later".

The song continues.  

A long time ago we discovered that nothing could stop us

This hasn't torn us apart, so nothing ever will

How can we know where we are if the sun is behind us?

But this moment will show us the rest of our lives

No one is going to save us this time

No one can know what we're feeling.

So don't even try

This is continuance of life.  It's not "moving on" or "getting over it", it's "continuance".  I don't still feel "married", but I damn sure still feel "united", and whether or not I'm united or married to someone else in the future, I will still continue being united to Megan as well.  Life does not stop for those left behind.  

What is the indicator of where you are in life when your better half is no longer here? As I said above, those moments of grief or mourning serve as such.  Those moments show you that you're fucking human, and you're allowed to be sad that a person who loved you unconditionally is dead.  You're allowed to regress and have those days where the world keeps spinning for everyone else, but stops for you.  Those moments are what shows me the next step in life.   

You have to paddle your own canoe.  It's tough love, but it's fucking true.  No one is going to be your savior and just make you forget what you had in the past.  If it is that easy to forget, then I would wonder what you truly had.  You can never be "saved" from the fact that you lost someone, unless science somehow figures out a way to stop the loss by reanimating corpses AND souls.   

Taking advice from others can be helpful, but they are not you.  Be as open and honest as you want to be about everything with everyone, respect the opinions and observations of those who've been in your shoes, but for Christ's sake, live your life on your terms.  Take little pieces of it, but don't even try to live someone else's grief or process exactly as they do because it seems "better" or "faster".

Because you'll fail.   

Live Wire

Finally!  I have successfully been adrenalized.  As of this weekend, I am officially off of the Prozac.  I went to Crossfit tonight, and got to flip these bad boys around.

The combination of the prozac wearing off, and one of my favorite things to do at the gym has got my adrenaline flowing so much that I am just plain giddy.  Here's the thing, I'm thinking about Megan a ton right now, but in such a happy, happy fucking way.  When we were doing this together, and I would get in this state, we would have such a fun night when we got home.  All of us, as a family.  Shelby and I would roughhouse, Megan would play with the dogs like a little kid making baby talk with them, we'd have music blaring, and grill some steaks and just have a knock down, drag out damn fun party.  It wasn't planned, it wasn't talked about, it just happened.  After Shelby was in bed, well, more fun usually started that shall remain unsaid, but completely understood by everyone.

It is SO weird right now to feel this way.  To wish Megan was here to enjoy all this with us (yes, we have the music going, we're playing with the dogs, roughhousing, and I gobbled up a damn fine ribeye) but also not NEEDING her here to have fun.  It's exactly what I needed right now, but I still don't understand why it's not a sad moment for me in the least.

If it wasn't Monday night, I would be frantically calling people trying to get them here or to go out, not because I'm lonely, but because I'm in rare form and I want to share that with people.  If they can't get together, oh well, I'm still having fun.  This isn't me.  It really isn't.  It's a better person.  A silly, immature, giddy, but fun person.  Shelby loves it when I'm this way, because I'm the best playmate she could have.  I'm drunk on adrenaline, but not aggressive or angry.  I'm ready to conquer the world, slay the beast, and save the princess.  I feel like I could take care of (in more ways than one) multiple Megans right now without so much as breaking a sweat.

I'm happy.  Happy because for a few hours or days or however long it takes for the euphoria to wear off, I'm not just thinking about the fact that Megan isn't here, but about the fact that she WAS here, and got to experience these feelings with us.  These are the times now when I can start to see that really, she probably IS here, grinning from ear to goddamned cute little ear right along with us.

If I could bottle this stuff and sell it, I would be a millionaire.

Mr. Mom

It's fucking hard being a mom.  Really.  Fucking.  Hard.  I tended to take it for granted, regrettably, for 7 years.  Megan sapped a lot of her own strength to make Shelby what she is today.  I've gained a new found respect for all that she and other mothers do for their children.

Make no mistake, I would die for Shelby, and not in the figurative way that it sounds like.  I would literally take my own life if it meant keeping her healthy and happy.  There was only one other person that deserved that, and well, I couldn't save her, no matter how much I tried.

With that said, Shelby is sick today.  It's hard for me to be overly concerned about it when she just says "My stomach feels weird" and wants to lie down.  I mean, she looks pitiful, but god knows I've seen much, much worse than an upset stomach.

Then she runs to the bathroom and heaves for 5 minutes.  Switch.  Flipped.

I suddenly know what it felt like for Megan on days Shelby stayed home from school because of this.  It's fucking terrifying to see your "baby" being so miserable.  I watched Megan herself do this exact same thing, daily, for 30 minutes as soon as she woke up and started her coughing routine.  I held her hair and got her water to sip and did everything I could to make her feel better, but it was different.  Megan was an adult, and she had been in this routine for long before I met her, so it wasn't a shock.  It's uncommon for Shelby to be sick, so when it happens, as it does with all kids, it's a much bigger deal, and my mind starts racing with all the terminal diagnoses it could be, when really, she's just got an upset stomach.

Intellectually, I know what to do.  I go right back to the routine I had with Megan with the hair holding, water, and comfort.  What I don't have, or at least haven't developed yet, is the motherly instinct of what to tell her to make her feel better.  Mommy had been there, done that, and always came out of the morning shittyness with a smile.  She was able to make Shelby smile just the same when she was sick.

That's just the beginning.  There are so many other things that we did the "traditional" way.  I was the breadwinner, protector, wilderness guide, nightly and weekend entertainment provider, disciplinarian, and driver.  Megan was a housewife.  She did so many more things than cooking, cleaning, getting Shelby to school, kissing boo-boos, throwing birthday parties, dealing with my dumb ass, and generally being the nucleus of the family.  Therein lies the problem.  She did so much that I have no clue what all she did.  The fact that she did it while she herself was sick is one hell of a goddamned testament.
 
Now I have to take on that role, and ladies, let me tell you, you deserve a metric shit ton of respect.  I had to learn how to braid hair, RSVP to birthday parties, plan play dates, cook a dinner that she'll actually eat (she's not big on brussels sprouts, but at least she likes steak), and kiss boo-boos rather than telling her to "walk it off".   I have so much more to learn.  There's no way that Shelby is not going to be awesome, a tomboy, and drive all the boys nuts, given the circumstances, but dear lord, am I terrified of those teenage years.

Back to holding hair after her nap.