He's everywhere

I have a matted, framed photo of Tyler that I wanted to put up in the van somewhere. There just wasn't an easy way to do that with it in the heavy frame, so I had to take it out. Doing that made me cry. Before we pulled out of the driveway on Saturday, I used velcro tabs to stick the photo to the ceiling of the van. I want to be able to look up and see him at any moment...to know he's there with us on the road. I know he's always in my heart, but I always stumble across little reminders too. This photo was taken at the world famous (ha ha...as if) Fort Cody Trading Post in North Butte, Nebraska. This was the highlight of the store for me. Well, maybe it was the miniature old west show...ummm, no.

I had a dream about him the other night too. I thought about posting the details here, but I've decided to keep them to myself. The jist was that he was injured and I was taking him to the hospital to get him fixed. In the dream, he seemed fine and there seemed to be no rush to get him there. When I woke up, I had a moment of panic and I thought 'if only I would have hurried and got him there faster...'

It was very strange.

I miss him...even though he's everywhere.

Fading in...

Time allows for distraction and distraction is good...I think. I haven't spent as much time dwelling on the loss of Tyler. I haven't really had the brain space lately. Sometimes I think that's a good thing, but the grief still creeps in when I least expect it. The other morning I awoke abruptly because I had an image of Tyler in the hospital the night he died. The image started as just white space and slowly sharpened into full color. I want to say it "faded" in, but the word fade usually implies leaving or dissipating, like that night in the hospital when Tyler faded away from us. I watched his face go from red to pink to blue to white. That's the image I saw on that recent morning as I was just barely on the edge of consciousness. It startled me awake and I sat up. The feeling was that of shock and disbelief. I still have many moments when I can't believe he's really gone. It can't be...it just can't be. I cried on and off all day. I just couldn't shake the cloak of grief that was draped over my shoulders. It's always there; sometimes it hangs in the closet, waiting for me to wear it again.

The video...

Here it is, as promised. This is a video of us spreading Tyler's ashes at Boynton Canyon in Sedona, Arizona. Martine spent a good chunk of time putting it together and I think it's just beautiful. Makes me cry every time I see it. I picked the Patty Griffin song "Up To The Mountain" because it seemed like it would be a good fit...and it is.

I love you, Tyler.

Grief and missing

This was the view out the car window as we were driving down to Indianapolis from Chicago last Thursday evening. The sunset was quite beautiful and it made me think of Tyler. The last time I had been in Indy was November of last year. I had some weird emotional things going on during this trip which I now attribute mostly to sideways grief. I was focused on the shows I would be playing with Martine in Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, so the events of my previous visit were only milling around in the back of my mind. Being back in the city where I had watched Tyler die was difficult. I suppose I should have expected that. It probably would have been smart to address the grief and process it a little while I was there. Now it's kind of coming out in spurts.

Today I removed Tyler from the beneficiary list on my IRA. He was the primary beneficiary and I had forgotten about it. As I pressed the backspace key, removing one letter at a time, I felt the grief well up again. I still want to scream out to the universe, "what the hell happened?!?!??" I wonder if that will ever go away.

We will be spending a lot more time in Indy over the next few months. I need to find a way to get in touch with the grief I now associate with that place and face it. I don't want it coming out sideways. My life is about to change drastically again and I'm really excited about it!!! I know Tyler would be excited for me. I miss not being able to tell him things, face-to-face.

Random thoughts of grief and missing on this first day of April.

It's where he wanted to be...

This is me sitting on top of a beautiful red rock in Boynton Canyon (Sedona, Arizona) with the tin containing Tyler's ashes resting on my knee. Sunday, March 15, 2009, me and 10 other family members hiked up the Boynton Canyon Trail with the intention of releasing his ashes. When this photo was taken, we were all sitting, waiting for the right moment to set him free. That day was particularly hard for me, as it felt like saying goodbye all over again. All the emotions came back up to the surface. I felt like I did the day he died, and I kept seeing his face and how it looked that night in the hospital as the life left his body. It STILL doesn't seem real to me. I can sit here right now and think about the fact that I will never see him again, and it just doesn't seem possible. I cried twice in the car on the way to Sedona. I cried as I was hiking up the canyon with his ashes in my backpack. I cried as I sat on this rock, contemplating what I was about to do. 'It's where he wanted to be...," I thought to myself. He wanted to be in Arizona.

We picked Sedona for it's amazing beauty and energy, and we picked Boynton Canyon because it's the location of an energy vortex. There are 4 in Sedona. It seemed like a good final resting place for what remained of his physical being. After sitting and standing in various spots on the big red rock, I decided it was too crowded with hikers and went around to the other side of it. Everyone followed. I went out on to a flat rocky ledge with my mom and dad behind me. I could hear them crying and it broke my heart...again. My dad read aloud a quote from Tyler, "My 'church' is beside a river in the middle of a forest, or the desert at sunrise/sunset. ‘God’ talks to me when the wind blows across my body and I close my eyes, or when it starts to rain and the sounds from that fill the air." I removed the bag of ashes from the tin, tested the wind, and in three or four motions, I emptied the bag into the wind.

Martine got the whole thing on video and I will be posting that on this blog at some point. I know some of you wanted to be there and could not, so hopefully the video will make you feel like you were a part of it.

I hope he is happy with the view. It was beautiful, as was the day, as is his spirit.

Tyler - You are always with me, always in my heart, always on my mind, forever a part of my soul. I love you.

An honor to be with you...for eternity!

For those of you who don't know, this is Tyler with Connor and Suzanne Spellman. Tyler was Suzanne's birthing coach when she had Connor, and he was a significant person in both of their lives. In many ways he was a father figure to Connor. After Tyler passed away, Connor came to me with a picture taken the day he was born. It was of Tyler wearing a baseball cap with the word "COACH" embroidered across the front of it. Connor wanted to know if I would get the cap for him, so he could have it to keep. My heart broke again in that moment. Of course; Tyler would have wanted Connor to have that cap. My guess is he will always have it, just as he will always have his memories of Tyler.

The following letter was written yesterday by Suzanne and, with her permission, I'm now sharing it with the readers of this blog...

Thank you for listening to me tonight.
Thank you for letting me talk.
Thank you for letting me cry.

I am sorry that I never showed you daily how much you meant to me.
How much you meant to my daily being.
You were the first person that I thought of with triumph and tragedy.
The first person I shared my joys and tears with.
Our late night talks on the front porch or the early morning texts as we passed each other on the road.

I should have told you that you were the one for life on Sunday 10/19/08.
I should have kissed you as if tomorrow would never come.
Turns out, it didn't for us!

I am so sad for the people that will never experience YOU!
Your strength, your wisdom, your humor, your presence.

I have not changed who I am or how I am through all the tragedies and triumphs.
Am I cold? Am I weak? Am I scared?
Or did you take part of my soul with you?

I am realizing that I am not angry or sad or depressed (as many may think) while writing this.
I am happy, relieved and honored that you took a part of me to hold on to....
For eternity!

(Though I don't need to justify or explain what I have written, I must say that I am still sad, still angry for losing Tyler so quickly, so prematurely. But the empty/hollow/aching pain inside of me that burns/screams/festers daily can only be explained by knowing/hoping/wishing that Tyler needed to take a part of me with him. That he felt/understood/knew how much he truly meant to me/my son/my family)

It's been a while since I've been to this place. When I say 'this place' I'm not referring to the lovely scene behind Tyler in this photo. Although it seems like a nice place to be, especially if I could find him sitting there waiting for me. The place to which I am referring is the place of sorrow and devastation. In the time it took me to upload this photo and write those first four sentences, I've been reduced to a blubbering mess. That is what happens when I visit this place. I've been really busy going on with my life and it's going really, really well. I've very excited about the things I'm doing and the things yet to come. I know Tyler would be excited for me too. He would want me to be busy creating the life I want and enjoying every minute.

That's all well and good, but the truth is I just want him to be here so I can tell him everything. I had a dream last night and he was there. That's not so unusual, but in this particular dream he was there because he had come back to life. Everyone else in the dream was acting like that was normal, as if his death had never occurred. I was the only one who was confused about where he came from and how... Even he was looking at me like he was surprised by my reaction. I don't know what the dream means, but I felt like writing it down. Maybe the timing of the dream has something to do with the fact that we planned a date for spreading Tyler's ashes and it happens to be two weeks from yesterday. Maybe it means I've neglected my grieving process because I've been busy with so many other things. Maybe it's random. I don't know.

I miss you, Tyler. I wish my dream could be real.