I almost named this one anniversaries part 2.  Jesse would have been 37 this past Saturday. I posted on my Facebook wall the day prior how much I hated anniversaries. Well, it may have said how much I fucking hated anniversaries, but details. I was with some friends the week prior,  and one of my dearest was having her 50th birthday party this past Saturday. She and her husband both asked if I was coming.  All I had to reply was that it was Jesse’s birthday, and they nodded, gave me a squeeze, knowing that I needed to be alone.

The past two years I have done so. The first, a couple of days at the beach, last year at McMenamins Edgefield. It has been a time of reflection and numbing. The first leading to the second. The reflection has opened up the can of worms that threatens to lead me down a rabbit hole. The emotion that sadly prevails is one of guilt for this particular anniversary. Anyone who goes through the process of grief knows that one. It can be sneaky in its attack. I go to the place of “I should have known, I should have insisted on more help, I should have looked in his phone (where he wrote things that were premonitions), I should have asked him directly if he was thinking about suicide, had a plan, I should have taken the gun out of the house, I should have not fought with him that morning, I should not have gone to work that day…I could go on and on. He should be here to celebrate his birthday.  I think back to three years ago, he had just gotten out of the psychiatric ward a couple of days prior to his birthday, still “zombielike” from the experience and medications. He tried to be his jovial self, for himself, but mostly for the girls. He put on a good front for me and his sister who thankfully flew in to help that first week. Knowing him the way I did, I saw the deep sadness in his eyes.

As you have read previously, I have processed the grief around him a lot. Perfectly, no way, there is no perfect in this process. If asked, I will often say that I am as good as I am going to be around it. This is mostly because I compartmentalize Jesse and Bells into separate boxes. That way, I can get to a place of compassion and understanding around it with him. Up to a point. Not a day goes by without thinking of him. At this point it is a thought here, a thought there. Rare days I go down that rabbit hole, but it still does happen, and that can be mad, sad, guilt, despair, or all the above. That is my conscious mind. The subconscious is a whole other story. I invited my friend over for dinner last Friday.  I was doing “fine” all day. Then out of the blue while cooking dinner, “it” hit me. It being an overwhelming tidal wave of emotion. I sank literally to the floor and started sobbing. What came to the forefront were all these thoughts around him.  Him alive, those last six months, him dead. I know the why, the days leading up to these anniversaries are usually much worse that the actual day. I almost texted my friend to say, nope, can’t do dinner tonight. But that would be dishonest to me, to him. It scares me so much to let someone who is new that I care about to see this pain. I of course had myself mostly put together by the time he arrived, but when asked how I was doing, my normal chipper answer was lacking, and I said meh. The subconscious pisses me off, it is that constant reminder of how completely fucked up I am in my brain.

Let me circle back a bit. The previous years for Jesse’s birthday I went for silent retreats, feeling like I needed to do that. This year was different. It wasn’t, then it was. You remember me telling my friend that the day of her party was his birthday and that I could not attend?  Well the beginning of last week, I had a nagging feeling. I could not quite place it. It was mostly an “annoyed” feeling. I did not want to miss celebrating my friend. And her party was on the same day as my dead husbands birthday, which I normally went silent for. I sat with this for about a day. I worried that if I went to this party, I would be a basket case. I felt that if I went away to be by myself, I would regret it. I asked myself, do you really need to do this, this year?  Are you still at the point where you need to be by yourself? Are you just doing this because it is what you have done the past two years? By sitting with it I realized I am in a different place with it. Much different. One, time has indeed passed and I have a lot of conflicting feeling around Jess, not this overwhelming feeling like I need time and space to honor his birthday. Two, I am embarking in this new relationship.  Spending time together is truly enjoyable and easy. This person is calming for me in ways that continuously surprise me. I did not want to be alone in a silent retreat on Jesse’s birthday, I wanted to be celebrating one of my dearest friends birthdays, and have this new person at my side.

My time to honor Jesse came in the way of a very vigorous hike. I went to Forest Park, which is in the midst of Portland, and never ceases to amaze me in its beauty. We had a lot of snow and ice in the past couple of months, and the trail and forest reflected that. There were branches strewn everywhere as the smell of pine permeated my nose. There were a few Douglas firs that had fallen.  If you have never seen one of these majestic trees, make a point of it. To see this massive tree snapped and splintered, made me reflect yet again how delicate life is. It allowed all the thoughts that needed to happen that day, about Jesse, us, our children, space to happen. It made me reflect on the things I learned from him in regards to myself, one of the best things about being in a relationship if you are open to it. Of course, most of those lessons came crashing in after he died when I had nothing but time to think. But none-the-less, this hike allowed me the perfect amount of time and space needed. I went home after five miles of practically running up and down and took a bath, one of my favorite self care things. By the time my friend arrived to go to the party, I was in a good place. A really good place. Arriving at this party, my friends were surprised to see me there, hugged me, and told me how happy they were that I came. It was that gentle reminder that we who have suffered tragedy, that we are still here, we are still alive, and it is up to us, who know the fragility of life, to respect and honor that, honor our process whether it is to go on that silent retreat if needed, or join in a celebration of a friends fifty years on this planet. I am so glad I have done the work I have done to have chosen the latter this year. Who knows what next year brings, all I have is this day.