Yes, that is right. It's the only month I truly don't like! It does have some redeeming factors such as some people that I love were born this month. And there is Thanksgiving to end the month, but, it doesn't at all stop the lump stuck in my throat.
I am a person that continuously count my blessings. Even still, after the year of sadness I still can count not only the blessings that I have, but, the blessings that were once mine.
For those of you born or have blessings born in November please forgive me if this post offends you.
To me, I feel this month should be called Noremember ... Although that wouldn't stop the heavy heartache that even my medication can't touch.
Please don't think that I am being selfish. I know that others are also hurting this month. Normally, I am like a big fluffy comforter and if you are hurting, I will wrap my self around you and take on your pain. But, not in November. I can barely survive my own pain and wish so badly for a comforter of my own to take this pain and emptiness away.
It has been like this for five years now. Five years! Oh yes, I also hate the year 2007. My daughter and I watched the ball drop and become 2008 and all we could do was hug each other and weep!
I love October. It's full of hope and color and scents that reminds me of childhood days with my dad raking leaves into piles just for us to jump in while my mom would be busy in the kitchen cooking up something magical.
I love the crispness in the air and the warmth of the sun. Yes, I have to say, my most favorite month is October.
We were married in October, my Peter Pan and I. My darling Gilly, never seen without a smile on his face and a handshake or clap on the back for everyone.
He reminded me a lot of my dad. Great sense of humor, always with a joke or six to tell. Didn't swear. True gentlemen. A handshake from them was better than any signed contract. They were honest men who would do anything to help you.
In 2007, on my wedding anniversary, 2 things happened that dropped me to my knees. Took the wind out of my sails as my dad and Gilly would have said.
My dad, my dear sweet dad, fell. He fell in his bathroom and cracked his head. This part just rips my heart open... He laid there for two hours, before his neighbor came into check on him and found him there.
The neighbor called me and asked me to come sit with him, but, my husband was throwing up so, I called my sister Chrissy and asked her to sit with him.
When she got to our dads, she decided to get him to the hospital to have the bump on his head checked out. The hospital kept him for observation.
My Gilly wasn't getting better, we ended up at the same hospital as my dad. While the techs were taking X-rays of my husbands chest, I ran up to see my dad.
I kissed him and ran back down to the ER to see my husband. The doctor came in and said he thinks that my husband is having a heart attack! Things are kind of hazy there since panic set into me. I know I must have texted our daughter Leah because she ended up with me.
The doctor decided to operate and see what was happening...
When the doctor came and sat with me, the first thing he said was that my husband was a very sick man.
A balloon pump was placed into his heart and we were transported to Boston for a heart transplant. Once in Boston, I begged the doctors to use my heart! I told them that it was already his and I wouldn't need it if he died. They just patted my hand and said no dear. That wasn't how things worked. There was no one to blame, some people just don't have healthy hearts.
My husband who had the heart if an angel. Always helped those in need. Always there to put a smile on your face and happiness in your own heart! That beautiful heart of his could just not hold on any longer. On a cold and rainy morning at 2:30 in a room filled with Beatle music and get well cards, my husband had to go.
I searched in the corners of the room for his spirit and begged him to get back into his body! I washed him and kept kissing him but he just wouldn't wake up! Even my tears weren't magical enough to bring him back!
I still had the belief that God would suddenly have Gilly take a gasp of air and his beautiful heart would beat again. He would be a miracle.
I now know that he was a miracle that God put into my life. With Gilly, I was able to find me. He brought with him his love for God and me and Leah.
No matter what some his family wants to think of us, they forget that Gilly picked us! He loved us with the last beat of his beautiful heart.
We were one. So how do you move forward when a very part of you is gone? All your future that you had planned out together... Gone!
We were going to be that cute old couple that lived in the woods and walked every day holding hands and waving at everyone.
On that cold November day, all my hopes and dreams were washed away in the rain.
And so it rained! Cold lonely rain.
The rain, the rain came at all the important dates in our lives. We met up in a pouring rain storm, our first date, thunderstorm, our wedding and honeymoon, rain...November 13, rain!
I lost so much that cold rainy morning! I was lost, in shock and angry! I was angry at God! I couldn't believe that a God who is supposed to love so loving, could take my husband, my future away from me!
I have never been angry at my husband for not being able to hang on to this life. No, my anger was directed at God. The God that I prayed so hard to all my life! What had I done so terribly in my life to have him not only do this to me but to my innocent daughter.
He took my sweet mom in May, my job, my friend Susan Whipple, my daughter and roommates fire at her dorm, her roommate Tasha's dads death, my husbands best friend Dennis Cobb death, our restaurant closing ... My life used to be so blessed! Then in 6 short months, I lost my faith. Faith in God, faith in people.
Five days after burying my husband, 10 days after my husband died, my dad left us and joined my mom. Before he joined my mom I told him that when he got to heaven to tell God that He made a huge mistake when He took Gilly.
My sweet sweet loving dad had taken my hand and told me that God doesn't make mistakes and He leaves the strong behind. We cried together. He was sorry that he couldn't be with me at Gilly's funeral.
I was laying in my parents bed, the day after Thanksgiving when the phone rang and my brother told that my dad was gone.
As sad as I was, I was so happy for my dad! For as hard as my husband was trying to live, my dad was trying to die.
I didn't cry at my dads funeral. Maybe it was that I was still in shock. I don't know. I knew my dad was where he wanted to be. He was with my mom!
For 62 years he and his bride were married. They had been through so much together, births, miscarriages, cancers, war, heart attacks, pace makers, Alzheimer's. They had a special love that happens to so few of us.
Because of the love they had for each other, it was what I searched for and found.
I knew what we all had was special and I was thankful and counted my blessings.
I look back at those long five years and see just how far I've come. Oh I still wonder how a shattered heart can still beat, but, I have gained some of my faith back.
I will never heal completely, I know that. But, I am able to put a smile on my face and pretend that I am okay.
But, if you knew me before, you would see through my facáde. You would see that my eyes don't have the same twinkle, in fact they aren't even as blue any more. My laugh, although it is a great one, it isn't filled with the joy that it once had.
And you would know how I desperately need to be hugged and reassured that there are still bright days ahead.
Oh November, yes I hate you!
.jpg)
