ad astra per aspera

I’m having trouble organizing my thoughts.  My brain wants to wander off and stare into nothingness, into the vast blankness.

I’ve been reading a book my dear friend Emily sent me called “Here If You Need Me” and is a true story written by a woman who lost her husband and father to her 4 children.  Some of her wonderfully articulated thoughts cut me to the quick.
Like this:
“And in all the time that I shall live without him – time roaring and tumbling at me like some merciless, black avalanche – I will be able to tell myself that I bore our love with my own hands all the way to the last hard place.”

A life without him feels like some black hole that will suck me into a nothingness if I think about the loss all at once.
I slept in our bed, in the bedroom we shared in Austin, last Sunday and Monday night.  It knocked me from shock to grief, sadness, to a vast blankness I have no words to describe.

Today, today April 7th I picked up 12 copies of his death certificate.
Death certificate.
So fucking final.  So sterile and cold and final.

Cause of death: T CELL LYMPHOBLASTIC LEUKEMIA/LYMPHOMA WITH THYMIC PHENOTYPING

In bold letters, just like that.  I looked up “thymic phenotyping” & it basically means the mutation to his t-cells originated in his thymus.  Nobody told me that before.

And today, today April 7th I picked up his ashes also.  He was cremated March 29th.  He wants his remains spread in Cimarron New Mexico where he went hiking in his youth as an eagle scout with his dad.  There is a large urn and 6 smaller commemorative urns.  When I went to Neptune Society the Monday after he died to fill out the paperwork I selected the beautiful urn and decided that I also wanted two smaller ones with the same design so that after his ashes were spread I would have one for me and one for Magnus when he is older if he wants it.
Dennis & Mary went the next day to pay for the cremation and also ordered commemorative urns for themselves, Chris’ aunt, Chris’ uncle and his wretched sister.
I can’t stomach passing out urns with his remains to people (his parents & sister) that weren’t there for him in his horrific illness.  I can’t stomach even explaining that to Dennis & Mary.  So I picked up the large urn and the two small ones for Magnus & I and took them to a friends in Austin for safekeeping.  I told Mary that I was not ready to pick up his remains but that if she wanted to pick up the other urns she could.  I told the woman at Neptune about the situation and she understands that I’m pretending I haven’t picked up his remains.

Even tho I feel his loss much more now I still don’t feel like it’s really hit me yet.  I don’t have a safe place to express my grief.  I keep my emotions under lock & key in this house that I temporarily live and share a bedroom with my 3 year old son.
I know that when we move to Kansas and have a home of our own and I start to unpack our belongings it will knock the breath from me and I will have days when I won’t even want to get out of bed.

I’ve decided to keep my Ford Ranger pickup for now and bring it back to Kansas.  I’m not ready to deal with selling it.  And it has less than half the miles on it that the 4-runner does.

I wanted to write more, to wade more into the infinite space where he used to be and will never be again; but I can’t, there isn’t energy or privacy.  My son is next to me watching Toy Story and needs interaction from me instead of me typing on my laptop.