Same as it ever was......or not.

The pain never really goes away. Even when I'm laughing, smiling, or joking around, there is still an essence of agony that lingers at any given time. It scares me to think that the rest of my life this agony will always be there. It makes it hard to keep the will to wake up each morning and keep pushing forward. It makes it difficult to fully enjoy a moment since there is always pain underlying it. It makes me wonder if I will ever be able to experience another moment in my life where I'll feel 100% happiness like I used to.

The pain of losing your significant other isn't like any other pain experienced. My little sister, Kelli, passed away in 1995. My Grandma Pauline passed away several years ago. My Uncle Gregg passed away last week, though we weren't close to each other. And I've lost pets that I have loved dearly as if they were my children; I just lost my best boy, Bear, last week. He was between 13 - 15 years old. With each loss, I have suffered...some more intensely, some less intensely. But NOTHING has compared to the severe anguish experienced when I lost Alfonso. It has altered my world to something even I'm not familiar with. A world were pain is the base feeling, and other emotions, positive or negative, stack on top of that, but never alleviates or buries it. It is ALWAYS present at any given moment.

Even with a new romance with a wonderful, considerate, and loving guy, "M", the pain still exists, and he does his best to soothe me as much as he can. Maybe in time it'll ease up or fade, but I can only take people's word for it, because I see no hope in sight. I hate how this incident with Alfonso has warped everything of a 'normal' life...everyday living, romance, what innocence that was left..........nothing is as it was inside or out.

I've been putting off writing in this blog for over 2 months; maybe it's been longer. I try to avoid activities that remind me of Alfonso's absence, whether it be blogging about him (even when I have things to get out of my head), packing and removing some of his items from what was once "our" home, but now that is only "my" home (I have such a hard time acknowledging that), attending bereavement support group meetings. All things that ideally could help me emotionally, I want to hide from, because if I do these activities, it's another confirmation that he's gone. My head is still not able to grasp the concept of a world without his mortal existence.

I was on the east coast, with family, so that I wouldn't have to be home for the holidays. I came back home on Valentine's Day...how about the irony of that one! I didn't mean to even book the flight for that day, but I accidentally did, which I guess worked out for the best considering I spent most of the day flying, and it kept my brain distracted most of the time. But since then I have been back home where the nightmare began and my altered universe initiated. I have slept on the couch in the living room every single night. I've tried to work my way back into our.....my..... bedroom, and even into the other bedroom (where we've slept on different occasions), but to no avail, I feel like I start crumbling as soon as I make the attempt. My stomach gets tied in knots and I get very nauseous...my heart starts beating in overdrive...my respiration increases...my head starts pounding....just a very bad reaction every time. Every little household task that I used to take for granted is now like a dull, serrated dagger being twisted & dug into my body. Whenever I do dishes, laundry, vacuum, go to the grocery store, cook....anything related to being a "housewife" (or as I liked to joke with Alfonso, I was a "domestic goddess"), it's an excruciating task. I really loved the emotion that came with feeling like I was taking care of my man & our home. He was always so appreciative when the house looked great or when I cooked him a meal (which was often.....the cooking, that is...not so much always the cleaning). So I guess over time, I associated his responses with completing the task. And now I guess I subconsciously am looking for that 'reward' or acknowledgement, but...........there's no one here to give that to me. I worry that this response inside of me will never go away. I worry that it'll always stir up so much suffering inside of me every time I do a petty little household task. I don't want to spend the rest of my life feeling like this.

I still feel like an amputee; an integral part of my body is missing. As of April 4th, two days ago, it's been 5 months since the day that he passed away. Wow....FIVE FUCKING MONTHS?? I literally can't make any sense out of that. To think that I have gone 5 months since the last time I placed my lips on his warm hand to kiss him "goodnight". And then 5 months, minus 10 days, since the last time I heard his voice....when we spoke....when we looked into each others' eyes....when.............................the beginning of the end commenced. God, how I miss him so much!! I find myself in a terrible emotional battle that guilts me every single day; which logically, I know that I shouldn't feel any guilt. But emotionally, I'm completely irrational. You see, "M" is such an amazing individual; he has restored so much happiness back into my life, and he is completely supportive of my feelings and understands my undying love for Alfonso. I feel so fortunate that I can be that intimate with him and talk about my feelings when I'm missing Alfonso. I feel so safe and sound when I turn to him. But here it is, I would give ANYTHING in the world to bring Alfonso back....ANYTHING. But yet..............I wouldn't trade a thing if that meant I had to give up "M". This is what I meant earlier when I said that I'll never be able to have a "normal" romantic relationship, because it is plagued with guilt. And I know in my heart that Alfonso would never want me to feel guilty or unhappy. It was always so important to him to live life to the fullest and to be as happy as one could be. But if I logically know and understand this, then why can't I emotionally accept it? I suppose there is a part of me that blames myself for his death, and perhaps I'm just not ready to forgive myself yet. At least, if I was a 3rd party hearing this story, that would be my opinion on all of it. Too bad we can't take our own advice as easily as we can give it out.

What I yearn for now is just some sort of resemblance of normalcy. I'd love to experience a day of pure happiness once again....guilt-free...agony-free........just pure joy. I want to be able to love another man, "M", without a looming shadow of pain and guilt. I want to go to the Farmer's Market, enjoy the light breeze and the beautiful sunny day and just be happy to be alive in that moment. I want to be able to walk into my closet to pick out an outfit and not break out in tears and fall apart every single time I step in there. I just want what I once had.......peace of mind. I fear that I'll never have that again, not in a complete sense, anyhow. At this moment, I just can't foresee a day that will go by that I'm not mourning. I don't foresee ever feeling complete once again. Maybe it's too soon to see all of this; I don't know. I hope I'm wrong, because I don't want to exist another 40 or 60 years with this agony festering inside of me each and every single day. I've had people tell me that one day I'll be able to look back on my memories with Alfonso and feel happy. How do you do that? How is that even possible? People tell me, "hold onto the memories". WHY? It only hurts me more when I remember stuff; I'd rather have amnesia and be numb than to suffer like this. Maybe it's the grief talking.

Circa 2007 or 2008 - One of many of Alfonso's homecomings.
He was away on business for, I think, over 4 weeks on this occasion. I was so happy to see him.

And then I found myself standing at the crossroads...

In the beginning, when he first passes away, you think to yourself, "I'll never be able to love someone again; not this way." And you continue to think that every single day...every waking moment...every sleeping second....you just feel it deep in your gut that never again will you be able to love someone or ever feel that sort of closeness to another man ever again. And just the smallest thought of even trying to explore that idea makes your stomach wrench, your heart is weighed down with lead, and it makes your skin crawl. You become overwhelmed with feelings of guilt, betrayal, disloyalty... you even begin doubting your own self; putting yourself on trial and demanding an explanation for, "If you loved him so much, if he was so special to you, then how can you even dare to think about loving another person like that???" Once your inner-lawyer stops interrogating you, you step down from the stand blanketed with emotions of eternal loneliness and hopelessness. You find yourself just counting the days and the minutes down to your sweet death. You find yourself looking for someone to mercifully put you out of your misery, so that you can finally reach that one moment where you can be with him once again. And you wait...and wait...and wait.

You begin meeting new people as life carries on. Men start recognizing that you're now single, and some even start making their interest in you more obvious. You pull away, because you know that these guys will never be able to love you the same way as he did. You desire to be touched, held, caressed, kissed, and loved again with the same affection, but yet you resist all of their advances and push them away. The idea of them coming too close to you makes you sick and full of guilt & agony, and all you desire is to have the one man that you can no longer mortally have.

Every day is the same process....the same painful reminder that you are alone, and he is gone. Memories of what your life once was, and is no more, now haunt your every thought. It feels as if there is no escape and that this is your reality for the rest of your life until mercy is gifted to you. And without any warning or knowledge, something subtly changes, but you don't realize it yet.

You make a new friend who's unlike anyone else you've encountered. There's no pressure; he's not trying to pursue anything with you, and you feel non-threatened and safe. Your instinct isn't there to push or pull away; even the slightest thought of doing so eludes you, but you don't realize it at the time. He offers you a safe place to talk and open up; he encourages you to speak about your anguish inside and gently helps you to begin working on letting some of the pain out. He is understanding & respectful to the memory of the man you once devoted your life to. He even offers to quietly sit by your side during those moments when you crawl into that dark, lonely cave to hide from the chaos of the world surrounding you.

Before you know it, when someone asks you, "How are you doing?", you are startled when you hear yourself genuinely respond with, "I'm doing good." I'm doing good??? Who said that?! It makes you stop dead in your tracks and begin to evaluate what's going on here. Since his death, you have perfected your dual personality, presenting everyone with a facade on the outside of you smiling, joking, and laughing; meanwhile, you are sad, broken, and weeping on the inside at those very same moments. It's like dancing the Tango with your own self between your dual personalities. So to find yourself in the position that your emotions on the outside are actually reflecting the emotions on the inside once again...it's a breakthrough! And once this realization that the "impossible" has occurred, it makes you wonder.....what other impossibilities can be achieved? Maybe experiencing happiness & love with another man isn't such an impossibility. And you find yourself startled once again, because this time, that thought of hopefulness didn't make your stomach wrench. You felt............okay.



So, here I now stand. I find myself at a crossroads...an intersection between the road where I came from, my former beautiful life with Alfonso, and I am now faced with taking a new road to create a new life to be filled with new, beautiful experiences. As each new day presents itself, I keep taking another step forward down this unfamiliar road, uncertain of what lies ahead, but I know in my heart that it's what I need to do to live. Because staying on that other road will never get me anywhere; I'll only exist, and not really be alive, if I wait on the road that I'm so familiar with...death will eventually find me sitting there alone and miserable.

Sometimes it is so hard to keep walking forward, and it's a struggle to try and not look back. There are moments that I want to run back to that road, and anchor myself tightly down to it. But as reality has it, there's nothing left there for me. I honestly feel that Alfonso is the one responsible for guiding me to this crossroad; this particular crossroad that intersects with the road of this new special man that's come into my life. Sure, it may sound crazy, but I feel it with so much certainty that I don't feel it necessary to have to justify it to anyone else, and that in itself says a lot to me.

I don't know what lies ahead for my emotions, but I finally feel as if I'm beginning to heal. I can feel as the wounds begin to slowly & gradually close (though they have a long way to go). I find that I am beginning to feel happy again and hopeful. I feel safe & protected once again. When I look around me, all that had turned grey, color is now flourishing once more. There's beauty replenished in the starry night, in a child's laugh, in a bird's song, in a babbling brook. I no longer cringe in terror when it comes to thinking about the future. I actually have rediscovered the will to live...to live life to its fullest...to be alive......... and I contribute and give many thanks to "M" for being that person to help me rediscover all of this and to find myself again.

One of Alfonso's important lessons that he continuously repeated to not just me, but to all those that he loved...."Life is about living; live it with quality; maximize it; experience as much of it as you can." I'm certain that it makes him feel happy to know that his advice did not fall on deaf ears. It was ALWAYS so important to him that with every life that he touched, that he was able to leave something positive behind to help enhance the life of that person. I can't tell you how many times I heard him say that over the years. And as he watches over me, I know that he's proud of me for taking his advice and actually listening to him for once...lol. It used to frustrate him to no end, because he felt as if I never took his advice. He would tell me the most efficient way of handling a situation, and I would always have to go and do it the hard way. It aggravated him so badly...lol. In his exact words, "How come you have to hear it from somebody else in order to believe it? I tell you the same exact thing, and you fight against my every single word. Why do you need to be so necia?!" Well, it's not that I had to hear it from somebody else, and it's not that I didn't believe him or deliberately not want to take his advice. Actually, just like when he would ask me, I still don't have a concrete answer to that............I'm sorry, mi latoso guapo; I never meant to be so 'necia'.

But no time like the present, right? I'm following his advice and am moving forward and will live life to its fullest. As difficult as it may be sometimes, and as much as I miss him, there's only one direction I can go if I want to do more than just exist. So as the day seems to come to an end with the sun setting and the starry night blanketing us, there is always a new day right around the corner. A fresh start. A day full of brand new potentials and possibilities. And we get this new opportunity every single day. New experiences wait ahead if I just keep moving forward.

Sunset from the west view of our house in California
Thanks to both Alfonso and "M", I can see the beauty & colors in this once again. :-)

EVERYTHING changes...even the smallest of things

One of my favorite ways to show Alfonso how much I loved him was cooking for him. He loooooved my cooking. And don't tell his abuelita ;-), but he would always say how my cooking matched the superiority of his grandma's....and he loooooooved her cooking! I associate cooking with love. Once we moved into our house up in the high desert, which is large enough to hold a lot of people, every year I would cook a huge holiday meal, in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, for our families (mostly his family....I don't have a lot in comparison to him), and I would spend 2 - 3 days cooking nearly everything from scratch. Appetizers, dinner, dessert....a feast it was. By the time everyone arrived, I was SO exhausted, but so happy to give my love to them this way. I never experienced anything like this. I looked forward to it every year, and so it seemed did everyone else. It filled my heart with so much happiness to see how joyful Alfonso was to be surrounded with his family...his laughter, his smiles, his practical jokes...lol. He loved his family so dearly; they meant the world to him. And I loved being surrounded by all of that non-expectational love & happiness. Of course, with the events of this year, it didn't happen for the first time in 4 years.

This memory was triggered tonight as I was cleaning out my junk folder in my email. Prior to Alfonso's death, I would receive a subscription for a few cooking magazines. Most of the stuff I created was from my own imagination, but I liked trying new recipes and then customizing them to our own taste. In addition to the subscription, I'd also receive a daily newsletter from "Taste of Home", and I would save all of their recipes in a folder, so that I could reference back to them at a later time when we wanted to try something new. But after the incident on October 25th, 2011, there was no purpose left to save any of these. It made my stomach tie in knots even considering to save any of these recipes, so I'd just delete them as quickly as they came in. The idea of cooking made me so sad and distraught. All of the joy and love that I put into it seemed pointless now. For many weeks after his death, I refused to cook anything. It brought me too much grief to even consider making toast. Anything I ate either went into the microwave, I bought it already prepared, or someone else cooked it. It took me over a month after his death to be able to cook an egg. And even then, it was baby steps. The first time, I cooked the egg, but couldn't bear to make it into a sandwich. I know, this sounds so weird....but it was the process of "preparing a meal" that was so difficult for me; it reminded me too much of cooking for Alfonso. To this date, I have still yet to cook an actual meal, though I have cooked many egg & cheese sandwiches since! lol

But tonight, more than 2 months after his death, and nearly 3 months since the incident occurred, I thought that just MAYBE I could begin to save those newsletters from Taste of Home once again, as they continue to fill my junk folder, because I saw some recipes that looked very yummy. As I opened up the newsletter to read it, tears just overwhelmed me. I tried to push past it and face the grief. I even told myself that if I can't read it now, maybe I can just move it into the designated folder and read it another day. But I couldn't even do that. It was too insurmountable for me to get past. Remembering that I'll never cook another meal for him again, or ever hear one of his compliments telling me, "Baby, you've totally out did yourself once again;" it's still all too much to accept. So, another yummy recipe deleted from my email.

Prior to this experience, I would have never imagined some of the day to day things that would become affected. Some of the smallest of things that seem so miniscule to our daily lives suddenly have so much impact.....tasks, chores, items, scents, temperature of the air, et cetera.....just stuff you never found to be significant suddenly can now turn a good day into a grief-filled one. It's horrible. You try so hard to fill your days with happy thoughts and stuff that makes you remember that life is worth living, and in a single second, because of a stupid cooking newsletter that you decide to open up and try to read, your day comes to a crashing halt as all that made you smile that day gets ripped out of you.

"It's so curious:  one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief.  But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses." -- Colette

Family holiday parties at our house (2009 & 2010) - primos and my mom & I (we're the gringas, in case you can't tell, lol).
In the bottom left corner sits Rayito...the first to fall asleep at our 2009 party. Alfonso devised a plan with several other cousins of his to teach Ray a lesson for falling asleep first....
bring out the shaving cream and startle unsuspecting victim awake! LOL
Ah, and beverages...lots and lots of....beverages! Good times!! :-)

"Missing you......"

Alfonso LOVED Dragon Ball Z (lol...I just couldn't understand it, but he loved it).
I found this video reflecting the love story between Goku & Chi Chi. He would've loved this.

Jem - "Missing You"

I wish this could be
A happy song
But my happiness disappeared
The moment you were gone
Don't think I ever believed that
This day would come
Now all I'm feeling
Is lost and numb

And ohhh I know I promised
Mmmm that I would try

But I, yes I, miss you
And it's killing inside

I'll always be thankful
For the time we had
We were blessed
I should celebrate
But I feel too sad
All the wonderful memories
Just make me fall apart
And it feels like somebody's
Stabbed me in my heart

And ohhh I know I promised
Mmmm that I wouldn't cry

But I, yes I, miss you
And it's killing inside
Ooh well I, yes I, miss you
Want you by my side

Walking, holding hands
Talking, making plans
Touching my heart my soul

I wish this could be
A happy song
But my happiness disappeared
The moment you were gone
Tell me it's not happening
Say it's not as it seems
Tell me that I'm gonna wake up
It's just a bad dream
Please tell me that it's fiction
Tell me it's just a lie
Whatever you choose to tell me
Please say he didn't die

And I, yes I, miss you
And it's killing inside
Ooh well I, yes I, miss you
Want you by my side
Ooh well I, miss you
Want you by my side
Back here by my side
Here by my side 

Alfonso's family ~ Our niece, Kim's, quinceañera. November 2009.
Great memories! <3

"True love is...."

I don't know who said this quote, but....

"True love is neither physical, nor romantic.
True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be."