Holding on to Gratitude

 There are so many things I hold onto these days, in memory -  forefront is my deep remembrance of how much Danny loved me and how this suffering would hurt him. But then I can't really do anything else, can I... there is no way around grief, we just have to go through it. So, day by miserable day, hour by hour, that's what I do. Like the post on FB today, it's this process:

I take respite where I can; any break from the acute pain feels both weird as well as so, so needed. Many days I have cried for hours, until I feel weak and sick, then experienced a strange lifting of the heaviness, a sense of...not "okayness" but a few hours where I can breath normally, concentrate, be in the new reality without every second of every hour hurting like vinegar poured into an open wound. In those states I can see that yes, he is gone and the time just whipped by, all that strange magical beautiful time - gone - but also he was such a blessing and he had a long life for his breed ... that yes he is gone, but he was so so loved and while I wasn't perfect I was a damn good Mom - and other things that can ease the pain.

In the relatively ok states I take comfort from things that are still in my life, if only for a few moments/an hour, and I wanted to post today to honour those things, as I revisit this blog and see that I can be ok even in the midst of such not-okayness (just as I was writing this I had a flashback to Dan and me walking  in the back field, early April, ground still frozen, but him so so happy to be out and about after a long wretched winter. It filled me with anxiety, as these flashbacks often do.

Oh what I wouldn't give for one more April.  I was so sure we'd have it, this year - even without the wide open spaces and long walks of his youth and midlife years. There is a whole other entry coming in April and how sacred it was to Dan and me. I think the top picture really shows his joy in living and roaming the fields.

Before it overwhelms me - here are some things I am grateful for today in a deeply heartfelt way.

1) Korky. I was crying today when I brought him his breakfast, and despite the fact he loves breakfast more than life itself, he refused to get in his daycage to eat, but sat staring at me, reaching for my hand with an outstretched foot, and mimicking my sobs; I had to let him sit cooing on my shoulder a while before he'd go back in and eat, his very favorite thing in the world is breakfast, too, as it has almonds. I love this bird so so much.

2) Some tv that takes me away for a bit - Anne with an E,  I am loving, and The Expanse (although we are almost through all 4 seasons) and, strangely, His Dark Materials. I would have thought that one would be unbearable, as I feel exactly as if my own daemon had been cut away from me, but I got through that part surprisingly well. Always on the lookout for things to watch that work" and I'm never quite sure what will be ok and what will not.

3) Cats - but a whole entry on cats soon. Suffice to say they seem to take turns lying beside me purring, and sometimes, as many as 4 at a time (they do not all love each other) if I badly needed a furpile. These unassuming, quirky little beings are an absolute Godsend right now. There is no mistaking how deeply they feel my pain and Danny's absence.

4) Last but not least Alex. I sometimes have to go over all the reasons I let Danny go in the clinic like that, 3 times a day or more  I need help with this. I am having huge anxiety attacks when I revisit it, and I feel like I just killed my best friend. Alex talks me down, he makes food, he changes the disc if I can't take what we are watching, he sleeps in a chair beside me so I can rest and not have to be alone down here, he watches stuff on his laptop with headphones on while I work - so I don't have to be alone, in the echoing absence of my Dannydan. When all I can see is those last awful hours he brings me back to everything else, all 14 years of it. He is my saviour in this.  

5) A little cooking - when the urge comes over me, I make soup, date squares, cake. Just here and there but it seems to occupy me for a bit. I will never make his medicine cookies again, and somehow that thought almost breaks me in two. But I can feed  Alex and myself.

This is only 3 weeks in and I am struggling greatly, but remind myself, it was so huge a shock to lose him and it is..only 3 weeks in.

Off to work for a bit, a good distraction but I can't put in 14 hour days right now. Off to work, then to whatever I need to do to make it through one more day without my  heart.