This week we took another step in the healing process. I think the numbness of the initial loss is starting to ware off.I think for the first 8 weeks since Gary died we were all just in a haze. This didn't really just happen right? Daddy is still sleeping in his room and will yell for an apple juice soon right? Last week we got all of Gary's stuff out of Annie's room and with the help of our Uncles and Grandpa we got Annie's new bed and dresser in the room and it now looks completely different. Other than a few spots of Spackle filling the holes from the zillion cards on his wall you cant tell that Daddy was ever in that room. That is huge it helps a lot not to see his stuff everywhere. Our kitty still goes into the room and sleeps on the same spot that he did when Gary was there.
Another step on the healing process we took all the cards from Gary's wall and put it into a special bowl so we can look at them anytime and see how much people loved Daddy. We also got a zebra print box (zebra print was his cancer ribbon) and put a lot of the little nick knack things that remind us of Gary, like his cell phone the contents of the backpack he always carried and his glasses and some other things that are all Daddy. I had to create my own not joint checking acct and get my own credit card. Everything like our marriage was joint and I guess like our marriage they all had to come to an end. Possibly the biggest leap into healing was done by my 11 year old. She had HUGE issues with her birthday being without Daddy but then decided that she wanted to go to the Father daughter dance at our church and asked he Grandfather to be her stand in Daddy, and he agreed. I was so worried about her the other two were like no way we are so not ready to be in a room with a bunch of Daddy's loving their daughters when our daddy isn't their. Merry came to the conclusion that Daddy was watching out after her from heaven and he would want her to live and go have fun. They went and had the time of their life. Merry came back on cloud 9 so happy to have spent that quality time with her Granddaddy and I was on cloud 9 seeing how happy she was. I was also very proud of her it is easy to sit and wallow in a grief hole, it is so much more difficult to acknowledge loss but also acknowledge that life does indeed go on and the last thing in the world that the person that was lost would have wanted would be for us to sit in that grief hole. I know that Christmas and Thanksgiving is coming and all the steps forward we take are likely to be steps backward into grief then but for right now we are coming to grips with being a family of four and I am slowly getting used to calling myself a widow and single mom and its ok. Its ok because of the man I lost he spent 16 years preparing me to be strong enough to live this new life out. I can also see in retrospect that Gary was preparing me to be independant of him for the last year. I was so amazingly blessed to have him in my life he was so selfless knowing that he was dying his only thought was making sure that we were ready to face life without him. I stand today with no debts except my house and able to concentrate on nothing but my girls and my healing and that is because Gary was the kind of man that he was. I know we still have a LONG road ahead of us and we will never be the same but for the first time in 3 months not being the same is ok. Gary didn't spend the last year of his life preparing me to sit in my room and cry, he prepared me to LIVE and I know he is in heaven and is our biggest cheerleader even from heaven. He is saying lets go God has plans for you all don't miss them. I will miss that sweet man every day of the rest of my life and I will be eternally grateful for his influence. The girls and I we are so much better because of him .