Nights, Three Years Later.

I climbed back into the bed, hearing it groan and creak with my weight. I turned and lied on my side facing him, facing me. I closed my eyes blissfully because I had 2 hours before I had to get up again. I swayed my body towards his and smelled his clean fresh scent he carried after his nightly shower. I reached out and wrapped both my arms around his right arm, pulling it gently towards me and snuggled my face against the arm hair that tickled my nose and kissed the sweet spot below his shoulder where he had a slight indention. I sighed in utter contentment and satisfaction.

I knew as I hugged his arm against me that we wouldn't lay this way for long in the early morning hours. We weren't two people that could cuddle while sleeping which was a good thing since neither of us liked to snuggle all night. It's not that I minded cuddling, I enjoyed it, but I just couldn't sleep like that. It got on my nerves and kept me awake and it was the same for him. But we loved these brief early morning embraces; short, intimate, sweet moments of pure joy wrapped up in seconds. Fleeting touches, quick kisses, deep squeezes.  

We totally had our own version of that 'hug and roll' move down from Ross on Friends. That was good enough for us. We only wished we had a king sized bed where we could roll away and not touch each other at all while sleeping. That would have been ideal, to feel like we had our own bed all to ourselves, with plenty of room away from each other and yet still close enough to cross the distance and grab these quick morning snuggles. I sighed as I squeezed just a little bit tighter, that squeeze that means I'm letting go of you soon but for just another second I just cant get quite enough of you.

My breath catches in a quick sob as I rub my face against the furry sensation because I know, I know he's gone. I'm just a 44 year old woman lying in her bed alone, crying and chuckling ridiculously at the absurdity of the fact that I'm squeezing the life out of a teddy bear for comfort. You see, I never had a teddy bear as a child. Well, I had them but I didn't sleep with them because I just did not like to cuddle. I cannot ever remember sleeping with bears or dolls. I remember snuggling them for a minute and then pushing them away from me because I could not, I did not, I would not sleep like that. I would toss and turn, flail and wiggle, pick my head up and put it down a million times on my pillow to find that perfect spot to rest in and no stuffed animal would have been able to take that abuse. I saved them from myself by ostracizing them from my bed and placing them in the corner of my room or my closet.

This teddy bear in my arms, it helps. It's been almost three years now since he left me and I still lie awake at night. For the most part, I've moved past the daily heart wrenching grief although admittedly it still comes back in moments and immobilizes me, like this past week for instance, but that's another blog entry. Most nights though, I find myself lying awake at night, unable to sleep, unable to settle, unable to fully relax. And then there are moments I am so frantic inside where I just have this feeling that something is wrong, something is missing, something's been taken away from me and I need it so desperately. I need to hold something close to me, I need to press it against me to have that physical knowledge that I am not alone. I am not alone. I am not alone.

So for the past nearly 3 years when I experience that desperate feeling of approaching madness, I will get up as a last resort when I just cannot stand it anymore and I will wake one of my children. I weigh the risk in my head before I wake them; who has a test, who's gonna be grumpy, who's going to be willing to come quickly, who needs more rest, who'll be easier to wake up tonight?

I reached out and touched her arm and gently shook her. Then I started whispering "Emmi. Emmi? Emmi, wake up. Emelia. Emelia Rose. EMELIA." She gasped and started awake. Her eyes blinked open and I say with quiet desperation in my voice "Please come lay down with me?" like a scared little girl waking up her mommy after she's had a bad dream. "Please baby, please wake up, just come with me, come lay down with me, let me hold you for a little while. PLEASE." She nodded her head, turned over and climbed out of the bed. I stood there for a moment to make sure she didn't lie back down and once I heard the soft padding of her feet on the wood floor, I turned around and I walked back to my room. I put haste in my steps and quickly reached my bed, climbed up once again, the mattress groaning, and spread out the blanket, preparing for her arrival.

...Preparing for her arrival. When I was expecting her, Donnie almost died then too. I remember waiting. Waiting in a long row of chairs outside of the operating area, nervously waiting with members from our church and my pastors. My family and his weren't able to be there because everything happened so quickly and they lived hours and hours away. So we sat there in anticipation, with a completely different kind of expectancy, waiting for an update on the surgery, waiting for the doctor's report.

The doctor finally walked out decked in his mint green scrubs, still wearing his surgeon's cap on his head and his mask hanging from the little bands on the back of his neck. He wearily reached up and rubbed his forehead and came to stand directly in front of me. He was all business, this surgeon we had just met the day before, this doctor that saved my husband's life. He had no bedside manner unless he really, really tried once in a while as I would come to find out over the next six weeks. But in this first debriefing he gave me, he spoke with fatigued matter of fact-ness. "Your husband is stable. There was a lot of infection. If we hadn't operated today he would have died in the next couple of hours. And he is not out of the woods. The next day or two will tell" he said, "and the next several hours. We'll definitely have to go back in again. We'll do it tomorrow."

My breath caught in my throat and I swallowed against the dry lump that had risen. I said "Thank you." and he quickly turned and walked away. And I was so, so angry, so pissed off. I could hear the murmur of consoling words and encouragement given to me by the pastor's wife and the other church members. In comforting tones they said how it was so good we had seen this doctor in time, and how great it was that he caught the problem. They sounded like an irritating, maddening swarm of bees buzzing in my ears and all I could think was "God, I'm so pissed off at you. If you let him die... if you let him die, and I have to raise this baby and my son alone I'm gonna be so mad at you. I'm gonna be so angry with you!!" Oh I threatened him, I warned him. I was so mad, knowing that Donnie could still leave me.

All these thoughts ran through my head in those split seconds before I felt my girl climb up in the bed beside me and lie down. I covered her with one of the soft fuzzy blankets and drew her close to me.  She likes to cuddle so it's not a problem, she'll stay as close as I hold her, only slightly moving to get herself comfortable. She'll let me squeeze her, squeeze her, squeeze her as close to me as I need to and hold her so, so tight until that empty starving feeling starts to dissipate just ever so slightly and I keep that pressure, the locked arms around her body so she cannot escape though she doesn't even try to because she loves it. She breathes in deep and she sighs, satisfied, content in my arms and I hold her so tight, trying to fill that void and it helps, it does. Warm, salty tears slide down my face and under my breath I tell myself with quiet determination "I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna be okay. I'll get through this, I will".

I rub my wet face against the brown furry bear and chuckle again, shaking my head a little. I've replaced those 3:00 am tiptoed moments to my children's rooms with this bear. Well, not completely. There are still moments where I have to hold one of them, but this bear helps. I don't always hold him at night, but I do sometimes, when I wish I could feel Donnie's arm in mine.

I miss him. I miss hearing him breathe beside me. I miss how he would shift his weight to get comfortable. I miss the clearing of his throat, his reaching for a water bottle on his bedside table and drinking throughout the night. I miss hearing him sit up on the side of the bed for a minute when he got up, maybe so he could wake up a little to clear the cobwebs or maybe he was dizzy and needed to center himself before rising to walk. I even miss hearing his leg drag as he walked to the bathroom. His gait had changed after those life saving surgeries from that healthy strong walk he had when we first met. Step-thump, step-thump. It made a funny sound when his nerve damaged left leg landed on the ground. My ears strained, going from normal size to 10 times their size in my mind, like cartoon movements in my silly ridiculous imaginations. You know how in the cartoons when a character's ears would grow larger when they are intent on listening? That's how it felt when he was away from the bed. 

I would listen for every movement while he was gone until he returned to the bedroom, attentive just in case he needed me, body on alert until I heard him step-thump back to the bedroom. He would sit on the side of the bed, take another drink of water and then lie down, turn over and face me, reach out and put his hand on my arm and squeeze it gently before he pulled the covers back over his neck and simply say to me "I love you". And I would tell him, "I love you too honey". 

Maybe that's why nights are still difficult for me. I try to ignore the silence. I fill it with worship music or funny YouTube videos. I watch Hallmark Christmas movies or something from Netflix. I try to read or drink some hot cocoa or hot tea. I sweep or clean dishes or do laundry. I sit on the side of my bed, drink ice water and rock myself back and forth and try to push down the frantic feeling as I hug my new teddy bear, laughing at myself to keep from crying, but doing what I have to do to survive, to stay sane even if I am a little crazy. I miss him every day, but in the nights, in the silence, in the waiting, I feel so alone.