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Another open letter to my dead wife on her birthday: Patti Bolda Kastor, Again I’m writing to you despite knowing you can not, nor will you ever hear or see this note. My last note I claimed was selfish venting, however, after reflecting, I realize this helps keep Facebook friends updated on “how I’m doing”. I also realize the therapeutic nature of pretending you can hear me. I have not been on facebook much lately. You were the only reason I went on Facebook. Sometimes it felt like we were having our own personal conversations on social media...just the two of us with the whole world watching. This day has always been one of my favorites to celebrate. This year brings a challenge that I could not have ever imagined. I love you so much. I miss you like crazy. I want to watch you blow out candles, open presents, and laugh as we all sing happy birthday to you incredibly off key. These things will not happen. I want to celebrate the day you were born. The day that, before i was even born, changed my life. Your love, kindness and support of everyone you came into contact with deserves a celebration. I can’t tell you how much this day will hurt, how much pain i will endure, how many tears i will cry. I want you to know Patti that i will never stop loving you. You made me who i am. You didn’t go into it with that plan, but knowing you has changed me for the better in so many ways. I owe everything i have to you...and yet, you are not here. My brain doesn’t always believe that. I find myself thinking about sending you a text in the middle of the day or wanting to run home and tell you a story about something i heard that day. When my brain finally snaps back to reality, it hurts all over again. I’m getting better though...my new reality sucks...but I’m dealing with it. I know you would want me to. Patti, you’d be so surprised how people have been...so much love and support for you, for me, for us. The teachers and community at Tri-Valley have been ridiculously supportive. I haven’t even had the strength or thoughtfulness to properly thank all of them. I’m sorry, i know you would have been all over that. I’ve gotten support from old friends that you would be surprised by. You would not even be able to guess the people who have stepped up and shown their true friendship to me in this time of need...you would be amazed. I’ve also made new friends through all of this and you’d be amazed at how helpful it is to talk to people who understand grief and loss of this magnitude. It’s helpful and I appreciate it more than I can express to any of them. There’s a Tri-Valley band and choir concert tonight...on your birthday. They are dedicating a song to you where all the students (5-12) will sing together. I will go, i will cry, but i want to honor you with all the students who loved you dearly. Even with all this love and support surrounding me, I have yet to go a day without thinking about watching you gasp for breath and struggle in that emergency room. How i said “Patti….I love you” and all you could muster was a groan and look in my direction. I understood that groan. What you really meant was "I love you too "... That was the last time i think you were even aware…that memory will haunt me always. Lin Manuel Miranda said it in his Broadway hit Hamilton - “I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory”. This quote resonates with me on a few levels. I imagine your death over and over in my head...it is a memory...a horrible memory. I imagine my own death...as i contemplated suicide over and over during those first few days...weeks. It's not comfortable thought process to have to convince yourself not to end your own life. I’m no longer entertaining those thoughts and it’s not as much of a conscious effort or decision not to end it all...as it was in those first few weeks. Another quote from Hamilton…”Dying is easy young man, living is harder”. Truer words have never been spoken. Living is hard. It takes all my effort every day just to steel myself enough to face a world that you are not by my side. Everything I do or see somehow reminds me of you. This phenomenon is, slowly, little by little, becoming a good thing. I hope to someday live my life with your memory as a guide to the things that make me happy. As opposed to your memory causing me to break down in the kitchen sobbing uncontrollably. Although I'm sure the thought of you not being here will always sneak up on me and kick my ass… On this day that is a celebration of the day that you were born, I want to celebrate your entire life. I want to focus on the great and wonderful things you brought into this world. That you left too soon, nothing can be done to work around that. But while you were here, you did as much as you could to make this world a better place. You left behind your legacy in me, and your girls. None of us would be “us” if not for you. So through the tears and through all of the sadness, I wish you a happy birthday. Not for you…because you can not share in this day…but for those of us left behind to remember you and honor you. I love you Patti. Always in all ways.

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My only masterpiece is our love tragedy. My heart is an art gallery filled with you.

「최승현」Choi Seunghyun, ‘Cafe’ 2011. (via topswisewords)

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I will never forget the moment your heart stopped and mine kept beating.

Angela Miller (via closetohonest)

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This is a thing many people outside your grief cannot understand: that you have not simply lost one person, at one point in time. You have lost their presence in every aspect of your life. Your future has changed as well as your “now”.

Megan Devine, refugeingrief.com (via survivingsiblingsuicide)

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The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on. When you’re faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking.

James Patterson, Angel (Maximum Ride, #7)

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Helen Macdonald at the Wisconsin Book Festival, 4/13/16

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Best of wives & best of women...

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If you love deeply, you're going to get hurt badly. But it's still worth it.

C.S. Lewis

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6 weeks

I’m not doing well. I pretend…but it’s all an act. I sometimes even fool myself. I think about my life as it’s playing out and nothing about it is appealing to me. I take that back…i love my daughters more than i can possibly express. They are the only reason I’m still alive. I know my youngest would end her life if i did…and my oldest would live on in a state of ridiculous grief for the rest of hers…so that thought is what keeps me from ending it all. “I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory”… Aside from that (which is enough) i find it hard to find meaning in my life. I lived the majority of my life with the purpose of spending as much time with my sweet Patti as i possibly could. Take that away and what do i have? I sincerely don’t know who i am, what my interests are, or what i want to do with my life. I miss her so much. The pain does not subside. I still don’t have a death certificate…no word from the coroner’s office…no idea why she died. I know it won’t help, but I’d still like to know. Sometimes i feel like i will wake up and this will all have been a bad dream. That’s not going to happen and it hurts even more when my brain realizes that…over and over again. I’m back at work…trying to understand how the whole world keeps on moving…even though mine has completely stopped. Days go by like a dream. I know i gotta move forward, it’s so hard. “Dying is easy son, living is harder”. I keep posting even though no one is listening. It helps to put things in writing.

I miss you Patti…so much.

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Patti, i miss you so much. I never could have imagined how empty i would feel. I mean, i could try to imagine, but this is worse than anything...unimaginable. i used to be able to come home from a long day and you'd be there and we would share stories from our day...now you're gone and im so lonely. I have the girls...but they don't want to hear about weird stupid stuff we would talk about. I miss your smile, your laugh, your touch. I miss everything about you. I'm trying to live a live now that is not mine. This is not my life. This life belongs to someone else...not me. If this is my life now...i don't like it...i hate it. How can i ever be complete again? You were my everything. I don't have friends i dint have hobbies...i don't know who i am without you. There are so many everyday things I'm supposed to be taking to you about...wtf. I miss you so much. I will always love you...with all my broken heart. Patti, i love you always, in all ways.

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An open letter to my dead wife on Valentine's Day: My dearest sweet Patti, I don't believe for a minute that you can read, hear, or see this note.  I don't believe you are watching over me. I don't believe you are waiting for me in a magic place.  If I believed any of these things, I would have put a bullet in my head five and a half weeks ago.  I do believe that the energy that was once yours has been released back into the universe and, while I know this is not how it works, I like to pick and choose the pieces of energy I think might have been given off by you.  Like the warmth of the sun as it touches my face.  I also feel that a way for you to live on, is in my memories and thoughts, and in the things you taught me, and the ways you shaped who I am.  I will do everything in my power to carry on your legacy of love and kindness.  I will always keep your memory close to my heart and strive to make you proud. So, while I know this note is only for my selfish venting, I’m writing it anyway. Because, let’s be honest, selfish venting is good for my incredibly fragile mental health right now. On this day in particular, other people like to express their love for each other.  You and I always talked about how silly, commercialized, and forced this day was.  I'm so grateful for the fact that we always told each other how we felt.  We often expressed our love.  Our love for just being together on regular days.  Our love for hanging out and running errands together.  I cried at the grocery store the other day because I was reminded of how much we loved just hanging out and grocery shopping together.  I’m glad we told each other these things while you were still alive.  Because I can't tell them to you now.  In all of this crazy bullshit I’m dealing with, the one thing I can know for sure is that you knew how much I love you…and I know how much you loved me. We made that abundantly clear to one another on a daily basis. It’s almost like you knew you would leave me sooner than expected. We tried to never take each other for granted and when we caught ourselves doing so, we adjusted and talked about it. Like you knew… I replay over and over in my head the time a few months ago when you said, “Brad, I’m afraid we won’t have all the time we want together…I’m afraid I’m going to die early.” Of course, I reassured you that we would grow old together. We’d be wrinkly, gray haired oldsters, holding hands and rocking in chairs and watching sunsets together. I was wrong…you were right. I hate that you were right. We never made a huge deal about Valentine's Day because we felt love and romance in almost everything we did.  This year, even though we never did much celebrating of this day, I'm very sad.  While I still hold on to the love we shared, I'm all alone.  I haven't been alone on Valentine's Day since Jr. High.  But..even though I'm alone and sad, you are still, and always will be, my Valentine.  All my life I have loved only one woman with a passion most people could never begin to understand. That's who I am. I long for your touch. I long for you kiss. My heart aches to hear one of the most beautiful sounds known to man…your laughter (second only to your singing). What I would not give, to have just one more moment with you. On this day…and every day…I love you with all my broken pathetic heart. Always in all ways.

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Four Weeks

My wife died four weeks ago.  It was a beautiful Saturday like today.  Cold but the sun was out.  We had such a great time that morning.  We laid in bed for a long time talking about things...solving the worlds problems.  We talked about how we’d like to take early retirement in about 10 years.  We were gonna make that happen.  We talked about our plans for that day.  Our oldest daughter and our son-in-law were coming over and we were taking them and our youngest daughter shopping about 45 miles away.  We had a great time.  Patti fell asleep on the drive of course, but we all had a great time.  We sang, shared stories, and enjoyed each other’s company.  We went to the mall.  Shopped, ate some popcorn, she tried on some clothes, and even bought two pairs of pants.  She was happy.  We all were happy.  That was the last time I was happy in the last month.  We had so much fun just shopping together.  Hanging out, talking, just being together.  We always said (luckily to each other so we both knew how we felt) that some of our favorite days were when we were just tooling around town together running errands or grocery shopping or doing whatever.  Saturday January 7th was one of those days.  No real agenda...just hanging out.  And this time the whole gang was with us...so i guess that was fortuitous.  Since then, It’s been the worst 4 week of my life.  I feel like im in a constant state of shock or denial or WTF.  My daughters are here to help...but they are going through there own things too...we all try to lean on each other.  I’m scared that i can’t do this.  Now instead of planning for early retirement, I’m taking money out of savings and shifting investments around.  It’s weird what happens to you day to day when you lose one third of you income.  I can’t collect insurance money yet..but we still have the bills of a household that used to have more fluid income.  I feel trapped in my own home.  They say not to make any major decisions within a year or so...but I live in a cold place...I hate the cold.  I’ve always hated it.  I cant even go outside to get some fresh air or exercise.  My skin is crawling and i want to just leave everything.  My youngest daughter will be in college next year.  I need to get her through college..then i’ll decide what to do about my situation.  I don’t love my job...it pays me well...but the only reason i went to work, was so i could afford fun Disney vacations with my WIFE and kids a couple/few times a year and because i wanted to retire comfortably with my WIFE.  That is on longer a thing...my driving force is gone.  I’m completely lost and I don’t like my “new reality” or “new normal” at all.

Wow...four weeks out.  I’m glad I’m talking to a counselor because I got a lot of shit to work through.  

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So fucking true! We were supposed to have more time... We had the love of a million lifetimes...but we weren't even close to being done.

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