hlmishefske

[hlmishefske]

April 3, 2014.  Six years ago. 

The day that our lives were split into two halves.  The half when Jim was a bold, bubbling part of our every day, and the half when he was not.  The day your heart stopped.

Every moment from that day is measured in these two halves.  The part of life where my brother was always there. .  And the part of life that he will never be. 

I am not a pessimist, but those of you who have struggled through profound grief know that your life will never be the same.  A part of your cup has been emptied. I have tried to fill it back up, but the bottom seems perpetually to fall out. And this is how you just learn to move forward.  Some good days, and still some where the bottom falls out. 

Grief is a fickle thing.  It ebbs and flows.  You push it away, or at least try, and it always comes back.  There is no leaving it for later, no putting it on a hanger to grab another day.  It will hit you and take your breathe away whenever it wants.  Even six years later.  

Some days we trudge forward with heavy feet that are so hard to lift.  Other days we can walk a bit lighter.  

To my little brother. Your absence is finding a way to live in my heart.  It gets juggled around, and shifted, but I always feel it there.  

You have no idea how much I miss you. 

[hlmishefske]

Peak has cancer. She is five.

I can barely say the words, and I’ve known this for almost 2.5 months.

Grade 3/high grade mast cell cancer.

Multiple aspirates that were benign, benign biopsies, antibiotics, fungal scrapes, oral pred, injectable pred, and then surgery to remove the mass. And there it was. Malignant. One other major surgery later to remove 5 lymph nodes, two CT scans, multiple trips to U of Minn oncology/radiation oncology and here we are.

I opted out of another more aggressive surgery that would remove the entire left side of her muzzle & jaw, followed by 4 straight weeks of daily radiation & anesthesia at the university, She has not been eating and today she crashed. The tumors have grown to almost 10 times the size they were three weeks ago. They have grown where the lymph nodes once were. Breathing is hard, and her body is tired. I cannot believe the speed in which the cancer has spread. We have switched her plan to palliative mode.

And here I am again. I was just here in August saying goodbye to my amazing boy, Summit. And saying goodbye to my brother’s dog Boston, and my parent’s dog, Vito, in November.

And almost a week out from the 5th anniversary of my brother’s death. I feel crushed and angry and devastated and cheated. I have already lost a very young Flat Coat to an autoimmune kidney disease at the age of 3. My husband lost both of his parents when he was 18, There is just so much loss. And it’s so heavy to carry. And with every new loss, begets the feel of the older loss. It stacks each heavy rock on your heart to trudge forward into a world that quickly moves on.

I write this because I don’t know what the hell else to do. And writing feels like I put it all out there so it’s not all stuck in my head that is spinning. People will say that you don’t know how strong you are until you have to be. I am so tired of being strong, and I am so exhausted from carrying this sadness around. It’s just so heavy.

Peak is the kindest, most socially stable dog I have ever met. She is gentle and joyful and patient and quietly confident and loving to any creature or human she meets. Her gentle spirit and her unwavering temperament have helped me with countless fearful dogs in lessons, raised every staff puppy, been in every class I have taught, and have gotten me thru the roughest time of my entire life when Jim died. We have hiked hundreds of miles, explored acres of forest and fields, skied in silence together, watched birds, navigated trails and spent almost every single day together since the day she came home from Canada.

Her puppies are 7 months old. They love her, watch her and learn from her. They have so much more to learn from her wise eyes. So much more.

She is too young to be taken from all of us.

[hlmishefske]

That day.  THE day.  That damn day.  You all know it.  The day he died….the date.  It sticks with you all year.  And when the calendar flips to March, the anxiety sets in.  Good God, don’t let April 3rd come again.  But it does.  And it will again, and again, and again.  And you know it’s coming.  And as the days draw closer, the anxiety, the insomnia, the weird physical symptoms, the fear all set in.  The horrid memory of my parents seeing their son in a casket.  It is burned into my memory.  The demanding WHY of the universe. Screaming to the skies that this is not fair. And some of it is not.  There is so much I do not even remember about that day.  And the weeks following. It is just a date carved out of every year to revisit these moments. For those of you who have trudged this road, it is not just a date.  It’s a brutal reminder of what your new normal is like, what your life is lacking, and how you will never be the same.  And it comes.  And it’s like a freight train coming straight at you.  Louder, closer, louder, closer….and the whistle is blowing and you are stuck on the track and paralyzed.  And you are screaming NO, but you cannot move.  The light coming at you blinds you and it gets louder. And louder and faster. And you just cannot move out of it’s way. And it hits you.  It hits you can takes the breath from your chest.  After it hits you, you get up again, foggy eyed, and look at the mess it leaves.  And it does this every year for the rest of my days.    I spend this day in the woods.  By myself.  But, I hope that I am not really by myself, as I imagine that Jim is with me.  Hiking and listening to the wind in the birches, the geese in a distant pond, and the rustle of leaves at my feet.  I left a heart shaped Jim rock in one of the glacial lakes on the Ice Age Trail for him today. I always leave a rock in places that are beautiful. A rock from Lake Superior. And I toss them wherever I think he should be. For this I am grateful. I am always grateful for the life that I have chosen, but on this day, the reminders of how the universe can take what it wants and leave you behind rings like a train coming straight at me. There is an anger to grief that is difficult to explain. It’s often not smooth and somber, but angry and hostile. There is a place for all of it to live inside me. Early spring has an odd feel after Jim died.  It used to be a vibrant new beginning.  Now it is something different, and I am not sure what it is.  Maybe in 10 years, 15 years….it will be different.  But for now, it’s the day.  This is the the third year that I have traveled through life not being able to pick up the phone, talk, text or just see him.   The finality of death still is unfathomable to me.  How could someone who could kick everyone’s ass on a road bike, ski the Birkie in just over 3 hrs, and keep up a 7 min mile running pace have an unknown heart condition that could take him down on an easy two mile run.  At 36 years of age with a one year old daughter. I will never know the answers.  But this day will come every single year.  And the freight train will hit, and knock you to your knees.  And you will get up and start the year again.  And again.  I hope that some day, I can stand by the tracks, and just let the noise and the wind hit me as it rushes by instead of knocking me to my knees. Someday I will be able to step off the tracks. For now, I will try to remember to breathe. Miss you little bro. 

[hlmishefske]

Mother-Son dance.  June 4, 2011.  Jim and Julie's wedding. 

Sunday was Mother's Day.  The first one.  I cannot imagine raising a son from birth to middle age and then seeing him gone during your lifetime.  I cannot imagine.  The pain is different than my own.  Everyone bears the pain in a different way, but being a mother comes with a completely different set of pains.  This picture is horribly painful, but it is so happy. It is almost unbearable to look at.  Maybe some day I can look at it and be happy.  Today is not that day. 

[hlmishefske]

May our sadness flow into the rivers he paddled, May our hopes blossom the trees he walked among, May his memory fall upon us forever like stardust When we search for him in the night sky.

Mike Huggins (April 10, 2014)

[hlmishefske]

Suffering

“Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can’t cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It’s just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.” - Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things