This is Real. This is Me. Year 2.

(Photo By Devine Memories (C)2010 Devine Memories - Check out her other great photos from the shoot that really express how I see where I am in this process of moving forward with my muppet by my side)

Last year I wrote about an event out by Christopher's grave and how that event in those brief moments allowed me to see where I came from and where I was hoping to go. I left the cemetery that day with a peace in my heart and thought only things could go up from here, right? I mean, I figured out how to make my self happy, I discovered what it felt like to listen to the silence in a different light and understood the pain of love lost - everything would just get better. That's the mathematical equation that I came to. Seems logical. Then came the holidays and I was hit with the biggest brick wall known to man.

I thought I could cruse right on through those mile stones that I already passed through and do it with all the flying colors of the freaking rainbow. I quickly learned that wasn't the case. What I did learn was how numb I was the first go round. Those moments when I longed for Christopher to hand me the gift he just thought was all so perfect or look at me with those loving eyes after spending hours in the kitchen planing a thanksgiving meal which meant I out did myself again weren't there. It's amazing how you can be surrounded by all the ones you love and yet feel completely lonely all at the same time. It's like two different people trying to fight for the same space that resides in one body. All the while, you want to be there to interact with those you love and yet you want to scream that this is all just so wrong. The one person you wish to be there isn't. It's in those moments that life seems less fair and brutal and you've been voted the punching bag.

Once the new year rolled around I thought to my self that I was going to take 2010 by the balls and slam it to the wall. I was going to rock this year and put it in my back pocket. I sat one night behind Christopher's laptop and opened a file that I had put on hold for a long time and I begin to type. Each night I typed a little longer and harder. I discovered in those moments that I had more work to do on myself. I saw the venom of anger striking through my fingers with each key stroke. Anger that I thought I had worked through and some that I didn't know I had. But anger non the less.

I discovered I was angry at the doctors for keeping me out of the loop on what I felt like should have been joint choices in Christopher's pain control. They took away three months of his life that I will never be able to get back from keeping him doped up. Truth be known, Christopher wasn't in pain, he had bad neuropathy and for whatever reason the doctors chose high level drugs that you would see on shows like A&E's "Intervention" instead of trying to help his symptoms of numbness in the bottoms of his feet. I felt like those doctors didn't view me as a wife or even a care giver. I was just the woman who paid the bills.

I know that in the world of medicine that doctors have to remove themselves and so I don't blame them for everything, but I do blame them for a lack of communication in the last three to six months of his life. Communication is key in everything. And while Christopher did come home and tell me that meds were being increased and why. It never made sense to me and I blame myself for not questioning harder and pushing more.

This and everything leading up to this was all part of a process that brought me to understand and accept the situation that has brought Ethan and I to where we are and it allowed healing on this aspect of my grief to also begin. One of the things I have learned about being a widow, someone who lost their great love and grieving for the loss of a relationship is you have to do what it takes to turn things around and make the situation work to your benefit. You have to have the courage to crawl inside your head and sit awhile while the world goes by. Even though it hurts to see the mental chalk board of why you react to the things you do and run from the things that might cause you more pain. You have to show the world the parts of you that you see as broken and love your self enough to allow them to be turned around and healed in the love you get back from your friends and family.

Yes, it's way easier to shut people out than to show the ones you love how the opening scene from Jaws was just the prelude to what you really feel on the side. And most of all, people will tell you are crazy, not your self and you might find friendships even lost. But it's who you are. You are still the same person just trying to figure out how to sort through this thing called grief. It's not pretty. There is nothing sensational about it. But it does get better. And the process never ends. It's on going. Time tells tales in the light we wish to see them in.

So where does this put me as I crossed over another full year? I went out to visit Christopher and while I was there I took a flower and walked down to the man graves who's widow I met over a year ago. I placed a flower on his marker and in those moments I took some time out to thank him for bring his wife to me on that day to help me understand a year later that it was in that moment when I met her that I was ok and that was the feeling I work towards feeling daily. It was a peace that allowed me to talk to her openly and so candidly about the grief that surrounded us both on that day.

I have worked through so much this year that I look back and hope that one day I remember all this so when the questions start to come from Ethan I can say with grace that sometimes we are left with no other choice than to say goodbye and take the pain that leaves our days engulfed in grey and harness the light within ourselves to make the sun rise again. It might not be as bright, but it radiates through us and those around us.