With endings come beginnings...

The end of an incredible year with amazing gains and a great loss. Sometimes it's still hard for me to believe she's gone, other times I'm so involved with creating and building projects that I lose track of everything but what is right in front of me.

Through everything, I feel Monica's positive influence in my life and this sense of knowing continues to expand as my life expands and moves forward.

It is New Year's Eve. I'm sad, but feel so blessed to have built a life with her for 13 years. Some of the best years of my life. I feel myself moving inside and this movement is beginning to translate into new creations. I have excitement about the future....something I didn't feel a couple of months back....thank God!

...Rewrites...

It's the love and support of friends that is keeping me buoyed.....I thought the grieving was getting a little easier, but every time, I pick up, move or look into something of Monica's that is around the house, I lose it. I'm finding that I don't want to touch or move certain things. I guess it's a way of keeping her here with me....I just need to let myself be with this process, wherever it goes.

I love what my friend Amy wrote: '....we can choose to live our lives, with richness and abundance and depth, with layers and rewrites....'

It feels that the richness, abundance, depth and layers of life are doing their own dance, having their own play....I'm just working on the rewrites.

I trust that I will find my way thru...

Heart ache

My heart aches so...Monica died one week ago this evening. I'm still partially in shock and numb. I looked at my wedding band and it felt strange to wear it. She's not here physically any more, though I have had some wonderful dialogues and pictures of her in my mind. I took the ring off to see how it felt. I didn't break down and cry. I put it back on to see how that felt and it felt like I was pretending she was still here. So I put it in a little pouch next to her wedding band.

This is hard...

acting

In the midst of it all, I'm drawn to acting...to the emotional movement, the detail...the overall quest of the playwright and the honor of interpreting it. ..a chance to create a life...to learn more about the human condition and the wonder of humanity... so much...

I've been given that in the form of Lary Bloom's new play...

....more on this later...

Blogging on a sunny afternoon

It's the beginning of Fall...not officially, but as mid-September arrives, there is no way but forward into the next season...

I looked at my last blog and saw the challenges I wrote about in January....the challenges remain as Monica's condition has deteriorated.

She came down with pneumonia in April which developed into more cancer in her right lung. She's lost a lot of weight and is on an oxygen machine here at home, as well as using a walker to get around. It's amazing what has happened to her body. She's physically weak, but....but....

BUT....

............Despite all of that....she remains hopeful. Her eyes shine with love. We are both open to a miracle happening.

She's shed a lot of emotional baggage that use to bog her down. She sees the futility in hanging onto the past. She lives to live, to create, to continue, to share her life with mine.....and I....right next to her, live to have her live on...

Life challenges

Here I sit, not having blogged in a while, contemplating the words I'm about to write. Challenges have come strong and in full force as my wife is battling breast cancer. She is on the losing end of it at the moment, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way. We are looking for her to start another chemo treatment...what will be the fifth line of chemo. Her body has taken a brutal beating at the hands of this cancer, yet we fight. 

So many friends and family members have lent their most loving support on all levels. A challenge like this really lets you know you are not alone. At least, we are fortunate to be blessed with so many wonderful friends.

And through it all, I keep creating and working. Work has become my little oasis. I'm learning how to switch gears on a dime to be able to answer my loved ones call for help. So in between creating a new children's book, editing client's music and setting sights on future projects, I tend to my beloved. Sometimes it's hard to switch gears and I feel resentful, but my deep love for Monica is so true, it doesn't take long til the frustration melts into love. 

I'm holding onto a vision of her vibrantly healthy. Please, if you wish, take a moment and do the same. Thank you.