I remember everything

Seattle skyline
Photo courtesy of Andrew Reddaway
07.25.13

It has been a glorious summer in Seattle.  Gorgeous sunsets and comfortable daytime temperature.  If I had put some tomatoes in the ground, they would probably produce couple red fruit.  But, there is no tomato this year.  I sow some peas for old time's sake.  They grew, but I harvested exactly once.  There are carrots, yes, but they won't be ready for a while.  Eric always said carrots taste extra sweet after the first frost. I will wait until the first frost before I dig up any. 

I have very little recollection of last summer except for the vivid memory of multiple gruesome trips to Dr. Yin's clinic in Bellingham; the trips that completely occupied us from June to October.  I remember the crappy weather.  I remember diagnostic injection after diagnostic injection.  I remember Eric hurting bad, being exceedingly uncomfortable in the car after each injection and each trip.  Each diagnostic injection would aggravate his condition, and it took weeks for the pain to quiet down.  When it finally calmed, it was time to make another pilgrimage north for another injection, elsewhere in the spine.  I am lucky.  I don't have a personal relationship with anyone who had been tortured through water-boarding. But, I remember vividly a different kind of torture my husband went through.  Over and over.    

I don't know which is worse:  To forever grief the death of my husband, or to forever remember the extensive torture he endured.  I do not know how I am supposed to survive both.  It seems to be a bad joke at the moment. 

I vividly remember pleading with whatever gods that would give a shit, to make Eric hurt just a little less.  I concluded, unfortunately, "honey badgers don't give a shit." I remember feeling nothing but disdain.  

An old friend asked me just the other day why I no longer consider Christianity my faith - a surprise to him since I was very active in the ministry for so many years.  "What happend," he asked.  I chuckled as I typed, "nothing -happened-; I simply no longer find religions relevant to my life.  I haven't for years."  I am not godless, and I certainly am not an atheist.  I simply prefer room for uncertainties and for shades of gray - just like life itself.  I don't see the need to define and limit anymore.  

Hydrangea
Photo courtesy of Katie Wat

"Where there is love, there is god."  I don't need to define god.  I don't have a need to anthropomorphize "god."  
I don't even need to call it 
g-o-d. 




After a long streak of Victoriousness, today was full of tears, as I remember everything Eric suffered all too well.  This day shall pass.  And then it shall return. For now, it feels as if it will continue in all of eternity.