Just run

Just run.
There are moments, just moments when I want to run. Run.

I feel the anxiety growing inside of me, wanting to take over. A voice pleas in desperation, “just run.” I want to grab Ariyana and Afshin and run away to escape from the pain. I just want to be with them, to be safe, to be free of this pain.

As I write this I feel a little guilt. I am happy and I am so blessed in my life – in what I had and in what I have now. But the truth is, this isn’t the life that I had imagined. I miss Hamid and it hurts that he is not here to watch his children grow up. I remember the day it all began. I see him smiling in the ER. Fear suddenly flashes across his face as he tells me that something is terribly wrong. A few hours later I watch the ventilator mechanically raise his chest up and down. I hear myself telling the surgeon, “Yes, you have my permission to do emergency surgery.” Numbly, I hear “stage iv…3-6 months.” I am pregnant. Just run. I need to run.

Yes, every once in while this feeling of running hits me. It is like a fight or flight reaction and to survive I feel that I just need to protect Ariyana and Afshin and go. But I know that no matter how far I go, I cannot escape it. I guess it is normal, a part of grieving but I guess I feel that there is an expectation to be strong, to be happy. I am both. I found love again; I have two amazing children. I have someone who walks beside me on this journey, someone who loves my children, someone who knows what it means to lose a loved one. But even still, there are moments when I need to fall down and acknowledge the pain and then wipe my wounds and choose to stand again.

He's not coming back

I came home tonight and played with the kids while mom fixed dinner. As we set the table, I went over and poured myself a glass of wine. A twinge of pain shot through me as I thought of Hamid. He's not here.

It was a nice evening. After I got Ariyana settled I came downstairs to give Afshin his bottle and Dad came home. He was happy to see Afshin which made me smile but then brought the bittersweet thought that Afshin doesn't have a father that will come home and scoop him up and look into those deep smiling blue eyes. Then Dad went over and kissed mom...Hamid always kissed me when he came through the door - it was the first thing no matter what. Even after Ariyana was born he always kissed me before running off after her. I won't feel that kiss ever again...only in my dreams. It struck me at that moment that Hamid was not going to come back. He is not going to walk through that door with his briefcase and cell phone. He is not going to sit down and drink that glass of wine with me. He is not going to be beside me when I go to sleep.

I was talking to some friends yesterday and we talked about how you go on and you are "ok." but everything is different. I go to work and I love my job and the students, I come home to my parents and Ariyana and Afshin who just brighten my day with their light. I laugh. I smile. But there are so many times that inside I am crying...a heaviness weighs on my heart. There just aren't words to describe how much I miss him. It's so much more than that. Then, last night I heard Eli sing on America's Got Talent. Hamid and I always watched that show and we both saw Eli sing during the try outs a few months ago. As he sang the words, I thought - some of those words speak to me..."And I'm dying inside And nobody knows it but me. Like a clown I put on a show. The pain is real even if nobody knows And I'm crying inside And nobody knows it but me. The nights are lonely, the days are so sad And I just keep thinkin' about The love that we had, And I'm missin' you And nobody knows it but me. I carry a smile when I'm broken in two, I'm tremblin' inside and nobody knows it but me. I lie awake it's a quarter past three I'm screamin' at night as if I thought You'd hear me.. my heart is callin' you...

Somone said that the pain never really goes away, you just learn to live with it and you learn to live without your him. I think it is true. The kids and I will be ok, but there will always be a place in my heart that is only for Hamid. Some days that will be a weight that will pull me down but I know other days it will be a beautiful memory that will lift me up.