Thank you all for the birthday wishes.  It has been a while.  I haven’t put anything out there for a while now.  Mainly because my thoughts have not been finished.  I would usually write when I had come to some kind of peace with my world.  An Idea, a quote, or something that I could believe that would help explain the world that I have been living in.  For almost two years I have been searching for those answers.  They seems to be coming in pretty slow, but mostly they keep changing.  I keep digging deeper, questioning harder, not only the world around me, but mostly my thoughts about it.

Grief is a nasty beast and I have been doing it for a long time.  Some people don’t really understand that my grief started almost 9 years ago.  I started the grieving process Oct 11, 2011.  That was the day she was diagnosed.  No matter the outcome my life was changed forever.  That day our family lost its innocents.  We were thrust into a world that was filled with fear, pain, and ultimately loss.  For me is was a slow process of losing everything that mattered.  What does that even mean really?  For me it was the loss of my family, what a home really is, my community, and ultimately my identity.  Somewhere in the mix of all of that I lost who I was.  Most of what is written in these pages of thedailyemotional is that journey.  My words are my thoughts on that journey.  who am I?  I’m not really sure yet.  That journey is not finished.  The last year and a half has been the hardest of my life.  For a thousand and some days I wake up every morning and have to make the decision to fight for my life.  The one I want to live.  I have to fight to be the person I want to be.  I would like to say that I came out of all of this unscathed, stronger, and a better person.  I didn’t though.  I came out lost, hurting, grasping for answers to questions that simply cannot be answered, living in a world that cannot understand my thoughts and feelings.  Its not the worlds fault though.  We all have our own life experiences and we tend to see other peoples lives through our lens, not theirs.  Somedays it gets pretty lonely.

There is really only a small handful of people that know the truth of my story for the last year and half, and only one that knows the whole story.  It is not a pretty story, like I said above, grief is a nasty beast.  It’s interesting though that the one person who knows my whole story, who has seen my at my worst, is also the one who believes in me the most.  Her belief and her grace has given me the opportunity to find the help I have needed.  She has been by my side through this valley of hell.  Pushing me, dragging me, and sometimes carrying me when I didn’t think I could go on.  She truly is my gift.  Not because I have lived life perfect, but because I am broken.  She was sent to help me heal.

I want to leave you with a few things that I have learned through all of this.  The first is that there is no courage in destruction.  We try to destroy things, people, and ideas out of  fear, anger and guilt.  It easy easy to destroy.  Courage is found in love.  It takes courage to say I will not destroy you,  It takes courage to say I love you.  We give medals for it.  Being courageous is not what we do for ourselves.  It is about what we give up for those that we are helping.   We find courage in our love and ultimately show it in our service of that love.  We jump on a grenade, run into a burning building, or for most of us it is in much smaller ways.  But in doing those things, we are courageous, not out of fear, anger, or guilt, but because we love.  Be courageous in your love for everyone you meet.

The two most important words in language are love and believe.  They are life changing.  For most of us they are also the two hardest words to say.  Saying them is one thing, believing 100% in what we are saying is altogether different.  It requires being vulnerable.  Believing in someone tells our brain that our neck is exposed and there is a chance that it will get cut.  We ask ourselves a thousand questions and find a million answers about how we could be hurt by our love, or our believing in someone.  Do it anyway.  All it takes is that one reason to believe. Find your courage and tell someone you love them, tell them that you believe in them.  Being courageous is hard, being courageous is about knowing the consequences but jumping anyway.  That is where the magic happens though.  That is where you help someone change their life.  I believe in you even though I know that I can get hurt.  I believe in you for no other reason than I love you.

I have been hurt a thousand times and will be hurt a thousand more, but someone out there needs to hear this.  I believe in all of you.  I believe in who you are and what you are capable of.  I have no other motive and no other expectation.  I am here to serve you.  Not because I have to or will get something in return, I WILL believe in you because I love you.

I have seen birth, I have seen death 
lived to see a lovers final breath 
do you see my guilt, should I feel fine
is the fire of hesitation burning bright
and if you want to, talk about it once again
on you I depend
I'll cry, on your shoulder, your a friend
James Blunt "Cry"

I haven’t written in quite a while.  I think the biggest reason is that I did not want to write about sadness.  Sadness sucks, no one wants to hear about it.  We all have enough of that, you don’t need to hear mine.  So for a couple of months I have been consuming it.  I like the word consuming.  I am not dealing with it. I am not ignoring it.  I am consuming it.  Which for me means, feeling it, touching it, holding it, seeing it, and tasting it.  I am not letting my grief consume me.  I am consuming it.  If I am sad, I cry.  If I am sad, I let it go to my core and I feel it.  I take it all in.  I find that there is gratitude there.  If I can feel this much sadness then I know it was all worth it.  Twenty two years of my life was not a waste because I lost her.  Those twenty-two years were a blessing in my life.  They are who I am.  It hurts.  It hurts a lot.  In the quiet of the darkness, when no one is around, I wonder if I can take it, but I do, I find my gratitude and I hold onto it.

You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.

I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
James Blunt "Goodbye my lover"

In the last couple of months I have had the opportunity to attend two wedding.  To be totally honest they were probably the second and third hardest days of my life.  Not the worst, but the hardest.  Wedding are all about hope, happiness and love.  If you pay attention, you will also feel them even if your not the ones getting married.  These special couples that let me attend will never know how special those days will be to me.  I felt it.  I felt it all.  I could feel the hope as they touched hands,  I could see the happiness in their eyes, and I let their love radiate around me, and hold me for a minute.  The hard part for me was the vows.  It was the closing of the circle.  When we got married I don’t think I fully understood.  We say them never expecting to execute them until we are old.   In sickness and health means that we bring each other chicken noodle soup when we are sick, and well,  we just don’t understand, “until death to us part.”  My hope is that no one would ever have to understand what that means, but for me it hit me like a tone of bricks.  In that moment I understood.  I had completed my circle.  It crushed me with sadness, but in the same instant I had some sense of accomplishment.  Which might seem weird to some, but in that moment It made every sacrifice, tear, and every moment of our married life even better.  A vow is simply just a bunch of words together.  Fulfilling a vow is so much more.  So much more that I cant even find the words to explain what “Till death do us part” really means.

When everything you know
Starts to let you down
And your world starts spinning round
I'll be the place where you can sleep
Cause in my heart you'll always be
More than a friend
More than time well spent
You show me who I'm supposed to be
And that makes you deserving

As long as I breathe
As long as I need
As long as I'm me
Oh, I belong to you
As long as I'm free
And as far as I see
If my heart still beats
Oh, then it beats for you

Just because you're gone
Doesn't mean that I've moved on
I still love you just the same
I still crumble at your name
Because the love you make me feel
Is the only thing that's real
And I need you to be alright
Brett Young "Your to Hold"

So what now?  I don’t know.  I haven’t seen the playbook for when your spouse passes away.  I’m not sure I would read it even if I did find it.  I suppose I rationalize my actions just like everyone else does.  We try and find reasons why we should do something or not do something.  We try and find answers that just aren’t there.  I try and help my kids understand even though I don’t understand myself.  We seem to be wondering down a path not really knowing what direction to go.  Trying to figure out what we are supposed to be doing.  Where we are supposed to be going.  How we are supposed to be feeling, sometimes caught between what our own expectations are compounded with what we feel are the expectations of others.  Lost is the best word I can come up with.

I keep telling myself that I didn’t ask for this, but here we are, and there is nothing that we can do to change it.  We are not different.  We are just like everyone else.  We are just trying to live our lives to the best of our abilities.  Just like everyone else we are trying to figure out how to make the best, or at least cope with what life has thrown at us.  I have to believe that on April 11, my love and my ability to love did not die too.  I have to believe that I still have a lot of love to give.  I have to believe that I have a lot of love to give not in spite of Tammy, but because of her.  It is my choice whether I keep that love for myself or decide to make it bigger.  I choose to love my kids more because I know that I also have Tammy’s love inside of me.  If I choose to love other people though out my life I will do it better because I have Tammy’s love inside of me too.  Love is not a zero sum game.  I don’t have anyone to be mad at or hate because of how they treated me.  I just have love.  Love for what I know is possible in love.  Love for the people in my life.  Love for all of you out that have helped us, been there for us and continue to be there for us.  I also have a need to give it away.  I want others to know what it feels like to be loved.  There are people out there that don’t know what it feels like to love with out condition.  I want to teach them.

A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with a friend that has went through some very tough and life altering times the last several months and after talking with them for a while about how life has changed how they think I told them that they just needed to follow their smile and see where it takes them.  I went on about my day and that evening as I was thinking about our conversation, I realized that maybe that advice was not just meant for them.  Right now I am not trying to live in the past, or really look that far in the future.  I am trying to live right in front of me.  For a dreamer like me that is a challenge.  So for now I am going to take my own advice.  I am going to try and follow my smile.  If it is in front of me and I am smiling, then I am going to follow it.  Where that leads I really have no clue, but what ever happens I will lead with our love, mine and  Tammy’s together, and it will be so much bigger because I do.

I’m walking down this road, there seems no end in sight.  Everywhere I turn I find you on mind.  Nothing I can do will keep me here with you.  Things are moving so fast I can feel you slipping through.  Where you are now I have no clue.  Wish I could find the words to sit down and talk to you.  Sometimes it feels like I’m running in circles.  Things I see make no sense to me.
The man I was, the man I wish to be.  Is he gone, or is he me.

Twenty-six, that  is how many years ago me and Sonny sat around our dorm room writing the above words to the song “Is He Me.”  Tanner has been wanting me to write down the lyrics for him because he want to learn it.  Friday night I pulled out the guitar and somehow remembered the cords and the words just came to me.  We were doing other things at the time and I didn’t think about it much and just went along doing stuff.  I didn’t really listen to myself.  I just spit them out.  So fast forward a day or two.  My thoughts turned back to the song and I decided I needed to hear the song in my head again.  I needed to listen and hear what the song was telling me.  If you want to see the rest of the words or hear the song it is on my blog.  Who knew.  What energy could possibly have transcended time and found the exact words of how I feel twenty-six years later.  Lost in a different battle trying to find who is looking back at me in the mirror.

I was Casey.  I had one single purpose in my life.  It was very simple,  to love her and to love my kids.  I had narrowed my life down to them.  Nothing else mattered.  Giving up everything for someone you love is easy.  Now, everything is in some grey area.  I am lost between who I want to be and what is.  Case and point, my wedding ring.  I have worn it every day for almost twenty-two

years.  It is a part of me.  I have a calloused indention in my finger.  I don’t want to really take it off.  It’s grey,  I don’t know if i am married or not.   I have come to the conclusion that there are a thousand places or books you can learn or read on how to build your life.  No one ever talks about how to take apart everything you have ever wanted.

Providence has a way focusing our thoughts and intentions and so this week has had the saddest day of my life and one of the happiest.  I was redirected to softball games and then Friday night Tanner was able to sing his songs for the first time in front of an audience.  I had a peacefulness in me about it. I knew he was nervous, but I had no doubt.  He was going to be awesome, and he was.  I am very proud of him for stepping out and just going for it.  I might have shed a few tears after.  I was just so proud of him.

Last night I was given another gift.  Morgan got all gussied up for prom.  Wow, what a beauty.  My kids are true gifts.  For now they are my purpose and I am extremely proud of all them.

As I sit here and write this and try to put thoughts down, I can’t help but be hopeful.  For the last six years we have been living on the curve of life.  Now we have a chance to hit the straight away and coast for a while.  There are going to be days where we are sad.  I still turn around to ask her a question.  Sadness is a part of life.  I want to embrace it.  If I was not sad then it would mean that all of it wasn’t worth it, that it didn’t mean something.  She meant everything and so it will be hard, but I would not trade a day of all of it.  It was worth every second.  I want to feel every emotion.  I want to shed every tear.  I want to consume all of it.  That is what life is all about.  It’s about deepest sadness for what we have lost, and in the same instant the pure joy at everything life has to offer.

I really want to thank you all for everything you have done to help us for the last six years.  I don’t know how to do that.  How do you say thank you to so many people who have given you so much.  All I know to say is thank you for letting me love Tammy.  Thank you for giving me so much help that I could lose myself in helping her fight.  Loving her was a gift and something that will be with me for the rest of my life and I am truly grateful to have had the chance to do it.