A Little Overwhelmed .....

..... not by any one thing. Mostly by my stinking inability to cope the way the "before Janine" could cope.

She was very strong .... or could at least pretend that she was. The "after Janine" rarely has the ability to pretend anymore.

The "before" me rarely became paralyzed by big things that came her way, let alone little tiny ones, like dog hair, the "time for a checkup" light in her car, a leaking toilet or a number of leaking faucets.

I hate that about the "after" me. I really do.

It's not that I was invincible .... I was not. But I could sure hide it when I wasn't.

Well, except for November 2001.

That was the year from hell.

Or. So. I. Thought.

Jim was in his 20th year at Arthur Andersen, Enron was imploding, which was causing Andersen to implode, 9/11 had just happened ..... and we went to his parents' farm for Thanksgiving.

We didn't make it to Thanksgiving.

Jim was target shooting with a special gun he had bought for his dad (which his dad and our boys had been shooting the day before) ..... and on this day ..... I can't remember the day of the week now .... while he was shooting it, it exploded into his face and eye.

The positive note? I was with him.

I hated that gun and I had stayed far away from it that weekend. But that morning he asked me if I'd go with him. He looked like a little boy on Christmas morning. He loved that gun (it was an M1 Garand, which is the gun his dad had used in WWII). I had just gotten out of the shower so really, really didn't want to get into a dirty old pickup and go sit in a field with him while he shot a gun that was so loud you could hear it a mile away.

But I did ..... because I loved him .... and because God nudged me. I took my towel to sit on so I wouldn't get too dirty.

I sat in the back of the truck while I watched him have the time of his life.

And then he said he'd do one more round and we'd leave.

Too bad.

It was that round that blew up.

He fell to the ground and I had no idea what had happened, except thought it had kicked back and hit him in the face.

He wouldn't take his hands from his face and was in a lot of pain. I grabbed the towel and wrapped it around his head, put him in the truck and drove back to the farm like a bat out of hell. I ran in, got his dad, said I didn't know what had happened but that we had to get him to a hospital and so we left.

I didn't know until we got there ..... and he had been examined .... that his right eye had been blown out. And they were concerned about fragments having gone into his brain.

I don't remember a lot .... except for standing in that hospital and thinking ...... nothing. Not being able to think anything. Feeling completely paralyzed.

The strongest person I knew ..... the strongest person in my life ..... would soon become the weakest and I would have to become the strongest.

And so I did. Not that I didn't have moments of huge meltdowns, because I did. But never in front of him. He felt guilty enough about the whole thing, I could not let him see how paralyzed I still sometimes felt.

But I knew ..... and I held onto one thing: if I could just hold on for one year, things would look much different. We would be better.

One year.

And so I did.

And so they did.

And so we were.

Just so you know .... that "one year thing" ..... doesn't work when your husband dies.

Not at all.

I lost .... forever .... the strongest man I knew.

I had no one to change places with .... knowing that, in one year, I wouldn't have to be the strongest one anymore, because he'd be strong again.

And so I remain paralyzed ..... sometimes by big things, most times by the stupidest of things.

Too paralyzed to even realize what it is that is paralyzing me, let alone ask for help.

And I'm starting to really despise myself for it. It's been a year and a half ..... nothing is going to change. He's not coming back. I have 6 children who need me to be strong .... at least sometimes! Buck up!

It's been a tough few months.

Hell, it's been a tough 19 months and 8 days.

But yesterday, I heard this song.

And the words spoke so loudly to me that I wrote down the name of it and the artist.

And now I will share it with you.

Just in case ..... you need something to speak loudly to you, too.