…but instead, there are glimpses here and there, and even then I’m not quite sure when/if I remember it right. It creates a sense of loss that is a dull ache somewhere under my ribs, as if there’s a pocket there filled with regret.

April 10th would have been our 16 year anniversary. March 14th would have been his 37th birthday. These dates were at the forefront of my memory right up until the day in question – then I completely forgot. Then I remembered and felt bad. Then I got angry, because no one else remembered either, though mostly I was angry at myself – because who forgets that? How is it I could stare at the date and wonder why it was important to me? Then kick myself because it IS important, but for some reason I was hiding it from myself, just as I had been hiding from everyone else.

You can’t see me if I cover my eyes, after all.

The simple fact is – I miss him, and it hurts. I “forget” because it’s easier than remembering that I’m alone, raising his kids, his AMAZING kids, who he’d be so proud of. It’s easier than remembering how long it’s been, and how much I’m still hiding from the rest of the world.

I “forget” the little things, because remembering hurts too damn bad.

Happy Anniversary, Kevin.
I haven’t forgotten… anything.

Life with someone in constant pain is not easy. In a lot of ways, it’s harder for the caretakers, the wives and the loved ones, then it is on the person in pain. We’re he ones that deal with the mood swings, the drastic measures taken to get relief, the blowups, the tears, the manic episodes when they feel good, countered by the deep downswing when they can’t take another minute of the pain. It’s exhausting, and incredibly painful to watch someone you care about wrestle with… well, life.

But we do it. I did it for over 10 years – in truth, almost our entire 15 years together as Kevin was suffering a knee injury when we got together, and it was two years of reconstructive surgery and physical therapy until it was fixed. Then just 2 years after that, the arm injury and he beginning of a 10 year long battle with pain.

One of the things Kevin was most worried about was addiction. It ran in his family, and he was determined never to become an addict, yet with the amount of medication he had to take just to get through the day was more then a normal everyday person would use, and they’d be labeled ‘addict’ in a heartbeat. I watched him wrestle with the decisions to take more meds, to change his meds, to take any at all, to give up or to work over and over again. Did I mention I HATE it when I can’t fix something?

It did teach me something though. I can’t fix everything. And sometimes? Sometimes you have to step back, and let go. As much support as I gave Kevin, as much as I tried to help him and weathered the storm, in the end he was the master of his own self, and each decision was his own. Through it all I learned a very important lesson – the only reactions I can control, the only person I have ultimate control over, is my own, and my self.

I can’t stop someone from making a mistake, though I can listen. And when it gets to be too much, when I can no longer keep my mouth shut, when I can’t say anything without growling… I’ve learned to step back, back off, and shut down.

I’ve learned when to be D. U. N. Done.

I watched people tell him, and tell me, that he couldn’t be in that kind of pain, that it was a desperate cry for attention. I watched people say that they had pain worse, that they would react better, that they would DO better – meaning they thought themselves to BE better. I watched the passive aggressive little jabs and pokes and slices of sharp words meant to cut and cut deeply, as they tried to make him feel less then capable of taking care of his family, because of his injury. It’s only an arm, after all. It couldn’t be THAT bad – while the doctors looked at him in shock and asked why in the world he was still trying to work instead of staying home…

And even now, I react poorly to passive aggressive tugs at my sanity. I react poorly to someone popping pills because they’re upset, and using excuses as to why, and trying to get my sympathy because woe, woe is them in the same kind of cry for attention that people accused Kevin of. I physically recoil when people tell me what they do or do not deserve. I react extremely poorly to people who don’t. get. help. I react way bad to people poking at me, slicing with words that cut, clutching and clinging on as if I’m supposed to save them too, just because I talked to them, just because I listened, just because they won’t take responsibility for themselves.

I am not your savior.

Don’t you think that if I could have saved ANYone – it would have been the other half of my soul?

What? It was a really small town back then! Specially when you factor in the fact I also dated their best friend, who later was married to my sister for a while. heh!

Anyway, it was my Senior year, so I was 17, almost 18. I’d only been going to the public high school since the year before, having been raised in little Christian schools all the way through my sophomore year. I learned quickly that all the cliques had been formed in kindergarten, and I just didn’t belong to any of them. I wasn’t a jock, a cheerleader, a preppy, a goth, a metalhead – I was simply the quiet girl who sat in the back of the class trying not to be noticed. Then I discovered that if you hung out with the stoners, they’d absolutely accept you as one of their own. You didn’t even have to smoke! As long as you didn’t care if they did, and didn’t rat them out, you were in.

That’s how I met Bubba and Kevin’s brother, Cory, and was integrated into the Stoners, much to my mother’s chagrin.

While I don’t remember the exact day, I remember everything else. I was headed to my locker before first house, only to find Cory – the tall, lanky, dorky clown (literally) leaning against the one next to mine, with a shorter, buzz cut kid who looked to be about 12 – too young for high school. He was all of 150 pounds of flesh stretched over his 5′10″ height. He was a skinny little shit, wearing a little smirk like he knew everything, and was smarter than the rest, no matter who ‘the rest’ might be. I don’t remember what I was wearing, but he had on a pair of dark wash jeans, construction boots, a light t-shirt, under a black Carhart jacket. And his hair was buzzed short – shorter then military short. Like buzz cut so you don’t have to cut it for 6 weeks, then break out the clippers again, short.

After the hello’s with Cory, I looked at him with a clear “Who the hell is that?” arched brow. He smacked Kevin on the back of the head, told him to say hello, and followed it with “This is my fucked up little brother, Kevin.”

I rolled my eyes, said hi, grabbed my books and left. Little did I know that in just four years, that fucked up little brother and I would be together…