They Just Forgot Me

Everyone says people grieve in their own way and no two people are the same, I suppose that is true. I wish it weren’t, I wish grief came with an owner’s manual on how to live your life after someone is taken from us here on earth. I feel crazy some days, replaying our ten years together, replaying our last days in the hospital, replaying the day before the accident. I know I’ll never have an answer as to why he isn’t here with me. I know he would be if he could.

As time passes I want to believe this will get easier, not just for me but the brothers, his dad, the three girls…for everyone who loved Troy. It hasn’t, but I hope it does. I find myself with little sleep and my mind wandering constantly. I pray constantly that God lets Troy know I miss him and I love him. There isn’t an hour that passes I don’t think of him and hope that God lets him check in on me. I beg at night when I am laying in the kitchen floor with tears flowing that Troy will come to me in my dreams when I fall asleep. As I was there the other night on the hardwood, remembering us cooking, just leaning on the counters talking and Troy telling me I love those pants as I grabbed a pan from under the stove, I reached for my phone to answer a text. The forward facing camera was open when I unlocked the screen and I caught my reflection, I’ve aged so much in the past three months but surprisingly I don’t even care. I snapped the photo and saved it so hopefully my future self can look back and see how far I’ve come. I hope that day comes.

I have a million questions for God, a million things I still want to say  and I’d give my last breath for just one more kiss. I am lost without Troy, completely lost. When I went to lunch with friends on Friday we talked about them not imagining what this phase of life is like. Matter of factly one said “it is because most people don’t have someone to love them like you loved each other” and we all fell apart a little, maybe a lot. I hate this life without him here, I needed him and I feel like I failed somewhere. These things may sound crazy, I know, but silence is deafening and grief with loneliness causes your mind to question anything and everything you thought you knew to be true.

The reality of this being my life now has hit me harder lately as I seem to be coming into a reality void of Troy’s presence instead of walking in a fog of disbelief and shock. I don’t know where our family goes from here, it’s just the two of us in this home and I’m trying to be the best I can for Amaya. This, I’m sure is my purpose now. I see pieces of Troy in her, seeds he planted in her heart and I am forever grateful that she was  loved so much. Please know as you read this, our worlds have been rocked and I am just being very honest and as raw as this pain remains. That pain is not just emotional and mental but physically tolling.

Todd asked me the other day what I thought Troy would want me to do in this time. I know he would want me to miss him, cry for him and love him out loud. For how long? I don’t know, at least forever he would probably say with a slight laugh from behind a fist  covering his mouth. I saw a photo he had sent me when Rory, half of Joey and Rory, changed his name to just Rory Feek, it had been years since Joey from that duo had passed and he just wrote “heartbroken” when he sent it. I’m so glad that we got to meet them, see them sing a few times and follow their story together. I remember us crying when she passed and then again when we watched To Joey, With Love. I cherish those times because I know Troy connected to their love story on a level most men would never even bother acknowledging. Those are the things that make my heart physically ache, knowing in my lifetime that kind of love was so brief.

Life goes on. So will I.

My faith has been shaken, my heart is shattered in more pieces than I think I will ever be able to collect and put back together and most days I feel like I died, they just forgot to bury me.