Three Months

In a couple of hours, it will be three months since Jim shot himself in the front yard. It's time to take stock.

The house is still a mess, though is smells better.

Jim's estate is still not settled, so the life insurance is not paid out, and the IRS is still racking up penalties. The "Crematorium" is still waiting to be paid. They called me. I felt like asking if they would like to repossess the "cremains."

The box containing the "cremains" is residing in a drawer in my nightstand, so that I can bitch at it in the middle of the night, should I feel so inclined.

Apparently, Kyle now has the gun. Ramona tells me there are two guns. I wonder why they took another and didn't tell me. Kyle is going to clean it (them) up and return it (them) to me. I am going to sell them. I see no reason to keep them. I'm not sure, but I think I remember the officer or the chaplain offering me the bullet. Why would I want that?

I am still sad a lot, and angry almost as much. I am tired of crying, though I know I'm not done with it yet. Lines from songs will sometimes make me cry...especially country songs--"I wear your love like a heavy coat."

I am humbled by the amount of help I have received; Vanessa washing the blood out of the yard, Betty and Don helping with the house, Michael with the brush and the trailer, Lynn with the cleansing, Mike with the plumbing, Jimmy with the AC, and all the friends who have helped keep me going with monetary help, hugs and coffee.

Bless you all!

I have noticed wispy tendrils of thought for the future. I am beginning to chafe from the inactivity. I want the estate settled so that I know where I stand, and what I actually own. I want to pare down, cut back and give away.

I will never again be a slave to "stuff." I will have what I need, and the rest will go away.

Life will go on, and I will go with it.

I shall always miss Jim. That seems to get more intense as I go on. I think it's just that the reality is beginning to set in.

I see his face when I kissed him that night, and told him I loved him. I see him on the ground with that awful hole in his head and his breath coming in rasping sobs. I feel his dead hand cooling in mine at the ER, while I railed at him for cowardice.

And I have horrible thoughts. The guilt, I guess. Did I fail him somehow? I know that there was really nothing I could have done, but I still feel there SHOULD have been something. Worst of all; did he regret our time together? Did he think he had made a mistake, marrying me?

These questions are rhetorical, by the way. I know the answers, in an intellectual sort of way, but on a visceral level...aye, there's the rub.