Losing Wayne

I feel as though I am starting to lose the memory of the pre-stroke Wayne. And you know it's bad when you watch a video of the two of you from before the stroke, and it just doesn't even feel familiar...
I MISS HIM SO MUCH!


... maybe only when that memory fades, is when the true healing begins.

Maybe I've been in limbo this whole time. I thought from 18 months to nearly 3 years post-stroke, that I've been doing a great job of healing and becoming present again... but maybe I have to allow that old life, that previous relationship, that man I loved with all of my heart... maybe I have to say 'GoodBye' to all of it in order to accept this oh-so-different marriage, life, raising a child, single-driver, life-partnership...

I don't want the memory to fade... but I don't want to stay this mournful, this lonesome, this isolated, this fearful ... I want to move forward.

I thought I was moving forward, but the fear I have tonight of losing a "video image" of the old him is indicating to me that I must be desperately clinging to the old: the old life, the old "rules" we operated under, the old conversations, the old partnership, the old plans, the old hopes, the old frustrations, the old good and the old bad.

The visual I'm seeing is that I'm underwater, holding my breath, dark and deep water surrounds me, the surface is not visible, my face is illuminated though with bright, yellowish light, bubbles sweep from my mouth past my cheeks and into my hair, my eyes are wide and desperate looking, hair floating and billows when disturbed by the bubbles from my mouth, and I'm holding onto these items that give me meaning, give me purpose, give me memories full of love and laughter and connection. They define my 9 years with Wayne before the stroke. They are my entire adult life.... these items are keeping me underwater though... I have to let them go... I have to release them and get to the surface.

But, I keep clinging to these memories, to the identity of Wayne&Julie, to the visual of Wayne walking normally or even running or working in the yard with two strong arms. I cling to the conversations we used to have in the backyard. I visualize him swinging in the hammock and rocking himself with a push-off of his right foot. I cling to the late night two-step dance we would do every Friday night when we got home--Billy Joel, "She's Always a Woman". I cling to our hopes for this house. I cling to our talks about what kinds of parents we would help each other be. I missed just being new-parents with him (as we were in 2008 before the stroke occurred). I hear us goofily singing "Come What May" to each other (from Moulin Rouge) the week of our wedding... over, and over, and over again. LOL :)

I keep holding all of these items close because they don't deserve to be at the bottom of the ocean, deteriorating and being forgotten, and not being re-played over and over again, and his stupid jokes he used to tell laughed at again and again in my head... I want so desperately to hold onto these, but no matter how much I try right now... they are slipping through my fingers. I can't hold on, no matter how much I want to. No matter how much I try to force my mind to remember and see it, to hear it, to just feel it be "normal" one. last. time.