Every year for awhile now I write notes to my daughters for Valentine's Day. Sure I could buy them a card but once I started the letters it became a tradition. They keep them from year to year. I always loved Valentine's Day. I could never get tired of hearing those three words I LOVE YOU! Now Valentine's Day is a hard day for me. It will be 1 1/2 years since Ray passed away. I would give anything to hear him say I Love You just one more time.
I have been having a rough few days lately. I'm just so tired. Yesterday I slept until 1pm and then went back to sleep a little after four and slept until after seven. I got online for awhile and went back to bed by midnight. I really am not doing as well as I lead people to believe. I've gotten good about hiding my real feelings. I try to focus on something to keep my mind from straying. During the week I can not wait for Friday's. It's my favorite day of the week now. The thing I focus on most is graduation day. Eleni will graduate June 6th. Anything beyond that is just too much for me to handle. I'm worried how we will make it with everything getting so ridiculously high. I need to find a place for us to move that I can afford. Some days I just don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to be the go to person who will make everything better. I can't but help wanting to be with my husband. I can not put into words just how much I miss him. I don't know how people do it. How do you move on when you are lost in so much grief. I used to love being with my friends and old neighbors. I still love them all but it just reminds me of my life before. I so miss my old life. Believe me when I say it was far from perfect. Ray became ill for the first time in 1993. I was nine months pregnant with Eleni. That's when Ray was diagnosed with kidney failure. He started dialysis 2 days before she was born. In 1994 Ray's sister gave him a kidney. It went in and out of rejection a lot of hospital time. In 1998 Ray was having chest pains a week later he was having quadruple bypass. In 1998 Ray's kidney went into complete rejection which meant he was back on dialysis. In 2001 Ray received another kidney from a cadiver donor. Ray did very well until 2006 he had a few minor strokes. They did a cat Scan and he had some brain damage to the left side of his brain. He picked himself back up and did ok until 2009. He started having bad leg cramps and tired after walking awhile. Back to the Dr only to hear Ray had blockages in his legs. I was out of work and we had no insurance at the time. We had talked about after we moved him having his legs worked on. That way he would have been on my insurance a year. Ray didn't make it after his 2010 hospital stay. This all started when he was 24 years old. My dad keeps telling me how lucky Ray was to live as long as he did. It doesn't feel like luck if feels like a slap in the face. You try so hard to do the right things and you just keep getting knocked back down. My whole adult life was about taking care of Ray and my girls. Ray and I were looking forward to it being just us after Eleni graduated. We never got the chance to be just us. Even though I am looking forward to Eleni graduating it's also a reminder of a time I was looking forward to the most. I guess you could say I have a huge whole in my heart and it's just getting bigger.
Sorry for such another long post. I hope you all have a Happy Valentine's Day filled with LOVE!
Donna
