I find myself thinking so much of Donnie lately. I am just trying to remember every facial expression every laugh. I want to dream about him. I only have twice. The first time I dreamed of him, he was still sick and he was mad at me and wouldn’t speak to me. Then a month or so ago when I was struggling so hard with wanting to be happy again, I dreamed of him again. This time it was young healthy Donnie. He still had his hair, (His full head of hair) and he was wearing that purple pinstriped LSU shirt that I forgot he even had. It was so good to see him. He didn’t speak to me but he took my face in his hands and looked me in the eyes and I felt that he was telling me that it was ok for me to want to be happy again. God, I miss him. I miss him so much. I go thru the motions everyday and some days I find myself smiling and then there are moments that I have when it hits me all over again that I won’t ever see him again and it’s like some dropped a house on me again. I miss his smile and the sound of his laugh and I miss the way he talked with his hands. I miss the way that he titled his head to the side and looked “up” at me smiling when he disagreed with me and was trying to make his point. Oh what I wouldn’t give for just one more day, one more hug, one more word, one more laugh, or even one more minute with him. There are days that I think that I am strong and I will get thru this and then there are days (lots of them) that I wonder how I can ever go on without him. I find myself second guessing every decision I make. The smallest decisions and tasks can still be so overwhelming.

I think that people tend to associate grieving like climbing a mountain It’s like we are moving upwards climbing and then when we get to the top of the mountain, we see light, climb up and rejoin the world and we are ok again. If only that is how easy it was. As you climb this mountain, you struggle and climb , sometimes you are blindfolded and you don’t know which way is up and sometimes you slip and sometimes you fall, so bumped and bruised, you get up and climb again. It takes everything you have got and then you reach the top and pull yourself up and feel like maybe you are getting somewhere and as you stand up and look around you see that you aren’t there yet. You look around and ahead and as far as you can see, there are mountains to climb. So you almost tumble back down that mountain you just climbed and battered and bleeding, you get up and try again. Hopefully you don’t stay down at the bottom of the mountain long but sometimes it takes a while to gather the courage to start climbing again. Sometimes your friends are at the top of the mountain encouraging you to get up there. And then there are times that they are not, they live in a different world from you now. but they don’t even realize it. Each time I reach the top of one of my mountains, it’s easy to get discouraged looking ahead at the mountains left to climb. So all I can hope is that one day that I become stronger and it isn’t so hard to climb that mountain and that the mountains will become smaller. Hopefully I can stay on top of the mountain longer each time before I fall again.