Everybody has that One Ex. Mine Died.

Everybody has that One Ex. Mine Died.

It's been over two months and here I am, still in a mindless wander attempting to comprehend a plethora of emotions and decipher how to navigate my way around how to mourn him.

Today is November 18th and on September 2nd, I'd just woken from a nap and was still lounging in bed when I got the call from one of my best friends. "Terri Jo, I don't know if you know yet, but Tommy died." I'm pretty sure I answered her with utter silence. After a few seconds (that felt more like minutes), she said, "Nobody knew how to tell you. I'm so, so sorry." 

She was talking about my previous ex-boyfriend of eight years. While we hadn't been together for over four years, it was (what I always called) a very "passionate" relationship.

I laid there, speechless and in shock, with no thoughts that could even begin to grasp what I'd just heard. And with every bit of honesty that I can muster within me... I honest-to-God didn't know what to think or how to feel. There were no words. There were no tears. There was only a pressing weight crushing my entire chest that I felt would cave it in at any moment. I can only describe the feeling as an empty and bottomless hole of complete confusion that, in the same breath, was overflowing with utter heartache. I've lost family and friends before (like most people in their mid-forties), but this was a pain that I'd never experienced before until that instant... and it was crippling. I was unprepared for the depth of grief that overwhelmed me. I had gotten through grieving our relationship and now, I was grieving his life. 

Since our breakup, I have been in a long-term, happy and committed relationship with a wonderful man I've known since childhood, so I rolled over and looked at him and said, "Tommy died". The words sounded foreign coming out of my mouth - almost a far off reverberation... as if from the end of a long, dark tunnel. And then... an all-consuming buildup of guilt and shame reared its ugly head that I still haven't been quite able to shake since. I mean, I have been in a happy relationship for all these years and I knew that Tommy had still been searching for his new "normal". To say there was an upheaval of emotions is putting it ever so slightly- which were both both complex and contradictory. 

Although we had been living our separate lives for over four years, an indescribable ocean of emotions bubbled to the surface when I received that dreaded call and memories began reeling in my mind. We shared millions of moments in those eight years and the news opened up the floodgates to all of them. The majority of those memories were wonderful, however.. there were also many that were not.

With that being said, I would be lying to myself (and to anyone else) if I said that I never expected that phone call. I just figured it would be when he was in his mid-60s... not 49. 

When I say that Tommy and I shared a very "passionate" relationship - it was on both ends of the spectrum. We loved hard and fought hard and were determined to stay together through it all, come hell or high water. No matter how much love we really did have for one another, it was never the healthiest of relationships (even very tumultuous at times). In the end, addictions were the biggest part of our breakup and I began to realize that I only enabled it. I was ready to change and he wasn't. Sometimes, you can only save yourself - at whatever the cost. As a couple, we were kind of like 'the perfect storm': two people who lived life like hurricanes and then, collided, pretty much creating a megastorm and spiraling out of control. Or maybe it was more like the Fujiwhara Effect... one storm weakening another. 

At any rate, it was extremely difficult to maintain any kind of friendship afterwards when things ended. Things had gotten pretty ugly and we were both left with many unresolved feelings and/or apologies. To make matters worse, we still lived together almost seven months afterwards, which made a tough situation almost unbearable at times. It wasn't easy on our families or any of our friends either. Once he moved out, I moved on and knew he struggled some during that time; but never in a million years did I ever believe his beautiful life would be stolen so soon. 

Similar to this complex relationship, maneuvering my way around grieving him has been hard and extremely confusing. It's been a difficult journey to 1) acknowledge, 2) search to comprehend, 3) navigate through and then 4) attempt to translate all of the emotions. There's really no compass that can point you in the right direction. We weren't just the good-time Friday and Saturday nights; we were also the Monday mornings and mundane house cleaning - for eight years. We attended countless festivals and concerts together. We celebrated so many weddings and grieved at funerals together. We shared family holidays and events. We experienced milestone moments and simple every day life in those eight years. 

For several weeks after his death, I received countless phone calls, texts and messages from family and friends sending their condolences. This too, makes me feel guilty at times... especially since the breakup was so hard. My boyfriend didn't really know what to say or do. Neither did my family or friends. Hell... I had no idea how to handle his death and still don't. In a situation like ours, there is no formula or recipe to follow the "norm" of mourning someone you once loved with your entire heart (and that, I did - beyond a shadow of a doubt) but broke up and haven't been together in a very long time. For me, it's proving to definitely be a complicated grief. If it's said we only fall in love with three people in our lifetime, he was my great second. The article mentions there's something heartbreakingly unique about that second love, for me... it's pretty spot on. How do you mourn a once-upon-a-time-great-love, without giving disservice to the current love of your life?

Bless my beau's heart, he tries to comfort me during the (few and far between) times that I open up to him about Tommy losing his life. For obvious reasons, there was never really any love lost between those two. One thing that I did do was reach out to his sisters right away. I spilled my heart to them and was able to find comfort in being able to share the whirlwind of emotions that I was feeling... that we were all feeling. 

Mourning a life from an explosive relationship when you're in a very happy one is almost like tip-toeing around a landmine field. It's been difficult to find a boundary with an ultra large radius for my emotional survival. I know myself. I know if I don't give Tommy's life the mourning it deserves, it will be so unfortunate when I "step" on one of these mines. In the same breath, I don't want to step on another that's in my boyfriend's part of the field. I chose HIM even while Tommy was alive, but I know it must be hard for him to see me mourning another man from a previous life that he was not a part of or privy to. Well, at least during the good times, because he was there to bear witness to the end. 

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UPDATE:
It's been awhile since I've sat down and added to this piece. It's been part of my 'therapy', so to speak. I started it a week before Thanksgiving and now, we're only a couple of days away from Christmas.

They say that there are seven stages of grief and I find myself teetering between all of them almost daily. 

• Disbelief, shock and denial
• Pain and guilt
• Anger and bargaining
• Depression
• The upper turn
• Reconstruction and working through
• Acceptance and hope

Tommy's obituary was short and sweet, but oh... were there ever so many more stories that could've been shared about him. He loved to dance; anywhere, anytime and with anyone! When a song came on that he loved, he would get goosebumps up and down his arms. He loved his family fiercely and would take the shirt off his back for his friends. When he smiled, his eye lit up and he loved wholeheartedly. If there is any person I knew that was one-of-a-kind... Tommy was that person.

I would not be the person that I am without having loved him. I was forever changed by who he was and what he meant to me. His death doesn't just mark the end of chapters and chapters in my life's story... but many books. Our story wasn't just a single novel - it was a collective series. So many were filled with laughter and some were filled with heartbreak... but they were ALL filled with love. As a couple, we were proof that 'sometimes love just ain't enough'. 

I ran across a quote not long after I got the call about Tommy: "There are moments that mark your life, moments when you realize that nothing will ever be the same. And time is divided into two parts: before this and after this." - His death holds that for me. Part of me died with him that day and I don't know if that girl will ever be able to be recovered. Knowing that he was no longer a part of my life was one thing... but knowing that I will never again see him walking downtown or ever hear him say 'hello' is completely another. 

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UPDATE #2:
We're now in the middle of March and for four months, this post has patiently remained as one of my many blog "drafts". It's been over six months since Tommy's passing and it's still no easier to comprehend my new "normal" as it was then. Since my last update, his family had a Celebration of Life for Tommy. I didn't attend. I did actually plan on attending early - just for his family, prior to all of those friends from that past lifetime's arrival... but one of my best friends planned a weekend at the beach for us to escape. My mom did go and share some time with his family, which meant a lot to both our families. While I wasn't physically in our hometown... that's definitely where I was mentally.

I have extremely high anxiety and have suffered a few panic attacks and because of this, found it hard to continue talking with Tommy's sisters regularly about him. In fact, I haven't spoken to them since Christmas. Though, I do plan on reaching out to give them the rest of his things he never picked up when he moved out (CDs galore {for his sisters}, a rocking chair {for his niece}, a djembe drum {for one of his nephews}, his hippie decorative knick-knacks {for his other two nephews}, a ton of clothes and some of his work "stuff"). 

I think going through and gathering all those things and remembering when he wore certain items or when he purchased certain concert t-shirts, where we were and what we were doing when we listened to certain CDs, the countless number of drum circles we played in (or just by ourselves in the living room), where he displayed those knick-knacks... all of those memories helped to settle my heart. 

While I still have many feelings of guilt from the oh-so-many "what-if's", I also know in my heart that God always has a plan. I believe this was simply Tommy's path and there is absolutely nothing that I could go back and do differently that would change that. His life's story was already set into motion by the time I entered it. 

I'm grateful for having been given the opportunity to love him and share that intimate life together - even if it was sometimes far from "easy". I like to believe that the lessons we learned from our plethora of mundane to the milestone moments for those eight years made us better people in the end. 

It's happening in baby steps, but I think I've finally found my way to the seventh stage of accepting that I will never see his fantastic smile anywhere except for my memories and in photos or hear that laugh anywhere but videos. I do get little "messages" from heaven all the time, which is so comforting... and that gives me great hope that he will be one of the first welcoming faces I see when it's my turn to cross those pearly gates. 

Until then, godspeed, Tommy. In my heart... always.

"We loved with a love that was more than love." EAP