Full Moon.

At night it gets really quiet here, which is a good and bad thing. Good because those loud,awful children are finally in bed sleeping and I can breathe a sigh of relief. Bad because the quiet lets me think. And it lets me walk around this house aimlessly looking at pictures, or his coffee mugs or his running shoes. I cry. I walk away. I look at a picture, I cry some more. Sometimes I stand there and quietly yell "WHY?!?! HOW?!?!" but mainly "Why?! Oh God, please just tell me WHY?" Then I'll shake my head and move along. I'll look at mundane pointless things on the internet ( cuz I don't watch TV), I'll make a sad attempt at doing some housework. I'll cry some more. Usually by 10pm I know all kids are out cold and I go outside.
And here's what you would you see: Me standing out on the porch bundled in a hoodie sweatshirt,a plastic cup of rum and coke in one hand, a cigarette in the other( and I didn't drink or smoke before this), iphone playing Mumford & Sons "After the Storm" on constant repeat, my silent partner in this grief -Frank's sweet,faithful dog Ella sitting beside me. I fixate on a star that is right above the houses across the street. And it's freezing here but I don't care. Because I think about that night and how cold it was. And I think about those last few minutes and what it might have been like for them. I hope they didn't see it coming. I've been told Frank went instantly. I think about how after the helicopters fell and how maybe there was just silence afterwards. How they were just out there in the cold together, but gone. I feel like I NEED to be cold to the bone. That somehow if I think about these things and get cold enough that the disbelief will go away and I'll begin to really truly believe this. Every night I sit out there for a long time and never make any sense of it at all.
I ask God alot of questions. I don't expect answers. I ask Him to take away some of this pain. I ask Him to shield my kids. I ask Him to turn back time. Because surely this, THIS is not how the story was suppose to end. Surely not for Frank or Annie or Luke or Shan. Surely not,God.

I've been watching the moon slowly turn full the past week. Tonight it finally is. Just one more agonizing reminder of our new reality. The full moon.

When Frank left for his 1 year unaccompanied tour in Korea in Sept 2000, I was 20 weeks pregnant with Zoe. And for a year I stood and looked at each full moon, knowing I only had X many more until he was home again. Through year long deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan I counted those full moons. Through 3-4 month training times when he'd be away, I counted those full moons. The full moon made me sad but hopeful. Only 10 more. 7 more. 3 more. 1 more until he's home. Now each moon will take me further away from his last moments with us and it's hard to imagine someday when there will be 3,7,10, 50, 200 moons without him. Just an endless amount of pain and longing.
Tonight I came inside and sat here to write this. Stopped halfway through because Liam, our 3 year old, threw up in his bed. As I was cleaning him off in the bathroom he was crying for his Daddy. "I need him. I need a mommy & a daddy. I need to get a daddy."
God, how is this possible? Why so much pain? Why so much gut wrenching pain? WHY? Surely this is not the story.




The sun,the moon
they have all been blown out
you've left me in the dark
No dawn. No day
I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart.


Cosmic Love, Florence & the Machine