Moving Forward… Slowly

Every day I tell myself, “Today I’m going to get it in gear.” So far, still out of gear.

I am trying very hard to keep forward momentum. It seems to be the best idea for a person in my situation. It’s not to say that I don’t think about George a lot. I do. All the time. But I’m pretty sure I can do that for as long as I want, as much as I want, for the rest of my life. Right now, I have a 7 year old daughter who is desperate to see that her mom is still going to be okay. Because of that, I can’t curl up in a fetal position and refuse to get up. No matter how much I’d like to.

Last night was Halloween. We went trick or treating, Sara, Lily, Scout and I. It was sad for me, because George loved Halloween, and he loved to hang out in front of the house and scare the neighborhood kids. Lots of kids came by, probably looking for him. Our lights were out on the front of the house because I couldn’t figure out how to change the lightbulbs in the dark. George changed the lightbulbs. So we had a dark house, but we had lots of candy, and my mom and sister gave it out to whoever came by, by the handfuls.

Sara, Scout and I went out with Lily and our next door neighbor and her friend. The girls walked ahead, laughing and skipping. Sara and I dragged along behind. We were tired after about 5 houses, but we followed them quite a long way before we asked them to start back toward home. They asked if they could go a bit longer by themselves.

I thought about what George would think of Lily out by herself at night, trick or treating. “No,” I said,”We’ll go with you if you want to keep going.” No way I’m taking chances with Lily, especially after what happened to George. For the rest of my life, I will never, ever, think, “That won’t happen to us,” about anything. I know now that anything can happen, and it can happen to me.

Lily was pretty okay about going out without George. She didn’t mention him except to say she wished he could see her costume.

She looked great. She wanted to be Medusa, and instead of making her costume like I usually do, I bought one. But I did embellish it a bit, and I piled on the fake hair. She had four hairpieces and it looked fabulous. I wished George could see her too. She cracked us up, saying, “Look into my eyes and I’ll turn you to stone!” to the hapless people who opened their doors.

On other fronts, I’m waiting  for the architect to send me plans for the new house in Asheville. I have asked for a guest area so we can invite people to see us there. I’m hoping friends will visit us often, and that we will be happy in our new home. We’re full of plans of what it might be like. Lily wants a micro mini horse. She wants a dwarf goat. She wants a micro pig. She pretty much wants anything tiny with with legs.

I want a retreat. A place to be happy. A good place for Lily to grow up, and have birthday parties and sleepovers. We need a safe haven, and I’m hoping Asheville is the place.

But when I think about living there without George, I get very sad. Ten years of living together is a long time, and its going to be very, very lonely for me. I miss him, and I know I always will. He filled our life with unexpected things. He was good at making every day different and new. Now I am struggling to do the same for Lily, and I’m just not as good at it as he was. But I love her and I’m trying very hard to get it in gear. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, I will.

Related posts:

1. Milestones
2. The Building Begins
3. Swan Dive
4. We Sure Did Laugh
5. Old Habits Die Hard

Tagged as: Asheville, george maddox, grief, halloween, lily maddox, lisa maddox, medusa costume, relocation, SARA BYRD