Feeling the Pain

Loss, to me, has been a crazy and absurd journey. There are times when my body physically aches, my heart feels like it is being squeezed and I can’t get enough air in, and there are moments of peace, of starting to understand that I will be ok and that I am being carried through this.

Today I will talk about the pain of loss. I do so with the hope that someone else may relate, my words may resonate with you and help you feel not alone. Because, you are not.

The times of deep ache, for me, come when I really think about my husband. When I see videos and pictures. I am instantly reminded that the person I knew better than anyone else on this earth, and who knew my every thought, is not here. I will never again get to rely on his wisdom to help me through the day or rely on his kiss to make the world disappear. This is torture. The word torture is the best way I have found to describe this longing. I don’t believe there are earthly words to truly describe it, so I will stick with torture. I mean, the word torture, to me, ignites the deepest fire of sadness, and that is what I feel.

When I think of the last 5 years, more than half of the memories are shared by only Curt. He is the only person that shares that thought, story, feeling, or sense. I can no longer talk to, and get an answer back, from him regarding those thoughts. This realization is one of the hardest. It feels as though those memories are being held hostage until I see him again. Those years of my life don’t feel as crisp, I have to rely on only myself to recall the memory. The way we felt the first time we walked on South East Asia soil, the way we felt as we sprawled out on the ground in our middle of nowhere to look at the stars, the way we felt when he got down on one knee on the side of the Skagit River with all his courage and shakiness.. Memory after memory, my list could fill ten thousand sheets.

When I think about his body, the perfect gorgeous, fit, body that I followed up and down countless trails, is no longer here. I long with every essence of my soul, to follow those legs up a trail, to reach the top and have his arm around my neck, have him kiss my forehead and tell me how he knows that together, me and him can do anything.

When I see a video of him talking it is like this never happened. He is here. The video brings into play the normalcy of my husband that I know so well. Him telling a story and giving advice. Talking as he has for thousands of hours to me, over quiet dinners, under comfy blankets, on a plane, on a trail, in this country and far off lands.

I often think of my husbands hands. His perfect, manly hands that could be strong as nails when needed and soft as satin when he wanted to be tender. I can see their every outline, and feel their touch. His meticulous hands, working to get our boats just right or cook me an awesome meal.Torture is definitely the only word that fits.

I know his every smirk, his every way of speaking, his silly, his serious, his passion. I know it all and I have come to understand that our brains are not wired to understand or compute the loss of our everyday normal.

As those of you who have lost a spouse know, there are hundreds of these memories that can go from being a comforting memory to a torturous thought, all in the course of an instant. I think it all depends on the state that you are in at the time. If you are having one of those hours where you are feeling like maybe you can do this, maybe you got this, then perhaps the memory would ignite a smile. But, if you are having an hour where you feel like the thought of going another instant without your love is unbearable, then the memory can feel like you are being held hostage. And, for me, I do what is now my normal, I start crying, and this time it is the deep wailing of crying that I would wish on no one. The kind where you don’t make sense, you cry out and sob uncontrollably. A very, very dark place. A place where you are very aware of the hole in your heart, the aching hole that seems to be the only thing that matters in the world.

Although, I know we can do this, we can move forward with strength and grace from Jesus, it doesn’t mean that it is easy. It is torture and it is not easy. Strength on the outside, a small child’s weakness on the inside. And, maybe that’s as it should be, the bible says “The Lord protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and then he saved me” Psalm 116:6. I feel like a small child, weak and scared, I feel that I, myself, am facing death. It is my faith and my hope that the Lord hears our prayers, knows our heart, and will continue to carry all of us and protect us through our greatest storm on earth.

Understanding the Reason

In 2009, my world shifted. I found the person who completed my soul. I found the person who helped me see myself, for all my beauty and all my strength. The person who brought out my silly, made me do happy dances constantly, called me by pet names, and knew every curve of my body.

On March 18th, 2014 my world shifted once again. The love of my life, my beautiful and passionate husband, left his body to be with our Lord. He was on a 12 day kayaking adventure in Grand Canyon National Park with 9 of his close friends. He was found upside down, in calm water, and non responsive. No one knows what happened. He was here one moment and gone the next. Curt was a class 5 kayaker with skills and abilities that would impress us all. There is no reason why he wouldn’t pull his skirt and get out of his boat. The investigation found no contributing factor as to why he drowned and I believe that we will never know the reason while we are on this earth. So, what do you do with that information? How do you move forward with a question mark hung above your head? I’ll tell you how I am doing it, with faith and grace from God. Through this hard and unimaginable pain I have determined that the why, and the reasons, are bigger than we are able to see, but that we will know someday. Let me explain.

The night I received the call and was told that my husband died, is a complete blur yet clear at the same time. If that makes sense. I knew before the call that something was wrong, I had received a call from rescue people that something had gone wrong but that they had no information yet. I knew something went wrong on the canyon, I knew someone was hurt, but I didn’t know what or who or why. When I was handed the phone with anticipation of hearing my love’s voice, eagerly crying out to him to tell me what happened, it was not him on the other line. Brett, his best friend, was waiting to tell me that the other half of my soul had passed away on the river that day. I knew when I heard his voice. It is the moment that my life changed forever, and the moment that I feel part of myself died as well. After that it is a blur. People were talking and crying and living and I felt that I was not there.  So, the best I have to describe it is clear yet foggy at the same time. The darkest time I could have ever imagined possible.

All of that said, through this dark, dark walk, all of us who were closest to Curt on this earth, me, his family, my family, we all have expressed to each other that we know that Curt is ok. We have expressed that this world is bigger than we are and so is the reason that Curt was taken from us so soon. We know that we can not do this life on our own, and now, more than ever, we rely on our Creator to carry us and lead us through this long and curvy road. What is also amazing is the fact that not only do we all know this and have felt it during the darkest times of our lives, Curt was filmed on camera the same day he died, saying the same thing. Expressing that this world, this amazing, vast, and raw earth, is bigger than we are and we can not do it on our own. If we all agree on this fact, my beautiful husband and those of us who are left here with gut wrenching pain, then how can it not be true?

So, how do we move forward with a question mark over our head and not knowing what caused my husband to drown? I do so because I know that this world has shifted because of Curt’s death. It is bigger than we are and I know that we will know the reason one day. Even during the deepest, darkest hours of the first few days after finding out about my husbands death, I felt that this was always the time, it was already set, that he was going to go home to be with our Lord on March 18th 2014. I can't explain it, and I don't even really know what I mean by it. What I do know now is that Curt is not hurting, Curt is alright. He is with our Lord and he now knows the secrets of the world that we all long to know. He knows of our beautiful paths that we all are left here to walk down. He knows the hurt and the sorrow that we feel, but he also knows the in-depth opposite of those realities. He knows the pure joy and magnificent light that awaits us. He knows we will be ok. He knows that we will persevere and grow. This is what keeps me going. This is how I breath every day and put one foot in front of the other.

Video of Curt's trip on the Canyon