I never thought I’d see the day that I wouldn’t see your face. Looking back, God, I wish I had known that I’d love you then have to let go, ’cause you brought out the best in me. You always saw a light no one else could see. I know that you’re gone, but I promise I won’t forget. I wish that I could call you up just to hear your voice … that would be enough … and we’d laugh like we’re back at the start and pretend we’re not falling apart. And sometimes we would hurt each other, but you saved me from going under. We didn’t last forever, but I won’t forget ya. Thanks for the memories. Here’s to the memories! I miss you more than you know.
Thank you for all the memories, ’cause I’m sure You know what they mean to me. (They mean that I’m still alive and well enough to remember them.) You are The One who gives me peace when they’re no one left and hold me close at my loneliest. Here’s to all my beautiful memories!
He could’ve bowed out gracefully, but he didn’t. He knew enough to know to leave well enough alone, but he wouldn’t.
(“Every Day” … Rascal Flatts)
On “THIS Day” 10 Years Ago: She’d been throwing up the entire night before and I was completely exhausted. He was still working as a personal trainer at Lifetime then, so, he’d cancelled all his clients to stay home and help me since I could barely function. I’d left them in the living room of our tiny little one-bedroom apartment watching Dora The Explorer and doing puzzles while I took a quick nap. This picture is what I awoke to.
On “THIS Day” 10 Years Ago:The Frog was hard core rocking that real estate license of his, bound and determined to POOF me into a queen and her into a princess … which he did eventually do, because THEN …
On “THIS Day” 8 Years Ago: Our beautiful little family had just landed in paradise with the man who vowed to give us everything, EVERY DAY, not the least of which were a lifetime’s worth of “travel “great adventures” to any place he could manage to take us.
I can only smile and thank God profusely that I got to be his wife. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I was, am, and will always be THE luckiest woman on the face of this planet that he really was “MINE ALL MINE!” and only ever MINE (and hers) “Every Day” that he was ours.
Although the album it was born from wasn’t released until this day—a few months after Zack’s suicide—and thus I couldn’t actually use it at his funeral, “Godspeed” is perhaps one of the most epic songs of not just MY life, but all of yours as well … except that you might not know it yet. For those of you who don’t know who Alter Bridge is, or the meaning behind the song:
“Godspeed” is the fourth track featured on their latest studio album, Walk the Sky, which was released on Napalm Records. The lyrics are profound and compelling and they hit the listener like a shot in the heart. Anybody who has ever lost anybody special in their lives can relate to its raw and authentic lyrics. It is upbeat and mid-tempo and it allows the band to carry their message across. The tune feels like a celebration of an influential person’s life. Lead guitarist Mark Tremonti wrote “Godspeed” in loving memory of his late dear friend, Seth Luker, and the song was so personal to him that it has struck a chord with their fans and listeners from all over the world. In a post on his social media pages, Tremonti praised Luker for being “the best” and “pure class.” Front-man Myles Kennedy allows his rich, harking voice to capture the essence of the lyrics of “Godspeed.” It is a controlled, soothing and captivating vocal performance, all in one. “Farewell, godspeed, and goodbye, you have lived and you have changed all our lives, cast away our regrets and all our fears, just like, like you did when you were here” Kennedy sings in the chorus. Overall, “Godspeed” is a fitting tribute by Mark Tremonti to his late friend, and Myles Kennedy and the rest of the band simply knock it out of the ballpark; moreover, it is a powerful song about living with loss and healing. Listeners should have a Kleenex box nearby as it deserves to be enjoyed for its beauty and melancholy. Each time this journalist listens to this song, it feels like it was written for him in memory of his best friend as well, and that goes to show the power of Alter Bridge’s songwriting and storytelling, and the message embedded in their music. “Godspeed” garners an A+ rating, and it ought to be released as a single at some point in the near future since it is bound to have a positive impact on people’s lives.
If you’ve never heard it, please listen to it now. It’s a powerful song that people from all walks of life need in their repertoire—a tribute to the profound impact one person’s life can have on another, and a reminder that music can sometimes help us find a little of the peaceful closure we need when someone we love has departed.
Of course, I love anything Alter Bridge—but every time I hear this one … and I play it almost daily … all I can do is look to the sky, smile, and thank GOD that we got to walk the EARTH with that king of ours at our six for the beautiful season we got to have him. Do I miss him? Yes. Do I still cry sometimes? Umm … YUP! Believe it or not, though, every single tear I’ve shed has been as big a gift as all of the pain.
In my lifetime, I have had either the unfortunate or very fortunate (depending on how you look at it) privilege of discovering just how many different ways there are to die, both literally and figuratively. Through it all, though, getting to love you and be loved by you taught me this one most powerful thing …
Indeed, there are many ways a person can die, but there’s only one way a person can live … with unbridled, unwavering, and truly unconditional love. If my love alone could have saved you, you would surely have lived forever, as those are the ways I loved you. I still forgive you for leaving us the way you did to wander in this garden without you, and no matter how awful this world may ever seem to be, the story of “me” will always be extraordinarily beautiful because you were in it.
A Chinese Proverb that I’ve grown to love says:
It is better to be a warrior in a garden then a gardener at war.
With that, it is my truest prayer that as you’re looking down on me now and then through your supernova telescope in stars, that you’re proud of the warrior queen I’ve become as I tend to this garden we started together alone.
As I’m sure you already know, I’m God’s actual favorite daughter, and perhaps my greatest victory in this life has been in accepting and embracing my divinely appointed purpose of punctuating this seemingly Godforsaken world with as much of the Light I can find and wield.
I’m learning how to pick my battles much better day by day, because if loving you and getting to be a part of your story taught me anything, it’s that peace is always better than war … especially when it comes to the wars we fight from within. It still breaks my heart when I think of all the ways you suffered here having never truly found your own peace within. Pray GOD that you finally have now.
Just because you won’t be here for the full bounty of what my heart had to give you, it doesn’t mean it’s still not there. There are an infinite number of universes out there where I can and do still walk with you, talk with you, laugh with you, and am held by you in the ever-growing gardens of my mind.
While it’s no big secret that loving you changed my life forever, losing you has done the same, because it was all the love you poured into me that helped me find all this power and grace. These abundant gifts you left behind are mine to keep until the day I move on to the brighter side of grey and leave it all behind for my babies. I will love you eternally, Zachariah.
At this point in my life, I have become a staunch proponent of leaving the past in the past, because looking in the rearview mirror can do much more harm than good if you haven’t reached that threshold yet where even beautiful memories can level you. That being said, I am also wise enough to know that sometimes you really do have to look backwards in order to keep moving forward. Not only is studying the past the best way to either repeat or not repeat certain cycles, mistakes, triumphs and even people, it can also be where the most authentic looks at ourselves can be found.
For example, the famous “Cheeseburger & Tears” text between Christian and Zack from November 12, 1996, that I recently saw on his phone again. Trust me when I tell you that everything in my soul wanted to burst into tears when I saw it, but then something prolific just washed right over my heart and stopped the tears that were filling my eyes literally dead in their tracks. It was a poignant look at myself through another person’s eyes and words:
I have my own major flaws that your mom doesn’t talk about because she always thinks the best of everyone.
Indeed, it’s true. I really do always think the best of everyone. Well, at least I try to that is. It’s both a major character flaw and a major character perk, depending on “what” or who is on the receiving end of my seemingly bottomless pit of forgiveness. Even now with my boundaries as firmly BOUND and in place as possible, my heart is as ever more marshmallow than steel. I mean, don’t get me wrong, a fortress I truly am, especially when it comes to “peopling“, and as a living queen, I accept nothing less than everything.
At the end of the day, though, as I was sitting with Zack’s phone in my hand trying to decide whether to cry or smile, it was the latter of the two that won the prize. This “Cheeseburger & Tears” text reminded me once again of not just who I am, but that I was truly and unconditionally loved justlike I am, which as we all know is one of the many reasons I’m still sitting here at all with the insurmountable and unconditional love I now have for myself.
Inasmuch as I’ve come to adore Rascal Flatts over the years, of course they were the background music for our many road trip adventures. With that, I cannot tell you how many times this song must have cued up, at which point we’d always lock hands (if they weren’t already locked) and I’d get the “three squeeze I love you“. So, today as I’m listening to it, I’m tweaking the words and singing it to him out loud:
Lying here without you, I know you watch me sleep. The dawn is closing in with every breath I breathe. I can feel the change – the change you made in me. And now I truly see all the things you saw in me. When you said that I was one of a kind. Baby, I couldn’t see it, but you believed that I’m so strong and true. I promise you – I’ll always be this kind of girl, because loved me like I am.
Okay, and just for the record, NOW I’m actually crying my eyes out. Good grief. It’s okay. They’re happy tears, not sad ones. Well, maybe just a little sad. Okay, I’m done.
So, I have a very special message for all of you from both the dearly departed and very much loved Chester Bennington, who, too, shared the same fate as my husband – AND – from God Himself. It’s pretty easy to decipher – so – here it goes …
When you feel you’re alone – cut off from this cruel world – your instincts telling you to run. Listen to your heart. Those angel voices. They’ll see you to you – they’ll be your guide back home. When life leaves us blind – LOVE KEEPS US KIND. It keeps us kind. When you suffered it all, and your spirit is breaking. You’re growing desperate from the fight – REMEMBER YOUR LOVED – and you always will be. This melody will always bring you right back home. When life leaves us blind – LOVE KEEPS US KIND. It keeps us kind.
{Chester Bennington … Linkin’ Park}
And now a message from ME. It’s also pretty easy to decipher – so – here it goes:
Chin Up!
Knuckles Out!
Don’t let all the darkness in this world snuff out your beautiful light and make you lose faith in the power of kindness and love.
… and again with these Facebook “Memories” that either are or are not driving me insane!
“7 years ago” today …
… how selfish of someone who has everything in the world to commit suicide”. Just read that complete and total bullshit and it’s so beyond infuriating. It’s called depression people, and it knows no boundaries! As if someone actually wakes up one morning and says “Okay, I’m feeling kind of selfish today so I think I’ll just asphyxiate myself”. Been there, done that. It means a human being is in SO much unbearably excruciating pain, sometimes both mentally AND physically, that the only escape they see or “feel” from the noose around their own heart is sleep. It’s the ultimate end to the many broken voices in their mind. Don’t judge. Instead, be on your knees thanking your God that you’ve never been in such a deafeningly silent place. Seriously? And by the way, someone please define “everything”. If someone has “everything” they must not become depressed?
Little did I know what was lying in wait ahead of me just “5 years and 11 days later”.
If you’ve been following this Diary, you know that, yes, I have forgiven him for everything he did, which, PS, is more than anyone can fathom. As I’ve cryptically said before, there is so much more that happened in his bat-shit fucking CRAZY psychosis than the world outside of our immediate family will ever know.
Short of that, NO, I still don’t think that suicide is selfish. You see, I, too, have been in that place and survived my own suicide attempt on November 8,1996. So, with that, I say this, and will hold steadfast to this thought eternally: If you think that suicide is selfish, then you’ve obviously never been truly suicidal yourself. So, consider yourself very lucky, because even ANGEL’S fall!
WHEN ANGELS FALL
I tried try to face the fight within, but it’s over. I’m ready for the riot to begin and surrender. I walked the path that led me to the end. Remember. I’m caught beneath with nothing left to give forever. When angels fall with broken wings – I can’t give up, I can’t give in. When all is lost and daylight ends, I’ll carry you and we will live forever. Forever. Grey skies will chase the light away no longer. I fought the fight, now only dark remains. Forever. Divided I will stand, and I will let this end. When angels fall with broken wings – I can’t give up, I can’t give in. When all is lost and daylight ends, I’ll carry you and we will live forever. Forever. The Sun begins to rise and wash away the sky. The turning of the tide. Don’t leave it all behind! And I will never say goodbye – when angels fall.
The Shawshank Redemption was Zack’s favorite movie of all time. To him, it screamed “hope” in every circumstance. And despite the obviously tragic ending, trust me when I tell you that he tried not to literally lose his mind and fall apart the way he did. Ironically, we watched it together for probably the twentieth time the weekend before he died, and he cried the whole way through it. Looking back, I know in my heart that, as he was watching it for the very last time, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to hang on much longer, and that all the “hope” he had tried so hard to find was fast coming to a screeching halt. We’d talked incessantly about what he was feeling in his heart and mind, and towards the end, he just kept saying it felt like he was trapped inside a prison. Five nights later, he was gone.
In here is where it makes the most sense … you need it so you don’t forget … that there are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone … that there’s something inside that they can’t get to … they can’t touch … it’s yours … hope.
Having done a little investigating, I was able to speak with one of the first responders at the scene the morning of August 23rd, who was kind enough to answer some of the questions I needed answers to. He said that when they found him, the car was still running, and the opera music playing inside was so loud they could hear it through the windows. I can’t know for certain what Zack was listening to at the end. But knowing him, I have often imagined it was his favorite musical masterpiece of all, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro—the music from his favorite scene in the movie:
Here’s the thing …
There are so many questions I’ll never have answers to, and even more things I’ll never understand. Only God and Zack know what was going through his mind while he was alone in that car during those last dark hours, minutes, and seconds. Even if it’s true that I will see him again in another place and time, and even if I do get to meet God one day, there is still no assurance that ponderings such as these will be part of the conversations to be had—much less that I’ll even know I once pondered them at all. In “the opera scene,” Red said …
I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it.
Likewise, I have no idea what Zack was really thinking about—or “listening to”—in the very last seconds of his life. I never will. But I’d like to think …
He was thinking about something so beautiful it just couldn’t be expressed in words. That despite how badly his heart was aching, perhaps he could still see a Light at the end of the very dark tunnel his life on Earth had become—and maybe that Light was the last bit of “hope” he was clinging to.
A friend of mine posted something on his social media recently that really hit me hard:
The inability to receive support from others is a trauma response. Your “I don’t need anyone; I’ll just do it all myself” conditioning is a survival tactic. You needed it to shield your heart from the abuse, neglect, betrayal, and disappointment from those who could not or would not be there for you. From the parent who was absent and abandoned you, perhaps by choice. From the parent didn’t intend to abandon you but was never home because they were working three jobs to feed and house you. From the lovers who offered sexual intimacy, but never offered a safe haven to honor your heart. From friendships and family who ALWAYS took more than they ever gave. From all the situations when someone told you, “We’re in this together” or “I got you”, then, they ended up leaving you behind to pick up all the pieces when shit got real … leaving you to handle not just your part, but sometimes their part, too, in the messes that were made in your life. From all of those lies and betrayals along the way, you learned that you just really couldn’t trust people – OR – that you COULD trust people, but only up to that point when “being there for you” was convenient or not such a hassle for them.
Let me tell you why this post REALLY upset me …
“The fortress” that is being spoken of in this post? He was my husband!He’s still my son! She was my daughter! SHE WAS ME! “A fortress” is what so many kids are becoming today, even as I write this, and I’m sickened to say that because there are certain parenting and lifestyle choice boundaries that are just not okay to cross, I have sometimes had to sit silently and helplessly as so many parents I know literally decimate their children right in front of my eyes!
Yes, I’m a queen. Yes, I’m healed, risen, and SOARING after a lifetime of hiding behind the fortress walls that I built for myself. Yes, I’m thankful for every thing, person, and situation that broke me, because I wouldn’t have had anything to ascend from had I not come from all these ashes. I would never have known how to recognize or receive true, unconditional love, grace, acceptance, and kindness from the very few people who have ever offered it to me had I not had to live behind my own walls.
EXTREME INDEPENDENCE IS A TRUST ISSUE!
You learned: “If I don’t put myself in a situation where I really rely on someone, I won’t have to be disappointed when they don’t show up for me – OR – “WHEN they drop the ball … because they WILL drop the ball EVENTUALLY!” – OR – “When they SLAM the ball back in my face because they just got fucking SICK of helping me carry it around!”
You may even have been intentionally taught this protection strategy by generations of hurt ancestors who came before you.
You may even have been unintentionally taught this protection strategy by generations of the hurt ancestors who came before you, and you don’t even know it. As we all know, many toxic family traits are general in nature.
EXTREME INDEPENDENCE IS A PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST HEARTBREAK!
So, you don’t trust ANYONE, right? And you don’t trust YOURSELF either? ESPECIALLY, you don’t trust yourself to choose people correctly? To trust is to hope. To trust is to be vulnerable. “Never again,” you vow! But no matter how you dress it up and display it proudly to make it seem that this level of independence is what you always wanted to be … in truth it’s your wounded, scarred, broken heart behind a protective wall. Impenetrable! Nothing gets in … no one gets hurt …BUT NO LOVE GETS IN, EITHER! Fortresses and armor are for those in battle, or for those who believe that a battle is coming.
EXTREME INDEPENDENCE IS A TRAUMA RESPONSE!
But, the good news is that ACKNOWLEDGED trauma can be HEALED trauma! So, with that, to all you selfish, toxic, ABUSIVE “parents” running around out there:
WAKE THE FUCK UP AND GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!
For Christ’s actual sake, get your kids out of toxic environments you have them in. Protect them! Cherish them! Validate them! Hear them! Consider your children FIRST in every single decision you make! Worse yet, stop letting the people who have hurt YOU continue to hurt your children! IT’S GROSS! By failing to heal yourself and find a way to have healthy relationships after the ones that have broken you apart, you only perpetuate the cycle of “victimized brokenness” that you will then gift to your innocently jaded children. I mean, c’mon now, “mom or dad” … do you really want to be one of those parents whose children only ever come to visit you when they absolutely HAVE to because although they do still actually love you, they have to make the decision to love you from a distance because they have to protect themselves from YOU?
In the meantime, I’ll just keep praying that someday I don’t get that call that a child I once knew and loved swallowed a bullet because their miserable excuses for “parents” couldn’t get their shit together, or “deserved the life that they deserved”, and now I have to show up to that child’s funeral because they just couldn’t deal anymore. But mostly, I’ll be praying that someday, somehow, any child or adult who lives behind the walls of their own fortress will one day be able to stand in front of a mirror and say:
I AM WORTHY of having support!
I AM WORTHY of having true partnership!
I AM WORTHY of love!
I AM WORTHY of having my heart held!
I AM WORTHY to be adored!
I AM WORTHY to be cherished!
I AM WORTHY to have someone say, “You rest – I got this”, and actually fucking deliver on that promise!
Tonight I watched an episode of “This Is Us” that took me to the ground again, then way back up again, within a very short emotional roller course of less than sixty minutes. Not only was it one of our favorite shows to, but like so many others who watch this series, we were both connected to several of it’s characters. This scene, though? It gut punched me in every worst and worst way possible, but really had me at …
They don’t wanna hang out with us anymore. It’s moving really fast. … We only have a few more years together under the same roof … a few more years where we get to be a part of their daily lives. And then what? They’re gonna move out.
And therein lied a problem far too complicated to explain, but sufficed to say that the mere thought of losing Gia permanently is what really started pushing him over the edge:
As you may know, long before August 22, 2019 when Zack turned our world upside down with the most egregious exit possible, Gia had been on a downward descent of her own for several years. Someday I will revisit in greater detail that sobering night in November 2018 when during a random a spot check of her phone after she’d gone to sleep, Zack walked into our room with a look of doom, dread, fear and panic on his face like nothing I’d ever seen. He’d found that she had searched “I don’t want to live anymore” and “I think I want to kill myself”. Our world came to a frozen halt.
Zack had always said he didn’t think he could survive losing either of us after having been literallyabandoned by his “mother”, then theoretically abandoned by virtually everyone else he’d ever loved. Sadly, I now realize that he really meant what he was saying during those cryptic conversations:
Catherine, I only have five years left with her and then she’ll be going to college. It seems like a lifetime when she’s only gone for two days, so what’s going to happen when she’s gone for months at a time? And then when she’s gone for good? Just thinking about it makes me sick and I don’t know how I’ll survive it!
But now let’s back up to yet another tender moment we’d shared together as a family just a few years earlier, and how this song from that moment circles back to this Diary entry.
The movie was “Trolls”, which was one of his favorites, and it was the water-color hanging on the cabin wall that set the whole tone for the “This Is Us” scene that immediately brought me back to the day we saw Trolls. If you’ve ever seen it, you know that it ends with this song, and like many other familieswho’ve watched it together, the three of us just sat there hand in hand and sobbing as it played. All I could think of was my seemingly impermeable “tower of strength” husband being reduced to rivers of tears at a children’s movie. I saw his true colors shining through, but he’s the one who helped me find mine … and “that’s why I loved him”. After all was said and done, it was the many true colors of our love that defined the story of “us”.
TRUE COLORS
You with the sad eyes – don’t be discouraged. Oh, I realize it’s hard to take courage. In a world full of people, you can lose sight of it all. The darkness inside you can make you feel so small. Show me a smile, then don’t be unhappy. Can’t remember when I last saw you laughing. This world makes you crazy, and you’ve taken all you can bear. Just call me up ’cause I will always be there. And I see your true colors shining through. I see your true colors, and that’s why I love you. So don’t be afraid to let them show. Your true colors – true colors – are beautiful. I see your true colors shining through! I see your true colors, and that’s why I love you. So don’t be afraid to let them show. Your true colors – true colors are beautiful – like a rainbow! Oh! I can’t remember when I last saw you laughing. This world makes you crazy, and you’ve taken all you can bear. Just call me up, ’cause I will always be there. And I see your true colors shining through. I see your true colors, and that’s why I love you. So don’t be afraid to let them show. Your true colors – true colors – are beautiful – like a rainbow. {Justin Timberlake & Anna Kendrick}
James kisses Margaret before he comes to see us. James kisses Margaret before he does pretty much anything.
{The Daily James}
Dear God,
Knowing my heart the way You do, I’m sure You already knew how taken I was, once again, when I watched this video of one of my favorite “power couples” today. Oh, but the way Jamesliterally bowsto that Queen he loves so desperately, yet at the same time, no matter how high he places her above himself, he is only ever right beside her. As You and I both know, and as I finally got to learn in the most ethereal way, when a king loves a queen love so deep and so true that each of their hearts but serve the other, the balance of power is never a struggle and there is no “servitude” at all. If only all those silly girls who balk at the thought of “submitting” to their king knew what I know to be true. Ugh.
As we’ve discussed, You knowthat I trust You implicitly. You and he both made me a queen, and there is no coming back from where I’ve been. I will not and cannot settle for anything less than everything where a potential partner on this journey is concerned, and I’d rather reign “alone, but not lonely” if that’s what Your plan shall be. That being said, if, indeed, there is one last king on Earth that You have waiting for me somewhere, can I please just ask that he really be a king? Like You? Like Zack? Like King James the one true sovereign RULER of Queen Margaret’s heart?
It’s seems an impossible order, but look Who I am talking to. I’ve had two kings before, and three is the perfect number, so, I guess I’ll just wait and see. In the meantime, I will cherish these moments when two real love birds washes over me completely, capture my imagination, and remind me of not only what I’ve had, but who I’ve become. I was someone’s Margaret. I am still YOUR Margaret and your very favorite daughter. I’m a a true and risen queen who was born to serve a king, and going forward I shall fly below nothing less than the wingspan of a “James”.
Just a chill in a winter breeze, standing in the cold debris that left behind so many beautiful memories.
Like every word that has ever left Your lips, there are fingerprints everywhere to evidence the love that’s brought me “here”. I really do only want to be remembered for being that one who will always ever say, “I’m gonna love you … I’m gonna love you endlessly” to that one last king who may be waiting to fly me into the remainder of what’s left of my heart’s bounty.
James almost always positions his head right below Margaret.
Something still comes over me. Just a chill in a winter breeze. Standing in the cold debris left behind a memory. Every word that left your lips left behind your fingerprints. Every crime that love commits brings you right back here to this. I only want to be remembered for being the one who’d always say that I’m gonna love you … I’m gonna love you endlessly. I’ll never be one to yell surrender as long as you’re standing next to me. ‘Cause I’m gonna love you. I’m gonna love you endlessly. No escaping this embrace every time I see your face. Around the love I can’t erase. Wouldn’t want to anyway. I only want to be remembered for being the one who’d always say that I’m gonna love you … I’m gonna love you endlessly. {David Cook}
If you didn’t already know this by now, my daughter isn’t just any kid. She’s a real life superhero and I just can’t say it enough. No one will ever really know exactly what she has been through the last five or six years or how bittersweet this night is for us both. It’s the long-awaited series finale of her favorite show, “Supernatural“.
There aren’t enough words that I could write at this moment, because not only am I a raw and open wound after having watched it, I literally just don’t have them. What I can tell you is that if you click here you’ll go back to just over a year ago and catch a glimpse of what this show has meant to not just her survival journey, but mine. If if I had lost her, too, on the night that Zack left, I don’t know where in the actual hell I’d be now.
This show is the reason she was brave enough to reach out to the ImALIVE crisis helpline on August 22, 2019, when she began to realize that Zack, her “Bobby Singer“, was, indeed, going to end his own life that night and that’s why we still have her with us. So, yes, this night is bittersweet for both of us. But as I’ve told her all along … sometimes endings really are just beginnings.
Heaven ain’t just re-livin’ your golden oldies anymore … it’s what it always shoulda been – everyone happy, everyone together. It ain’t just Heaven, Dean. It’s the Heaven you deserve.
{Bobby Singer to Dean Winchester}
So, with that, I leave you now with the last two scenes from one of the most impactful eras of our lives. If you know our story? If you know Zack’s story? You’ll understand exactly what these two fictional yet poignant moments mean to me andmy little girl.
One of our favorite traditions was the once-a-year pilgrimage to the harbor at Lake Ray Hubbard in Rockwall to take “The Picture”. It started by happen chance several years ago when Gia was around age seven. We’d stopped into The Bass Pro Shop that abuts the harbor to simply visit the aquariums we’d heard about, at which point we’d decided to take a walk to the end of the pier. As was par for the course, although our little ball of energy and sunshine was always bouncing at least ten steps ahead of us wherever we went, she was never out of his sight. On that day, however, he was going to make damn good and sure she didn’t get too far ahead and fall into the water, so he grabbed her sticky little hand and walked her down. Thus … “The Picture” was born. The plan had long been that we would take the same picture year after year to memorialize the progression of her growth, then eventually end with “the final picture” of the two of them in her gown on her wedding day, at which point her husband could take it from there.
Unfortunately, as I have said before, it wasn’t too far into 2019 that Zack’s descent began to avail itself. Sure, we’d had our good days – and plenty of them. But with everything that was going on, somehow the trek down to the pier never happened. So, on this day, the two of us made a poignant decision together: “Let’s go to Red Robin (one of his favorite places to eat) then down to the pier to take the picture in his honor, then keep taking it year after year.”
So, WE DID IT! There she stood, alone and overcome with emotion, and we did it! Only, then there was a twist. A very talented friend of mine took the original picture of them on the pier and spliced him into the picture of her standing alone. Not only was it probably one of the best ideas I’ve ever had, but I’ve also now decided to keep doing the same thing, year after year, until, you guessed it – HER WEDDING DAY!
It’s been a long and sobering year for us my friends. Am I strong? Of course I am! I was forged under pressure and fire! What you see with me is as real as it gets. Am I absolutely refusing to let him down by seeing us fall apart? YUP! That has never been an option, nor will it ever … because … despite the unspeakable realities at the end that are now mine and my daughter’s, that king loved us with everything he had before he got sick, and believe or not, even in his sickness. So, with that, we are both choosing to only hold on to the good stuff and just leave out all the rest. THIS is how we will “remember him” always.
PLEASE REMEMBER ME
When all our tears have reached the sea. Part of you will live in me way down deep inside my heart. The days keep coming without fail. A new wind is gonna find your sail. That’s where your journey starts. You’ll find better love, strong as it ever was, deep as the river runs, warm as the morning Sun. Please remember me. Just like the waves down by the shore, we’re gonna keep on coming back for more, ’cause we don’t ever wanna stop. Out in this brave new world you seek … o’er the valleys and the peaks … and I can see you on the top. Remember me when you’re out walkin’. When snow falls high outside your door. Late at night when you’re not sleepin’ and moonlight falls across your floor, when I can’t hurt you anymore. {Tim McGraw}
There’s a light in you that tears me down to nothing. There’s an angel in your eyes. There’s a hope inside that you can make it better. You see right through my disguise. When it rains it pours, and everybody stumbles. I won’t let them bring you down. I won’t let you down when the seasons change. I won’t go down. I’ll fight through the pain. I’ll be there right by your side. I’ll never let them bring you down when the seasons change.
There’s a hope in me that I will die for something. Was the fire in my eyes? All this pain inside. Will it be this way forever? I can run but I can’t hide. When it rains it pours, and everybody stumbles. I won’t let them bring you down. When the seasons change and we’re in for colder weather, look for me on The Divide.
Don’t you see? None of this is about you! It has NEVER been about you! IT’S ABOUT THEM! Not just your babies … all the lives you’ll have touched before your time is done … if only for a season. Your greatest treasure and greatest triumph are in knowing just how truly insignificant you really are in the bigger picture of it all. Your “valuelessness” is your greatest value! Your “powerlessness” is your greatest power!
As I’ve said many times before, from the first week he married me, there was never a time that there weren’t fresh flowers somewhere in our home for me. Some he sent, and others he picked up, but their method of delivery didn’t really matter, because …
…I JUST LOVE FRESH FLOWERS!
He only had to hear me say it once, and the rest is merely history. As our lives got busier and his career took off, however, there were times that he just couldn’t go get them, so I started making fresh flower arrangements on my own to fill the voids. My little treks to my favorite flower haunts soon became one of the brightest spots of my week, and still are to this day. It always made him happy to come home and find that I’d treated myself.
Suffice it to say, not a week has passed since the day he left, nor will there EVER be, that there haven’t been fresh flowers in this castle he left behind for me. I’ll continue to treat myself like the queen he saw in his eyes who deserves only the best treatment from everyone, including myself!
Zack brought Gia flowers fairly often, as well, and sometimes to ONLY Gia, which I loved, and so did she. Part of my process with her now is to deeply imprint into her psyche that SHE, TOO, IS A QUEEN! It’s not uncommon for us to be at the market and her to run off and come back with flowers she chooses for herself. I’ve made her promise that when it’s time for her to leave this nest she’ll remember that she can buy herself flowers, too, regardless of whether there’s a man in her life.
KINGS & QUEENS:
I once again challenge every one of you to go and get YOURSELF some flowers this week! They don’t have to be expensive. You can make your own arrangement with flowers from the grocery store and wildflowers or even weeds growing on the side of the road, which is par for the course with me. If you do “go and get yourself some flowers,” PLEASE MESSAGE ME A PICTURE OF THEM! It would absolutely make my day to see that I’ve made a ripple in your pond with this thought process!
While I am more than thankful to claim the highest honor of “mother” to two living children—a son and a daughter—and one angel baby in Heaven, I am ever so mindful, as I end this bittersweet day, that not every child got to celebrate with their mother today. As you’ve already read in the admonishment to his “mother THING” one year ago this day, the abandoned and motherless man I was honored to call my king began his painful descent into the darkness she left behind—a darkness that ultimately devoured him alive and ended the most beautiful chapter of my life.
It wasn’t your fault!
You didn’t deserve that!
So, with that, if you are a mother THAT—not “who”—has abandoned and forsaken a child of her own body, know that the unfathomable wound you left them with may never truly disappear. If, on the other hand, you are a child whose “mother THING” abandoned you, please know that, just like the battalion of mothers in this world who understood the magnitude of the job we were given, you are always in my heart, and I pray for you daily.
YOU are a gift to this world!
From the depths of my soul, I’m so sorry that happened to you. But remember this one thing always: Our Father in Heaven DOES NOT make trash! So, “Chin Up! Knuckles Out!”—and don’t let someone else’s abandonment become the measure of your worth. You are loved, needed, and valued here on this Earth.
The fate of a mother is waiting for children. You wait for them while pregnant, you wait for them when they return from nursery. Wait for them when they leave school. You wait for them when they start their life when they come home after a party. You wait for them when they come back from work so they can always find a hot meal. You wait for them with love, with anxiety sometimes with anger that immediately passes when you see them and you can hug them. So make sure your elderly mom doesn’t have to wait any longer. Visit her, love her, hug the one who loved you like no one else ever will. Don’t ever make her wait. Because they age limbs but a mom’s heart never grows old. Love her as you can. No woman will love you like a mother.
I recently stumbled upon the most beautiful passage about “the fate of a mother,” and I couldn’t have said it better myself. Stumble as I may have countless times in my motherhood journey thus far, the gift of all my children has been my highest calling and honor. But what do these words mean to you? You never waited for your son—he only ever waited for you—because you left him, like trash, to die in his own remains.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: your “son” stopped living the day he was born. But it was one year ago today that the hands of Fate threw the final spin of the wheel that ultimately led not only to his demise, but to the end of the most beautiful chapter of my life. Looking back, I can say the very first hint of change in him was June 5, 2014, because that was truly the day the “rock” that was OUR Zack began crumbling. Slowly, subtly, yet ever so steadily, he began slipping down the hole that devoured him on January 11th that year. But it wasn’t really until May 12th of the previous year that he started coming apart at the seams. I remember that morning as if it were right now—exactly where he was standing, what he was wearing, the angst on his face, what he was saying, and the tears falling from his eyes. Suffice it to say, Mother’s Day 2019 marked the beginning of his end.
Still, on the surface, he seemed to have made peace with it all, so he moved on down the road. We made our own little family, and he left you all behind in his dust. “Their loss, not mine,” he would say—and he couldn’t have been more right, because none of you were worthy of his presence. Trust me when I tell you that, because of our professions, we knew plenty of people who knew them. The general consensus about all your other Williamsons—the ones you actually managed to want? “They’re selfish, shallow, greedy, social-climbing wannabes in one of the greatest shows on Earth.” Everything about Zack’s character was so far removed from theirs that no one who realized the familial connection could fathom it. Watching random strangers literally scratch their heads, and hearing what people would say about them, were among the highest compliments he ever received. He absolutely reveled in knowing that no one could begin to correlate him to “all of them.” But I’ve digressed. Suffice it to say, every Mother’s Day hurt him the most—even more than all the birthdays you forgot, as he waited year after year, phone in hand, for you to fucking remember him.
So, with that, today is bittersweet. Not a Mother’s Day passed after he walked into my life that I wasn’t cherished, celebrated, and placed so high upon the pedestal he built for me that there literally are no words. It was no secret to anyone that your “son” was hell-bent on making sure I understood how deeply he revered my role—not just in his life, but in my children’s as well, and especially on Mother’s Day. When we first met, he told me about his past and how not just you, but his entire “blood family,” had abandoned him for reasons only God knows. He was so ambivalent about the things you people had done to him, but it still outraged me to the core of my being—not only to hear the stories of his maternal abandonment and childhood, but to watch, live, and experience the abysmal things his “family” did to him. As for those other “Williamsons” you spat upon this Earth, who still get to live and breathe in the very same city where their “brother” slipped through the void? If a stranger met any one of them without knowing who they really were, they’d probably be impressed with the personas they present. But his truth is the truth: he spoke it, I witnessed it, and God watched every single bit of it. So congratulations, “mother.” You made self-consumed, dressed-up narcissists with plastic smiles and shallow hearts that only a “THING” like you could possibly be proud of.
Here’s all you really need to know now …
It’s Mother’s Day 2020, and 264 days ago your “son” shot himself in the head with a Springfield handgun and a hollow point bullet at just before midnight. You were nothing to him but a stranger, and what a shame you never knew what an amazing human being you threw away and the gift he was to this world.
Only God knows what was going through his mind in the very last moments of his life, and not knowing what that may have been will break my heart forever. Alas, he’s at rest now—finally at peace after the legacy of abandonment you chose to burden him with. But here’s what I do know about the things that lived in his mind during the years I was lucky enough to give him the only real home he ever had, and the only real love from a woman—other than his Grandma—that he had ever known:
Your “son” hurt us all with a broken mind and heart that were jaded beyond comprehension. “He must have had mommy issues” is what some will surely say, and sadly? IT WAS TRUE! He wasn’t quite two when you left him behind – him, and only him – but not your other kids, because for what good reason he could never understand you just didn’t want him like the others! You never turned back to see the tears that burned through his heart every day for the rest of his life.
When your “son” was just a boy, he had to sit in classrooms making Mother’s Day cards he never really knew what to do with. So he would tear them up and put them in the garbage as he left the school grounds, watching all the other kids being greeted by their mommies while he walked home to nothing, all alone.
When your “son” was just a boy, he would go to his friends’ birthday parties while his heart physically ached because you apparently couldn’t remember the day he was born. It was October 5, 1982, just in case you forgot—which, by the way, I know you did, since you never once called him on his birthday.
When your “son” was just a boy, Mother’s Day broke his heart into little, tiny pieces that none of us who really loved him could ever put back together. He cried for you. He ached for you. He longed for you. He dreamt of you. He disappeared inside of himself waiting for you to want him!
Despite all these words and my more than apparent hostility, I have forgiven you and yours to the best of my ability for all the ways you destroyed my beautiful husband, especially given that I wholeheartedly believe that the entire lot of you are truly evil:
I really can forgive anyone for just about anything, and as God is my witness, I HAVE! But I’ll just keeping taking people on a case-by-case basis. The Devil’s Own really do walk among us, but I’m not even sure they’re “people”. They’re a different kind of breed “thing” altogether. I’m not quite sure I’ll ever get to the point that I stop avidly praying that God really DOES sort us all out in the end. I’m just a mortal human, not a god or Jesus Christ, so I’ll just keeping asking for “forgiveness” for not being too excited about the idea of “mercy for the merciless”.
But never will I forget the last ten years of watching him try so hard not to break because none of you gave a FUCK about “the Zack of shit”—your “son,” their “brother.” You know, now that I think of it, there were so many things I was prepared to do for your son over the course of our lifetime, but having to pick out his urn was never one of them. It’s all good, though, because his remains will forever be mine, and not yours, because as he famously and repeatedly said to me:
Catherine, if they couldn’t be bothered with me when I was alive, then they don’t get to have me when I’m dead!
So, with that, Happy Mother’s Day to you, “mother THING” of my fallen king. May you sleep well this night and at the end of every Mother’s Day going forward that you’re able to enjoy with the other kids you did somehow manage to “mother”. Hold your hand over your chest now and breathe in all that you feel.It’s the still beating heart of the one woman in this world that was supposed to love my husband forever! Also? It is my most avid and fervent prayer that one day you will burn in ACTUAL hell!
IN HIS REMAINS
Separate. He sifted through the wreckage. He couldn’t concentrate – searching for a message in the fear and pain. Broken down and waiting for the chance to feel alive. Now in his remains are promises that never came. Set the silence free to wash away the worst of him. Come apart. Falling in the cracks of every broken heart. Digging through the wreckage of your disregard. Sinking down and waiting for the chance, to feel alive. Now in his remains are promises that never came. Set the silence free to wash away the worst of him. Like an army, falling one by one by one. {Linkin’ Park}
My own husband, Zachariah, who I lost to suicide on August 22, 2019. He was the Godsend game changer for me and my two kids, larger than life with a heart of gold, but had been abandoned by the “mother THING” that (not “who”) left him for good at 18 months. While I suppose his father did the best he could with the lack of parenting skills he had, he was then and is still but a child himself, and even managed to leave his son behind in death. Growing up, my husband was left alone frequently from a very young age, and his basic needs were never properly tended to. Eventually, even his siblings discarded him.
The abandonment issues that led to his mental illness were further complicated by the fact that for some unknown reason the “mother” managed to have a maternal relationship with the older siblings she’d had with the same father, just not him. Again, his entire family left him on the proverbial curb of life. Not just the mother, but neither his father or siblings could be bothered with him. His two older brothers would often refer to him as the “Zack of shit”, and although he would laugh about in their presence, those words haunted him incessantly. This heartless, selfish, and shallow brood of people shattered his heart into pieces that could never be fully put back together.
There were demons living in the hole they burned in his soul we fought desperately to keep him from drowning in, but in the end, the demons won. In the last months of his life, it appeared that he was in the early stages of some type of psychosis or schizophrenia. He’d been hearing voices, seeing things that weren’t there, missing blocks of time, and ultimately just vanished completely within himself. He said “he couldn’t feel anything anymore“, and honestly, we lost him MONTHS before he put that gun to his head. It was a living nightmare to witness and the worst kind of heartbreak to suffer. He literally died of a broken heart that led to his mental illness and suicide, but not before he hurt not only me, but even more so our daughter VERY badly. The trauma he visited upon her in his final “separated from self” state of mind is beyond comprehension, and one that may take her a lifetime to heal from.
I’ve been writing tirelessly about not only his, but my mental health journey as well, in “The Diary Of My Perfection“. I’d be honored if any of you would care to read, follow, or share it, as it is now my mission to try and be a Light in other people’s darkness. In the meantime, thank you for the many kind words and support of this post. It means everything to me. I cannot let either his lost battle with mental illness (or anyone else’s for that matter) have been in vain.
Although I do believe it’s “possible” for childhood trauma to be “repaired”, I do not believe that the resulting residual or collateral damage can ever be “reversed”. Under optimal circumstances and with a healthy support system, if a person can first revisit, acknowledge, and accept the trauma itself, it is possible that they can then attain the coping skills and mechanisms necessary to carry them through their adulthood “if and when” the trauma rears it’s head. You can forgive, accept, acknowledge and even make peace with it … BUT … you can never forget or erase it. As an adult survivor of childhood trauma of my own, I speak from experience in this regard. Thankfully, however, I did.
Unfortunately, I also have first hand experience on the flip side of this coin; that is, “irreversible childhood trauma”. My husband, who I recently lost to suicide this past August 22, 2019, suffered from extreme childhood trauma that sadly proved to be the death of him. He was larger than life with a heart the size of an ocean, but had been thrown away like garbage by his “mother THING” at birth. She abandoned him permanently at 18 months, and although his father did the best he could, he was and still is nothing but a child himself. He was left alone frequently from a very young age and his basic needs were never properly attended to.
Unfortunately, he never even realized that his “Abandoned Child Syndrome” existed until five years into our marriage, but once he was faced with the sobering truths of his childhood, every bit of strength and fortitude he’d managed to muster and thus survive with in his life of solitude before us, the first and only real home and family he’d ever had, began to slip right out from under him. The abandonment issues that led to his mental illness were further complicated by the fact that not just his mother, but his entire family abandoned him.They literally shattered his heart into pieces that could never fully be put back together.
There were demons living inside of the hole the “mother” left inside his soul that he tried desperately to swim out of it. We tried desperately to keep him from drowning in it. In the end, the demons won. The last few months of his life it appeared as though he was in the early stages of some type of dissociative psychosis, if not schizophrenia. He’d been hearing voices, seeing things, missing “blocks of time”, and ultimately just disappeared inside himself. He said “he couldn’t feel anything anymore”, and honestly, we lost him months before he put that gun to his head. It was a living nightmare to watch and the worst kind of heartbreak to witness. I appreciate any of you who are reading this by the way. It’s tough to digest, much less conceive, but the truth nonetheless. His “traumatic childhood” LITERALLY “broke his heart”.
This was one of the most bittersweet days of my journey thus far … her first high school interview. It was a day that Zack and I had been dreaming about for her for years.
If you knew him at all, you know how important her education was to him, and that it was the initial source of inspiration for the lifestyle he was determined to give us. He wanted her to have every “thing” and opportunity he’d never had as a child and wasn’t going to let anything stop him from laying the world at her feet.
It’s no secret that it was Zack, not her “real dad”, who single-handedly and happily paid for every cent of her private primary education. I fondly recall the very day this journey began …
We were newly married and still living in the little apartment in Fairview when first grade arrived. Since our address fed into in a public school with less than favorable stats and Christian had been privileged with a private education, Zack and I assumed that her dad would be on board with affording her the same opportunity and thus willing to split the cost with us. At that juncture, it was going to be a stretch for him, especially in that my “wedding gift” to him was: Me, a little girl, a recent stay at one of the most exclusive psychiatric facilities in the world, $35K of unsecured debt, a car we couldn’t afford, a mental health resume about 62 pages long, a less than support system, and oh yah, I wasn’t exactly what one would call “employable” then. YET WITHOUT HESITATION HE STEPPED UP TO THE ENTIRE PLATE FOR HER! Meanwhile, I remember the day I called her dad to ask what he thought about sending her to St. Mark’s like her brother. With a knife through my heart and a shot heard ’round the world his verbatim response was this:
Nope. Not happening. Guess you should have thought about that before you left here. Your gravy train is over honey, so why don’t you let the moron pay for it (then he literally laughed out loud). Have fun explaining to her one day why she couldn’t go to private school like her brother. Good job mom! Good job!
I was stunned by his callous response! What the actual HELL? “MY gravy train?” This wasn’t about me! IT WAS ABOUT HER! How could he be so cruel as to punish her to punish me? Don’t get me wrong – by no means am I saying that public school is a punishment. An education is only as good as the student himself, and a truly good student can and will flourish in any school setting, be it public, private, or home. Meanwhile, when I called Zack to tell him what her dad had said he was outraged in every sense of the word.
Let the moron pay for it? Really? He said that? Okay then, I WILL, just watch me! I’ll take care of EVERYTHING, and he can ride his selfish gravy train straight to Hell!
It was in that moment that his relentless fire was fueled with a determination like nothing I’d ever seen:
Catherine, I can do this! I’ll empty out my savings. I’ll get a second job. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it. If I have to sell my soul to the Devil, she’ll have EVERYTHING Christian had. EVERYTHING I never had. She’s GOING to St. Mark’s and she’s GOING to a Catholic school. Trust me, SHE’S GOING!
As and aside, please don’t mistake this post as braggard. If you know me at all you know damn good and well that I have never forgotten how this story began: With sterling silver James Avery wedding bands, a tiny one-bedroom apartment, and nothing but a pocket full of dreams.
Yes, today is bittersweet. I’ve thought crying so many times since waking up to the cold, hard reality that he’s not here to revel in the triumph, pride, and joy of a day he worked for, dreamt of, and looked forward to since the day she bounced into his life, but I didn’t want to rain on her parade. Despite the impossible strength she very clearly recognizes in my process and recovery, the road to her process and recovery from the trauma that was his ironic and tragic parting gift to her is still so long ahead.
There’s an unspoken rule between the two of us right now. She knows I’m okay, and that I know she’s going to be okay, but for her sake alone, my darker days, tears and moments are best spent in private. At the end of the day however, as I sit with all this emotion, I am once again comforted in this peace: HE WAS WITH US TODAY!He’s with us every day. Knowing the God Whose hands are wrapped around my heart like I do? The actual reality is not as cold and hard as I thought. He is reveling in the triumph, pride and joy of “this day” he made happen for her with his legacy of love!He’s watching us from “the next room” through his Supernova telescope.
MY WISH
I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slow, and each road leads you where you wanna go. And if you’re faced with a choice, and you have to choose, I hope you choose the one that means the most to you. And if one door opens to another door closed, I hope you keep on walkin’ till you find the window. If it’s cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile. But more than anything, more than anything … My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to. Your dreams stay big, your worries stay small. You never need to carry more than you can hold. And while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to, I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too. Yeah, this, is my wish. I hope you never look back, but you never forget all the ones who love you in the place you live. I hope you always forgive, and you never regret, and you help somebody every chance you get. Oh, you find God’s grace, in every mistake and always give more than you take. But more than anything, yeah, more than anything … My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to. Your dreams stay big, your worries stay small. You never need to carry more than you can hold. And while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to, I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too. Yeah, this, is my wish. {Rascal Flatts}
May the tears he cried for his “family” darken every day of your SELFISH lives and the shadow of his face staring back when you look in your EMPTY mirrors never cease to remind you of the “ZACK OF SHIT” you threw away! THIS is how you “loved”:
To learn more about the lifelong and often irreversible effects on children abandoned by their “mothers”:
If only you’d have known that as you arrived to work that October day, every plan you’d ever planned, dream you’d ever dreamt, or wish you’d ever wished for your own life and future was completely unraveling. You could have worn one of those silly expectant father shirts with sparkly pink letters across your chest … “I’M GONNA BE A DAD! IT’S A GIRL!” … and maybe even passed out cigars!
He was standing in front of that one big window at the gym, turned his head, our eyes locked!
I want you to know that I am ever so aware that none of this has ever been easy for you, although to those who don’t know what really lies beneath the frosting of the beautiful cake you’ve become, you DO make it all seem so effortless. But this job you never imagined you’d be showing up for on an equally cool night the following November came with so many unseen challenges and struggles, most of which have fallen on your shoulders without complaint. I know we weren’t the family you were expecting – “some other guy’s leftovers”. And I’m guessing she wasn’t quite the “little pink bundle of joy” you may have pondered welcoming into your once very private world.
As for all the things you have been, done and given?You didn’t have to do ANY of them! No one ever asked you. You just did … and still do. All the tears you have cried with her. For her, and about her? They matter, and I’ve counted them all!He breaks her. You fix her. He makes excuses. You look for solutions. He hurts her. He hurts you. He lets them both down, but you keep picking them up. I suppose the defining moment as to who and what you are as a father was that morning just a few weeks ago when you were first reduced to tears at the realization of how much she has grown in the years since you first met her and how quickly time is speeding by:
Catherine, I only have five years left with her and then she’ll be going to college. It seems like a lifetime when she’s only gone for two days, so what’s going to happen when she’s gone for months at a time? And then when she’s gone for good? Just thinking about it makes me sick and I don’t know how I’ll survive it!
You’re a beautiful human being, Zachariah, and your heart’s depths knows no bounds. You could have had anything … anyone … and to this day I cannot understand why you’ve done the things you have done for us, and more than that, why you didn’t run as FAR away as any other man’s legs could possibly have carried him. I was so beaten down, tired, weary and ragged and had literally NOTHING to offer you whatsoever. A father who wouldn’t accept you. An ex-husband who maligned you. A pile of debt. A broken body. An empty womb. The two ghosts. “His” kids. Still, you chose us.
I want to say thank you my true and faithful King. Thank you from the depths of my soul. You are so much of everything and then some. You’re the love of my life that I never knew I’d never had until that that moment I finally knew what the selfless, unconditional love of a man and a father was supposed to be. I know this may sound crazy, but it’s because of YOU that I now fully realize how God pours His own love into all of us. When I look at you? I see Him. You’re just a mortal man, imperfect in so many ways, but your honor, intentions, and steadfast love and devotion to this family are unwavering and always “for better or worse”.
THESE are your self-evident truths:
You’re the beating of our hearts, the voice that calms our fears, the words to all our songs, the hand that wipes our tears, our eyes when we can’t see, our lungs when we can’t breathe, our legs when we can’t walk, and our arms when we can’t hold ourselves upright. You have made us both believe we’re the two most treasured prizes a man could have won, and that our many flaws and weaknesses are just as beautiful as you claim we both truly are. You are the mirror we gaze into when our own reflections fail us, and we are never more confident than when we’re standing behind you, beside you, or with you at our six. We belong to you Zachariah, and for some reason it was supposed to be this way. You gave us a home … and your heart … and everything we have today. We love you more than any of my endless words could say.
My husband wrote this for Gia in June because he believed, and it’s true, that they shared similarly broken hearts. Now, in reading it a second time, I realize he was actually writing about himself. Ten years ago my husband saved my life, and hers. In the end, it was him that needed to be saved … but I couldn’t do it.
“SHARDS”
I finally broke and my mind came undone. My body gave way as I hit the floor. My heart shattered. I lacked the strength to even pick up these pieces as they spilled across the floor while they looked at me in disapproval for the “mess” and inconvenience I made for them, but I gathered them up none the less as the whip cracked and scarred my back pushing me begrudgingly forward. I didn’t know what to do with what was left of me. I had never come this far apart. I was just a little [boy]. I just wanted to give up. Lay down. You know the rest. There is a crack deep in my soul that is still healing, but some days I feel as though it is only getting bigger. I thought I would never be strong enough to stand on my own and finally get my “shit” together. Could I find enough love for myself to make these jagged pieces worth putting together? I have looked to find strength in so many ”things” because I feel it is not within me, but deep down inside I know it is there. One day soon I will gather up these pieces again. Fit them together the way they are supposed to go. These shards will become my strength. My protection. My weapons against further abuses of my worth and love. The strength is gathering within me – I’m not little anymore! They shoved me on to the path of adulthood and I will show those who have wronged me my wrath, which will only be overshadowed by the ferocity of my love that is and was the best thing they will never have known. I spent so much time seeking their approval, when it was MY approval and favor, they should have been looking for all along.
Why does January 11th always have to be so fucking hard? It was one year ago today that he was standing at the window of our beautiful castle, gazing at everything he’d built from NOTHING … literally NOTHING … after having spent a lifetime running from the pain of having been thrown away by his “mother”. I’d been taking down the Christmas decorations, and I’ll never forget it. EVER. Especially in that we were just about ready to take Gina’s birthday flowers to her grave.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I’d rounded the corner only to find him standing there, blankly staring out over the field behind our property with a single tear rolling down his cheek. “Zack? What’s wrong?” … and then he turned to look at me with a lost and hopeless look in his eyes that will haunt me forever. It leveled me at the core with that all-too-familiar adrenaline dump I’d come to know before in moments of panic and fear.
Catherine, I can’t feel anything anymore.
I was so physically ill, because I knew JUST what he meant by those five seemingly simple words. Over the years, I’d gotten to know the silent language that was often spoken by his face, eyes, and tears when he hadn’t said a word. Despite being surrounded by every possible tangible and intangible thing a man could dream of, he couldn’t feel any of it. He went on to say that the emptiness he felt was heavier than anything he’d ever physically lifted, which was saying an awful lot, because the man was stronger than an ox.
Ever the stoic and what seemed to be a tower of strength, although he would indeed talk to me, it was always so hard for him to recount all the things we both knew were eating him alive. Up until “us,” he wasn’t used to having his feelings matter to the people he needed to matter to.
In the months that followed “that moment in the window,” we fought desperately to keep his head above the water, but in the end, the demons hiding inside the hole she left in his heart devoured him. In being perfectly honest, that was the day I really lost him, as from that point on he was only “dead alive”, slowly headed toward the dying light that began pulling him into the darkness.
DYING LIGHT
Here we go again, it’s coming on just like before. The same old sinking feeling pulls me down an endless hole. Oh, the heavy lifting as I fret for what might be. If this is the beginning of the end, then let me dream. In the eye of the storm from the moment we’re born. In the dying light, we learn to live when we give in to the silent waves that crash inside. In the dying light, we can begin to live again when we wake up to eternal life. Let this be an exercise in how to face your fears. Step into the realm of madness if you dare my dear. We are lost in the swarm from the moment we’re born. All that we need passes by until we concede and resign this mortal coil into the dying light. {Alter Bridge}
🐸 Countless days have passed since our story began that you still never cease to amaze me! You are still my hero, and if we had to go back to that tiny little apartment in Fairview, I would happily go. I could live anywhere, as long as you’re there. It’s not about the “house”, it’s about the “home”. You’re the prince among men who has continued to give us EVERYTHING, and I’m so damn thankful and proud to be your wife!
SCRATCH THIS OFF THE BUCKET LIST AND PUT IT RIGHT BACK ON!
From Seattle to Victoria and all the way right back – and we even got bring mom! Not only was it one of THE most epic adventures of a lifetime, but it’s one we’ll definitely repeat! This was Zack’s baby … not mine! The funny thing is, when he ever first pitched me “a 10-day Alaskan cruise” – I ALMOST HIT THE FLOOR! Nooo husband – NOOOO! Umm, hello? HAVE YA MET ME?You know I don’t like boats … you know I terrified of the ocean … you know I’m “pretty sure” I don’t like Alaska … AND I CERTAINLY DON’T LIKE FISH! So, what are ya doin’ to me here Williamson? Lol! Meanwhile, can I just say this? Oh, wait, I think I just did! This was THE most epic trip of a lifetime, and one we will DEFINITELY keep repeating!
Of note, of all the beautiful pictures that were taken on this wonderous voyage of ours, perhaps the favorite one of all was THIS of me and the boss! It was the last night of the cruise and Gia snapped it without us knowing! We didn’t even find it until we got back home the next day and it literally reduced me to tears! Cama-ihi, Alaska!
Can you imagine being 20 years old before ever having a “Court Order Delayed Birth Certificate” issued to you, becauseyour “birthday” didn’t seem to matter? Not your father. Not your “mother THING“. Not your siblings. NO ONE! Then, as added insult to the original injury and salt on top of the already gaping wound, finding out years later that because of the extremely vague details contained on said “birth certificate”, it was legally useless? Well, it just so happens that I know a guy … the love of my life … THE KING OF MY HEART … who knows exactly how it feels!
To say his childhood was less than optimal is far less than an understatement. That THING all but threw him away beginning the day he was born, then left him for good 18 months later, because, I suppose, he wasn’t as stellar as his older three siblings who were good enough for her to stick around for. It was only ever him she didn’t want, and trust me when I say that it’s been a sobering reality for him to wake to every day. Keep in mind that from the onset of meeting him, and especially once we got married, I’d been all but begged the “family” he was left with after “it” birthed him and bolted to please find some pictures of him as a child. Even one. Just one. Does anyone have even ONE picture from his childhood? But I’ve digressed.
Last year, ROCK STAR won us a company cruise to The Bahamas for his outstanding sales achievements, but because we’d be crossing international waters, he needed a US Passport. If you’ve ever gone through that application process, you know this all too well … ya can’t get a passport without a birth certificate! We diligently began by first having to obtain a “certified copy” from the courthouse since, PS, adding even more insult to the aforementioned injuries, his father, who received it from the court way back when, lost it! As in, he couldn’t be bothered to keep hold of it … HE WENT AND FUCKING LOST IT! But I’ve digressed again. So, we got the certified copy and turned it in with the passport application.
APPLICATION DENIED!
To make a very long, complicated, and infuriating story as short as possible, it was denied because to information on the certified copy of the delayed certificate of birth was so vague, lacking even so much as an official time of birth or the signature of the midwife that delivered him, the State Department wouldn’t accept it as valid enough proof that he WAS indeed actually “born”. Eventually, we ended up sitting in the office of our local state representative, Sam Johnson, explaining all the sordid details to his assistant, who ultimately stepped in, worked a little magic, and managed to get him a one-year “temporary” passport so that we’d be sure and make the cruise. But since we are indeed hoping to travel internationally as much as possible if and when time allows, we still had quite a process to go through in order to obtain a full United States Passport, which “process” sent us on a wild goose chase that looked and SOUNDED something like this …
But, Mr. Williamson, in order to issue you a passport, we need your ORIGINAL birth certificate.
I DON’T HAVE MY ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE! THIS IS WHAT I’M TRYING TO TELL YOU! The only record of my birth that ever fucking existed is the “Court Ordered Delayed” birth certificate that was sent to my father years ago and he went and fucking LOST IT!
But Mr. Williamson, the information on your delayed birth certificate is just too vague. We need more information. What about the hospital you were born in? Did you check with them? Surely, THEY have an official record of you?
I WAS BORN IN MY PARENTS’ HOUSE IN IRVING, NOT A HOSPITAL! THERE WAS NEVER AN OFFICIAL RECORD OF MY BIRTH, OR, IF THERE EVER WAS A RECORD OF ANY KIND, IT NO LONGER EXISTS, BECAUSE NOT ONLY DID SHE NEVER WANT ME IN THE FIRST PLACE, SHE CERTAINLY NEVER KEPT A RECORD OF ME!
Well, we’ll need some documented proof that you existed in the system. Perhaps some early childhood records such as medical, dental, immunizations, or maybe even a letter from the school district you were enrolled in.
NO ONE KEPT ANY RECORDS OF ME … THIS IS WHAT I’M TRYING TO TELL YOU!
Well, what about the Census Bureau? Have you checked with the Census Bureau yet? Or your school district? What about the school district you were enrolled in? Can you get a letter from them?
Why can’t you understand this? NO ONE KEPT ANY RECORDS OF ME! I don’t know how else to explain it to you!
Hmm? Okay, well then how about some school pictures? Are there any school pictures of you? Yearbooks maybe? Do you have any of your childhood yearbooks?
NO ONE KEPT ANY RECORDS OF ME! THIS IS WHAT I’M TRYING TO TELL YOU! THERE ARE LITERALLY NO RECORDS OF ME ANYWHERE! NO ONE KEPT ANY RECORDS FOR ME! HOLY SHIT PEOPLE! FML! I FEEL LIKE I’M GOING INSANE!
After well over a year of arduous detective work and psychological assault, not the least of which was the nasty slap in his already tender face by his “brother” (who after having been asked for help by my desperate husband answered “NO” with deafening silence), my husband finally received his United States Passport!
On 10-5-82, the Sun shone a whole lot brighter than it ever had before. Smiling down on me. At only-God knows what time, both hands of time stopped turning and you came waltzing in to change my world for good. And I really don’t know exactly what was going on, but I bet I laughed a lot harder on that day, ’cause my whole world was changing on 10-5-82. On 10-5-82, you breathed your first breath. Suddenly living life meant so much more on the day that you were born. And I didn’t have a clue of all that was transpiring, but I bet the sky was blue and all the world looked new, ’cause everything was changing on 10-5-82.
… that moment you take her into Barnes & Noble, but rather than picking out a treat for herself, she opts to have you buy a book for her “stepdad“, at which point she proceeds to go home, write a love note inside the cover, then hide it under his pillow to find when he goes to bed tonight. We are the two most blessed girls in this entire world. Thank you God for our “rock and stable ground” day and night!
This Friday, Zack and I closed escrow on a brand new house for a dear friend and client. At almost 50, this GODLY, Nigerian man from London, England who’d been saving every penny for years finally got himself a piece of the “American dream”! There are no words to describe the look of pride, accomplishment, and gratitude on his face at the last signed closing document, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. He was like a little boy sitting in front of a tower of presents on Christmas morning! It was hard for me not to cry, but indeed I resisted, because this was his moment, not mine. He’d been living at his brother’s since having arrived from London three years ago. He’s a simple man of meager means, but after the closing Zack said to him:
So, when’s the big move? Can we arrange to get a truck or help in any way?
Oh, no truck necessary, friend. With the exception of my mattress and a small bedside table, everything I own will fit in my car.
Wait! What? You don’t have anything?
Oh, please don’t worry! My God has blessed me with a brand new house with a brand new roof to keep me warm and dry, and I have PLENTy of food to eat. I have the rest of my life to fill my beautiful new home with all the “things” I know God will provide.
With that, Zack and I both left feeling sick to our stomachs and wishing we had a million dollars to just zap him a home filled with “things”. Later that day, Zack shared the situation with his best friend, Rick, who generously gifted our client with a beautiful dinette. Such a blessing! So, we picked it up and headed to Tony’s with the surprise. He answered the door of his very empty house – and when I say empty – I mean empty! 1,700 empty square feet, except for the mattress on the floor in his bedroom, some blankets, pillows, a nightstand, two lamps, some pots, pans and some dishes.
Meanwhile, can I just tell you how genuinely happy this man is for all that he has been given? He said, “I’m not missing a thing”, and let me assure you that he meant it! He is just as content with his mattress on the floor as any of us would be with so much more.
Those of you who know me well know the some of the struggles I’ve overcome, not the least of which is that I was once a girl who had every “thing” a girl could want, yet still had nothing at all. I walked away from the life of a princess in hopes of finding not only myself, but more so than that, the truth. I didn’t quite get to the point where I had to live under a bridge, I do now know how it feels to be “homeless and broke”. More importantly, however, I now know what it means to “lose much but gain all“. I am SO beyond grateful for every single “thing” I have in my once again flourishing life, both tangible and intangible, and I thank God every single second of every single day for every breath that I am given.
Ironically, this client of ours is a clerk at the dry cleaner we patron. Not once in the years that I’ve known him has he failed to greet me with a smile. “How are you this blessed day my dear Catherine?” He watched my life go from better, to worse, to “EVERYTHING”! First, I’d rolled up in a hundred thousand dollar car, encrusted with diamonds, to an old Ford pick-up truck worth $500 bucks at most, and me just barely hanging on. All the while he was such an encouragement to me – always kind, always positive, and always reminding me to “keep my eyes upon the Cross and remember what’s most important … MY God, my health and my family”!
The day I passed my Texas real estate exam, I just so happened to stop by the dry cleaners on the way home. After my Husband, Sister and Son, he was the fourth human being I told, “I DID IT”! He literally almost cried tears of joy for me!
YOU SEE! I TOLD YOU YOU COULD DO IT! YOU HAD NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF!
And a few weeks later when I got finally got my business cards? Yup! You guessed it! I happened to stop by the cleaners! He was the first human being who I ever handed my card to! I truly believe this man is an angel in my life, and we are SO blessed to now call him friend and “family”!
If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.
{George Orwell}
Merry Christmas Catherine!
Catherine I hope you know how much I love you and the things I plan for you. I know you have not had many princess moments so far but I WILL change that this year.
I want to build you a castle of stone and brick, buy you the finest things money can buy and I want everyone to you how special you are as a person and to me. I want everyone to envy us, not for our money but for how great our relationship is and how much I do for you.
Though we may not get to spend as much time together this year I promise you that I will make it the best times we have ever had together. I know I am flawed but I am go to do everything I can to be the perfect husband.
I will forgive you for all your mistakes if you will forgive me for mine, so that is going to require a lot of forgiving from you! Today is Christmas you know and who was better at forgiving than Jesus?
All I want is for us to be happy this year this year baby and I will do whatever it takes to make that happen. You are my princess and I will show you that this year. I am going to make you feel more special than you have ever felt.
Catherine I love you please accept this promise with the gifts I got you.
It happened on a Monday night at a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint in McKinney, Texas, called Brooklyn’s Pizza. I could tell something was off with him and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but I chalked it up to stress and tried to lighten the mood by being silly.
After he’d finished ordering our pizza, he returned to the table with a serious look on his face. For a minute, I thought he was about to say something along the lines of, “This relationship is just too much for me, and I think it would be best if we go our separate ways.”
But then …
I remember it like it was yesterday. I can still see his face, hear his voice, and feel the moment his hands reached across the table for mine:
So, listen, I need to talk to you …
(… at which point my stomach dropped …)
… do know that I love you, right?
(… and then I laughed back at him …)
Oh, so, you LOVE me, huh? Well I love ya too, Williamson!
Catherine, please! This isn’t meant to be funny. Be serious for a minute and listen. I don’t just ‘love ya’. I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU! I’ve tried to picture my life without you in it, but I can’t. So, yah, I kinda REALLY love you.
All I remember after that is my jaw practically hitting the table—and, of course, me crying like a little girl. I’d already beaten him to that punch when I realized I loved him while I was away at The Meadows. The first morning I woke there with any real sense of coherence, I knew it:
I LOVED HIM!
But you see, I had long since resigned myself to the idea that we would never work “that way” under the circumstances, and I was okay with just being friends. Even still, he was important to me. He’d already become my eyes, my ears, and the beating in my heart—but now he’d become my Williamson. It was a vindication for both of us and the first day of the rest of our lives. That Godforsaken black suit I’d been wearing since the day I was born began falling to the ground in glorious tatters.
VINDICATED
Hope dangles on a string like slow-spinning redemption. Winding in and winding out, the shine of it has caught my eye. And roped me in so mesmerizing so hypnotizing. I am captivated. I am – Vindicated. I am selfish. I am wrong. I am right, I swear I’m right. Swear I knew it all along and I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well. I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself. So clear like the diamond in your ring. Cut to mirror your intention. Oversized and overwhelmed, the shine of which has caught my eye. And rendered me so isolated. So motivated. I am certain now that I am – Vindicated. I am selfish. I am wrong. I am right, I swear I’m right. Swear I knew it all along and I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well. I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself. So turn up the corners of your lips. Part them and feel my fingertips. Trace the moment, fall forever. Defense is paper thin. Just one touch and I’d be in too deep now to ever swim against the current. So let me slip away. So let me slip away. So let me slip away. So let me slip against the current. I am – Vindicated. I am selfish. I am wrong. I am right, I swear I’m right. Swear I knew it all along and I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well. I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself. {Dashboard Confessional}
