Living with it Daily…

Surviving a stroke, a pretty big deal.  Something you can’t just forget…   

Losing your best friend, and partner of 23 years… no words at all.  

Both, at the same time.  Pure and total chaos.  Do not recommend at all.   In any way.  

Every-time I was able to do something new  for the first time…walking without my walker, going on walks alone, learning Braille, all the little things like that, it has felt empty.   Yes, I am excited…but there was always that feeling of “!!!I can’t wait to tell Tre…” and then the slap in the face immediate realization that I can’t.  

I don’t know how to even start to explain everything that Trey was to me.   We had been together 23 years.   But…in ‘gay’ years that’s like 75.  We didn’t always get along, we always disagreed…on everything.   Trey was a dreamer, I was not.   He would always say, we will worry about that tomorrow.   Just relax.   I’d be worried today, tomorrow, and next week.   We balanced each other out very well.   We spent a LOT of time together.  We were always together.   ALWAYS.  Very very much homebodies.  We rarely ate out.   Because as trey always said ‘Why eat out when we can make it better at home?’  Essentially he was my only ‘friend’ throughout the years.   Sure I had others here and there…you know who you are.   But, as I told April when she started working for us…I don’t need any friends.  

I really didn’t need any friends.   

I had everything I needed.   

Why can’t it just go back to the way it was?  There was nothing missing in my life.  I had everything I needed.  Life was good.  Overall.  Trey had gotten me to dream.   To have goals.   To work to make everything better.   Trey had changed my entire outlook on life.   Totally.  

The way everything happened…I just don’t even know how you’d ever recover from all of that.  

While in the hospital the Doctors, therapists, and stroke counselors always kept telling me ‘when you get out of the hospital you’re going to have a whole NEW exciting life…you’ll adjust and won’t even remember how you feel today…”.   

Well hell.   I wish I could feel like that again.  I remember exactly how I felt.   Scared, terrified, but also excited.   Everyday that Trey would come to see me I would jump out of bed into my wheelchair and walk him all around to see what I could do.   He would always call me speedy Gonzales running around in my wheel chair.   The day I took him to the stair well and showed him I could walk all the way up a flight of stairs I turned around and he was crying at the bottom of the stairs.  I got all the way up there and then realized I couldn’t get down.  We laughed.   And he called benton to hurry and come help me down.   WHY could I not see that Trey Couldn’t even help me down the stairs?   

Why was that not registering?  What was I thinking?  

I have no clue.   

 I do remember the first fall class that I asked trey to come to he came, and brought benton.   I remember asking why is he here?   And I do remember thinking what’s wrong?   I think I asked trey what was up.   And he told me well just in case.   Benton needs to know all this stuff too.  And it was dropped.  

After all that I do remember trey always telling me that I needed to be nicer to benton.   Apparently, My niceness doesn’t come shinning through…. 

But everyone was right.  My life totally changed.  Pre stroke and Post stroke are two totally different lives.   In ways the doctors never meant.   

The day Trey hired Benton he told him ‘I have no idea why I’m hiring you.   But, I just feel like I have to’

 

One of the last things we all talked about is what Trey expected.   He told me to be nice to benton.   Told Benton he guessed he had figured out why he had to hire Him.   There was a LOT more.   But that’s the gist of it.  I don’t think I will ever forget that night.    I relive it almost daily.  

I relive my hospital experience over and over and over.   I’ve had therapy on top of therapy on top of therapy to let it go.   But I can’t.   Because those are my last memories of Trey.  And I’d rather keep all the trauma… because I don’t want to mess with my memories of Trey.   I’ve learned a lot better how to deal with them.   I never wake up in nightmares much anymore.   I’m never in full on panic.  But, there are still days where I am paralyzed in tears.   

I don’t think that will ever change.    My memories are everything to me…the good, the bad, and the ugly.