Ashes

Tears are a new thing for me.  For years I was stoic, shoving my emotions somewhere deep so I didn't have to deal with them.
An awesome counselor told me I had to feel.  That the rug I was shoving everything under was probably about six feet tall by now, and would come tumbling down.  He helped me see.  I had to feel.
But I hate it.
It hurts.
I cry now.  I cry so much.  And sometimes I still suppress the tears, but more often than ever they flow freely down my cheeks and sobs vomit from somewhere inside... not the dainty, lovely, "oh you're sad let me give you a hug" kind of sobs... the "it hurts me to even look at you crying like that" ugly, huge kind of sobs.
I lost my love, my best friend.
Today, just moments ago, he came and picked up his motorcycle.  He's leaving town.  Around his wrist was a medical emergency bracelet, warning the world, if something happens to him, he can't be given opiates because of the shot he is on... they could easily kill him...
The auction for the majority of his business stuff is Saturday.  He was planning to be there.  Today he said he can't.  He is leaving.
He hugged the children, we cried together for a moment, because everything is so broken, and he left.
I can't write our story without him. I tried.  I have started and stopped so many times over the past two weeks, there is so much to tell... but it is ours and I can't relive it alone.
I can't say, "I wish I would have known what we were up against, I would have run the other way." Because, we have four awesome babies, and I am grateful for them, even though I wish I could have given them a much less messy life.  They're great though.  And amazingly resilient.
I cry into the lonely bed, cry out my pain, and Jesus is there and comforts me. I am grateful for His love and comfort in moments like this.
We've been through a lot, Caleb, me, the babies... But we are still alive, I am grateful for that too.  I know Caleb's soul is heaven bound, even though his body is broken and his mind rebels.  I am grateful for that.
I am grateful for the words of a friend yesterday:
"We can all wish he'd never started...but it's too late for that. And he may or may not win the fight in the end...but just like anyone else with what may be a terminal illness, he can put up the best fight he knows how; and whatever happens down the road God can still use him and these circumstances in the here and now to bring something good from it. Even in the darkest of situations, when there seems to be no good end in this world, there can still be ultimate healing and redemption. His physical body may be firmly in the grasp of his addiction, but his soul belongs to God. I pray you will be comforted by the fact that God knows and understands your struggles, your grief, and your frustration, and is right there with you. It's quite ok for you to vent, and your church family will always be a safe place for that. We love you!"
I am grateful for our church, Christ's church.  I wouldn't be alive without them.
Ashes, food tastes of ashes and soot.  I find no comfort there.
The warm showers that once washed away the stress of the day, now feel like warm ash that simply seems to smear the mess of everything around... there is no water that can clean this mess... except the Living Water... but don't I know that's a long process too.
So I fall into bed in total defeat, and He does quench my parched heart.  He does give me rest.  He does give me strength to get up, be present with the children, and even sometimes laugh.
But this brokenness between me and Caleb, it is as if I have had surgery to remove a limb, a very vital and important limb... And after it's removal, I still feel the phantom...
The phantom feeling that he should still be here, should show up for dinner, should walk through the door with that smile while the kids run for his legs like they haven't seen him in ages... The good memories hover like ghosts in this place. We were one, now we are broken apart, back to two separate beings... and it is so foreign to exist in this world of separate.
I guess, we have been separated a bunch before with his out of town work and times in rehab... but always there was a promise of a return.  I missed him but there was hope.  Hope that the WE could make it...
I still have hope, hope in Christ.  Hope in a future.  Hope in our children growing in the training and admonition of the Lord.  But this relationship, it is broken... perhaps beyond repair...
I mean, God can restore all things, and I hold nothing against Caleb... but heroin had us both firmly joining the ranks of insane... mine with (understandable) trust issues, control issues, anxiety and fear.  Caleb's well, addiction is enough insanity, I needn't outline the depths it takes a man.
So together, we become insane.
Not such a beautiful outlook.
One comment Caleb did make, as we cried our goodbyes, "For this to ever work again, we'll have to spend as much on counseling as I spent on drugs."
But what we know for now is, we are a broken mess, and we cannot function as a family.
I get to work to give the children stability, hope, comfort, and love as I recover my sanity and peace.
Caleb gets to... figure out life without drugs, if he can.
I think he can, I pray he can, but neither one of us know if he can.
So he rides.
The red Enduro drown out his goodbye as he sped away.
And now I begin picking up the pieces of my heart, turning them over to God, and ignoring the phantom face at the window at six o' clock, eagerly watching to see the kids notice he is home.  Ignoring the summer air calling for the family campout I know I can't make happen alone... Ignoring the empty spot in the bed, the empty place at the table, empty seat in the car... as best I can.
And grieving over a loss that isn't a death, but feels more painful than any death we have gone through. 
On he rides, with tears in his eyes, and I am left in the ashes.