Month Four/ Corey's Smiles

Four months since the accident. Wow. Just, wow.  I cannot even imagine how I have even been able to make it to this day without going completely crazy. Corey was my rock, and also like my walking diary.  I told him everything. Even those random thoughts we get from time to time that we usually never share with anyone, I shared those with him.  He knew me better than anyone and most of the time better than I knew myself. How have I made it this far without him around? It helps that I knew him extremely well too and that I pretty much know what he would say or do in reaction to almost every situation.  Even while he was alive I joked I was going to make a bracelet to remind me of this. Remember those WWJD bracelets that were so popular years ago? We joked I should make a WWCD bracelet for times he was gone and I did not know what to do, but especially how much to spend lol.  It helps knowing how he would feel about things I am doing.  I think about him as much as you can possibly think about another person.  I am not saying I took him for granted but, there were so many things I adored about him that I honestly did not even notice while he was around.  The world and our lives were too busy to notice the simple things like that and gosh I wish we had just took time to slow down so I could have told him every single thing I loved about him.  While searching for a photo to put in the background of my IPhone, I noticed a smile in one of his photos that only came around in particular situations.  I felt a little cheesy since I had seen something similar in a movie, "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton" (cute movie btw if you have not seen it!).  So, I went through all of his pictures, along with all of my memories and came up with a list. A list of 8 smiles that my amazing husband had. Each was unique and could brighten up any room or situation. So, here's my (I don't care how cheesy it is and I know he is probably laughing at me right now) list:

Smile 1

This was his smile for when he was genuinely having a good time/in the middle of laughing.  I usually saw this when I did something ditsy and he found it amusing or when we were doing something he enjoyed. In this photo, we were on vacation in Vegas.....and he had just been served the largest beer I had ever seen. You can imagine the excitement!

Smile 2

This was his, "okay I don't have to be in every single photo we take, ever" smile.  I know it annoyed him how many photos I took of him! He probably heard "SMILE!!!" 50 times every day we were on vacation but, I am so happy because those photos left me with hundreds and hundreds of memories.

Smile 3

 This was his, "I'm so exhausted and my crazy wife is making me take a picture that if I don't give her atleast a smirk, she will make me take again" smile. So cute....even when sleepy. This was after the Marine Corps Ball so, he had every right to be sleepy. I made him dance quite a bit!!

Smile 4

This classic smile was one that graced everyone who was in his presence when he had a few drinks and boy was it a fun one!  He would never get drunk really, just extremely happy. He was super affectionate too when he got in these moods. In this one he was also having a lot of fun because we were at a San Diego Padres game with all of HMLA-469 so we were hanging with all of his friends and their wives.

Smile 5

This was a smile I saw quite often.  This is the one that made it to the background of my phone, by the way.  He gave me this smile when he was proud of himself for doing something sweet for me.  If the smile could have been put into words it would have read, "Did I do a good job, sweetheart?".  For instance, if I was having a bad day sometimes he would stop and pick me up some of my favorite ice cream or something else I really liked and when he gave it to me.....he gave me this smile along with it.  He was so proud of himself when he did sweet things for me and I could tell he enjoyed it just as much as I did. I was so lucky.


Smile 6

No long caption needed for this one. This was his "I'm so cool" smile.  That was him and my little stepbrother when we went to Disney World last year.  As you can see, he was definitely ready for kids! :)

Smile 7

This was his, "I'm at work but I'm having fun......and ofcorse I know I get to go home soon" smile.  I am sure that he had his times of being mad at his job, everyone does, but this was how I usually saw him when I went to visit him at the Squadron.  He never saw the point in complaining about everything. I am not sure if that was just his positive outlook on things or his common sense because complaining will get you no where but, either way, he was a hard worker and kept his head up.

And....last but not least, my favorite.

Smile 8

This was his smile when he was looking at me.  I don't think he ever looked at me without complimenting me.  He was always telling me how lucky he thought he was that I picked him out of everyone else in the world, or just simply looking at me and saying, "Wow".  I never felt better than when I was in his eyes.


So, there's my cheesy list of smiles! It made me happy to write them all down....so that if I ever wonder later, there they are.

Four months is a long time to be without your best friend. I hope and pray he hears me when I talk to him.  I just wish I could see him once more. But, that would just leave me still saying that I wish I could see him once more after that. No amount of time with him would have ever been enough.  We could spend weeks straight without spending any time apart at all and we never ever got tired of eachother. It was so simple. That is how it should be. You should be content and do any and everything to make the other person happy because that is where your happiness really comes from. I never thought it possible but my love for him grows more every day.  It happens when I think about him and all of the things we shared.  It's a shame though that it took me until now to stop and think of all of those things I loved so much and never realized how lucky I was to just have that.  I could have lived forever with him in that little apartment, living paycheck to paycheck, chasing each other around the place and laughing, sharing meals, and just.....being us. "Live simply" my Mother always says. I think that is what she means.....

I went to visit the cemetery on Father's Day and we brought him a ton of flowers. I want people to know just how loved he was, not only for his amazing personality but for his ability to smile and make everyone around him smile too.  I just wish I could have seen the one smile that I most likely have not seen yet, the smile when he got to see his little girl.

Anger

These pictures were taken in Pensacola when Corey was there for a few months training.  I would leave work in New Orleans and drive to Pensacola, which was only about a 3 hour drive, and go spend the weekend with him every single Friday he was there.  The hotel was not the cheapest on base and we had to go get food every day on the weekends but it did not matter to us how much we had to spend in order to spend time with each other.  Every Friday I would get a text message from him counting down the hours until I would arrive there and we could spend the weekend together.  We were so excited and could not wait for what the future had in store for us.  We even pondered "secretly" getting married and then having our "official" wedding in December which we already had planned and booked.  That is how bad we could not wait to get married.  We ultimately decided that the BIG day in December would not be as special if we were actually already officially married so we decided to be good and wait.  But, the excitement and passion was so great and I will always remember him saying things like "I cannot wait to call you my wife."  All of the memories I have of the past 5 years are a bit like a double edged sword.  I am so grateful to have had love like that because I know that a lot of people never will know what it is like to be so content and completely and 100% in love with someone as much as I was in love with him but it also hurts.  It hurts because I had it so good and now it's gone.  I have recently begun to get very angry at that.  I am angry that we had such high hopes for our future and in a second he was gone.  I thought we were safe.  I mean,  as a 25 year old you never ever think about the possibility of this happening.  Why on Earth would you?  Most of the people my age are just now getting engaged and starting out and here I am.......already widowed.  Left behind by the greatest man that I have ever met who in no way ever deserved an ending like that.  I find myself apologizing to him while I sit alone sometimes.  It is the same type of "I'm sorry" that I hear when people see me for the first time since seeing me before the accident.  They cannot do anything about it nor did they cause it, they are just.....sorry.  That's how I feel.  I am so sorry this happened to him.  He did not deserve it.  He had so much to offer this world and my world is not the same without him.  It is dull and grey.

I read in many of the books that I have been handed that the 3 month mark is for some reason the hardest.  I think it is because the shock is almost completely gone and I find myself asking,"Am I really doing this alone?"  Also, I feel so torn between so many people.  I know that everyone is being so supportive and yet I still feel like I need to please everyone which is really difficult while still trying to do what I want.  Even doing what I want is hard because I feel like I am reaching for a million different things to try and make me happy and not one of them works.  I know why.  Because what makes me happy is out of my reach.  I feel abandoned even though I know if given the choice he would be here.  I just feel alone.  I look at pictures of us and my smile is so different in those photos.  Will I ever smile like that again? Will I ever feel so content and and happy as I did the 5 years I was with him?  If not, then what kind of life do I have to look forward to?  It's overwhelming to even think about.  I have also had to make hard hard decisions.  Some of those I would rather not talk about on here as they are depressing enough but,  some are just hard.  I originally had planned on moving to Georgia and buying a house there.  I was actually in the process of buying a home about 25 minutes from the cemetery where Corey is.  The more I thought about it the more I was just unsure of my decision.  That was Corey and I's plan.  We planned on going to one of the southern states, Georgia, Alabama, (he even liked Virginia), and buying a house and having the white picket fence and living happily ever after.  When I was originally making the decisions after the accident,  I was on auto-pilot and I was "following the plan". I was told by many that maybe I should take a little longer to think about it and me being the stubborn person I am decided not to listen.  Well, I should have.  That WAS our plan.  It was our plan for the both of us and now it's just me.  That means things need to change because...he is gone.  I have to accept that.  I am alone and he's never coming back.  It hurts to even type that.  I decided to go home.  I backed out of buying the house in Georgia and decided to go home.  I wanted to be close to the cemetery but, to be honest, when I go up there, I just don't feel like he is there.  I guess it is because I never saw him when he was not alive and well so it's hard to accept he is there.  I still go and bring massive amounts of flowers and talk to his headstone just praying he hears me but,  I just cannot imagine he is really there.  I plan on going to visit atleast once a month not only the cemetery but Corey's family, who I consider my family too.  It is extremely important to me that they are a huge part of Corey Ann's life and I will do whatever it takes to make that happen.  I lost my husband and they lost their son, brother, grandson, nephew....etc.  We all need each other to get through this.  So, my heart is split into three now.  One piece in Georgia because half of me and my family is there.  One piece in California because I miss the life we shared , our routine, my "normal" everyday things I did, and our amazing friends out there more than I ever knew you could miss something, and the last piece here, in New Orleans. I might get a house out here, I might not.  What I hope is that everyone will leave that to me.  I did not choose this life and it is hard enough without me worrying what people may think.  I made the mistake in Georgia to move too quickly but I am happy I did because I would have never known it was a mistake and maybe I would have always wondered if I should have done that or not.  New Orleans is not perfect...actually it is far from it.  Corey did not want to raise kids here but he said he would not have minded being stationed here.  He fit right in too.  We always had a blast when we came here and most of the places I go hold memories of him. I have done so much to try and make him proud and I know he just wants me to be happy. So here I am.   This is my "home" and where I will stay for now even though my home used to be wherever Corey was.  I would have followed him anywhere and been perfectly fine because he was my home.  I would give up everything else in my life to feel that comfortable again.  I just want to feel at "home" again.