Lamentations on a Lost Love

A Birthday Toast

2012-02-23T20:48:00.003-05:00

Last night I sat on the couch with roommate Kelly, watching Ghost Hunters like we often do, drafting up what I thought would be my fancy blog entry for Dave’s birthday. Long story short, after some valiant efforts, I ended up giving up in mid paragraph b/c it just wasn’t culminating into the noteworthy masterpiece that I envisioned, and I decided to crash for the night (after another episode of Ghost Hunters and maybe a showing or two of 'Intervention').

So tonight, I’m parked on my favorite comfy couch yet again, schedule cleared, sucking down some of Dave’s favorite vino – Tierra Divina Malbec, listening to his favorite Motown artists, intrusively giant white candle consuming the best of the coffee table in front of me.

And a particular toast comes to mind… one that Dave might have even called his favorite, that he said quite often. One that the self-proclaimed "literal, sarcastic antagonist" would likely've had me post on his behalf. One that you, as a reader, likely will not see coming.

So Lad, tonight, on your 30^th birthday, here is my toast to you. I can hear you saying this to me, almost clear as day, like you always used to say it:

Cheers to you,

Cheers to me,

If we ever disagree,

Cheers to me!

Love you always, my David Laduzenski.

Coincidence? You'll never know.

2012-01-30T15:30:00.000-05:00

I always feel so guilty when I hear people say there are no coincidences and that everything happens for a reason, in the context of this lifetime thing.

Truth is, Dave tragedy aside, my life has been beyond incredible. I can't help but think of what the sayings "there are no coincidences," and "everything happens for a reason," imply for inner city kids or families living off one bowl of rice for a week on a dirty river in China. What is their reason for a life of violence, famine and pain? Or people who are born with a chronic illness or debilitating disorder? The only "reason" that could exist for their suffering through life is if they had done something wrong in some past life then, or were somehow 'destined' to screw up massively in a future life, right? Because, quite possibly, they weren't even given the capacity to fuck up (sorry mom) so badly in this lifetime. So, logically that means we'd all have to've had past lives... And yes, I'm making the assumption that living clear-headed and happy, fraught with fewer mental and physical challenges is living more ideally than the alternative. It sure as hell is a lot easier.

What about how the world's population has more than tripled in the past X amount of years - what was happening to some of those souls who exist physically in human form now but were nowhere to be found back then because the world population didn't allow for it?? Were they just grasshoppers before this life, since there weren't enough human bodies to meet the soul quota? So have I been a grasshopper? Shouldn't I have a greater affinity for grasshoppers now if I were, in fact, a grasshopper in a previous life? Why isn't there something more cool and obvious to tether all of these life/afterlife experiences together, since that's apparently the way of it, according to the death/spiritual authorities? Our experiences with existence in general should accumulate - should add up to something so we're not just hitting refresh each time around. I'm beginning to err toward believing in some afterlife thing because stuff has just been a little too weird not to at least embrace this doctrine a little, but Jesus this world is complex. I give up. For now.

Love Poem Expired

2012-01-12T13:12:00.003-05:00

Here's an old poem I once wrote for Dave back in the day, about the day we met... just found it in one of my piles today:

He looked at me
An embracing glimpse
Held on tight indefinitely
A curious smile rounding his cheeks
Fearless, adventurous, curious
To all that lies ahead

We walked around
Through timeless hours
Unwinding our past
Sharing our memoirs
Each anxiously giddy
yet strangely calmed
By the ease of our synergy
Taking shape.

We danced through eachother's minds all day
We danced our days together
To the night
Guided by instinct and
Desire for more.

You may never understand
the muse that is you.
How the taste of your wine
And the subtleties of your genuine spirit
The suave of your sponteneity
And the candor of your dialogue
Affected me that day
But I left our day's moment
Knowing you were the one.

Merry Ho Ho Ho

2011-12-25T11:23:00.004-05:00

Happy Christmas to you all.
And an extra loud shout-out to my mom, who said that all she wants for Christmas is for me to take out the naughty words I used about my boyfriend's killer in my latest blog post below... Because apparently unleashing raw emotion about the person who single-handedly took away my boyfriend's life and thus ruined mine, to express my deepest woes that I could ever fathom experiencing in this lifetime, with this mild-tempered, pacified, internet text, is too aggressive and forceful for her idealistic disposition. Oh, and happy 9 month anniversary on the evening our David was hit by Leary's pickup truck, March 25th.

So there it is for you, kids... edited... available in G-rated format below. Feel free to not read it again, if you continue to prefer the 'uncensored' Eleanor.

After the Laughter

2011-12-12T23:15:00.001-05:00

I’m quite possibly one of the most forgiving individuals in this world. If you knew the loving family I grew up in and the selfless nature of my mom, you’d understand where this sentiment comes from. I actually think this explains why I never quite hit the anger phase; just sadness. But you can only sift through so much emotional wreckage before you have to step back and realize how terribly, breathtakingly unfair the raw facts of this situation are, and how very clearly black and white the events of that fateful evening are laid out to be; How it’s specifically the thoughtless, selfish, irresponsible, earth-shattering actions of some pathetic, drugged up, useless, drunken excuse for a human being, that added up to taking away this person who was more to so many people than this killer could ever dream of being. Ok, there. You’re seeing the first of my anger come out in raw form right now. This was going to be a happy blog, because, well, ‘tis the season. Sorry, next one will make up for it.

My boyfriend’s killer, Daniel Leary, might be a fundamentally decent person, aside from making the one worst decision he’ll ever make, the night he ruined so many people’s lives by denying one person the rest of his. And if he is this decent person, then that’s just a crying shame, because any good character in him will forever be tarnished by his unfathomable irresponsibility that manifested in his breaking the law and subsequently killing someone, the weekend of March 25^th2011.

When I really drill down on the details of the night, I just tremble at how avoidable this could have been. How my sweet, unsuspecting boyfriend was simply standing in our friend’s driveway, about to do me a favor in picking up some of my artwork from inside his car to give to our friend, unbeknownst to him that he was breathing his very last breath before his brain would be starved of oxygen until he was soon unplugged from the machines 48 hours later - in a heartbeat he would be thrown into the middle of the road, hemorrhaging out of his ears and mouth… and yes, it makes me REALLY GODDAMNED ANGRY. It makes me ANGRY to read the police report and see that this dude tried to claim that my Love jumped out in the road in front of him, even though the tire marks indicate that he missed the turn and also managed to nail two mailboxes. And it makes me ANGRY that this guy is spending Christmas with his family this year, while none of us will ever have the privilege of spending another Christmas with our David EVER EVER again.

Meanwhile, Dave’s grieving parents are too depressed to even take out a Christmas decoration, and thus aren’t even doing Christmas this year. They literally just gave the majority of their Christmas decorations to the Salvation Army because they can’t stomach the torture of enduring the most loving of holidays, not having their family complete this year. They are a very close-knit Christian family that has always thoroughly enjoyed the holidays and entertaining friends and family with a traditional feast on Christmas Eve. Their home has always been more tastefully decked out for the seasons than any other family that I know. This year, Dave’s mom says that every ornament reminds her of her son, and that it would be way too painful to have this as a constant reminder over the holidays. They’re not even getting their unusually large Christmas tree this year, which they normally cover with hundreds of strands of gorgeous lights and an insane amount of ornaments, most of which were made by David and his sister Sarah in their youth. Instead, it looks like any other day in their house right now. I wonder what Leary’s house will look like this holiday season. While he’s celebrating the birth of christ with his family, we’ll all be celebrating the 9 month anniversary of David’s death. Lovely.

As it turns out, the holidays are not the time to self-prescribe a lower dosage of the happy pills when you’re still in love with your dead boyfriend. I’ve never resented Mariah Carey so much for that ever prominent seasonal tune of hers, ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’, or Elvis for the lamenting melodies of ‘Blue Christmas’. Ugh.

What do you think is the appropriate punishment my boyfriend’s killer should face for a heinous crime like this? Lets lay out the facts:

First and foremost, there was obviously no foul play – the guy didn’t mean to do it, plain and simple. For that, I do feel badly for him, that he has to live with this forever. But that’s exactly what he gets to do – live. My man doesn’t, and that is single-handedly because of Leary. Daniel Leary’s integrity and character has lost all relevance, merely because he stupidly took his eyes off the road for two very crucial seconds. Leary was out with a friend, doing whatever he was doing, hopefully not intending to cause anyone any harm that night. We’ll grant him that assumption.

The rest of the story isn’t quite that pretty, however. He made the extremely irresponsible decision to get behind the wheel after consuming a number of alcoholic beverages and possibly using cocaine, which was also found in the pickup truck. It’s not my business what he does in his personal time, but what IS my business is how he took no care to respect human life – MY human’s life, and he’ll never understand just the extent of pain he has inflicted upon me, upon David’s sister and her husband, upon David’s parents, their entire community, his many aunts and uncles, his grandmother, his cousins, my family and entire small town community, Dave’s and my very close group of amazing friends, our extended circle of friends, his and my colleagues, and so many more.

The court date is set for early February. If anyone’s interested in receiving updates on when and where to be if you’d like to attend, please email me at eleanorhalgren@gmail.com.

What do I think is the appropriate punishment then? Since he’s the sole catalyst in David’s death, many people I've talked to have expressed that, in an ideal world, he should be expected to have to give his own life. This would be the obvious, common sense, 'eye-for-an-eye' punishment. He killed someone. Someone huge. Someone beautiful. Someone more full of life than anyone anywhere. But the greatness that was Dave, is completely irrelevant. He's dead for life, and that's what matters. Obviously this kind of punishment would not happen, thanks to the lax Massachusetts laws against criminals. What’s even more sickening than leniency toward criminals in this state is that we’re told to expect a sentence of 2-3 years and then he’s free to walk again. Meanwhile those who love Dave are serving a lifetime sentence for a crime we didn’t even commit.

I don’t care what Leary’s lawyers are advising him, to try to achieve some air of innocence. If he were a decent human being, he would be on his knees at my house and Dave’s parents house, begging for forgiveness and offering to do anything he can to ease our sorrows. If I had killed someone, no matter what the circumstances, I would never in a million years be able to live with myself. But first and foremost I would exert all of my energy trying to at least show some sympathy for the wreckage I caused, wanting to remedy the pain, however possible, with the victim’s closest kin. What has happened to humanity when this isn’t even part of the equation and we’ve heard nothing from David’s killer? I guess for him, it’s a convenient case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. For his sake, props to him for being able to stay so far removed.

Sorry for the total downer blog here. All things considered, I’m doing ok. My roommate and I had an incredible xmas party at our very cool condo last night, I’m going on a 10 day sailing trip to the Virgin Islands for new years eve with some very fun friends, and work is busy but very exciting these days. Aside from the all-consuming, unprecedented void in my heart, the holidays have been rather tolerable and I have few complaints. Bring on 2012.

Romantic Gestures & Snowboarding

2011-11-27T23:03:00.001-05:00

Romantic Gestures:

David was out of this world with romantic gestures to me. He opened every car door for me, from the outside AND the inside. When we were walking on a sidewalk, he always gave me the inner sidewalk and he would take the curbside; a very classic, gentlemanly gesture.

Dave held my hand in his while we watched movies, and when he felt me move away at all, he’d immediately tighten up his grip on my hand, so not to let me go. I had forgotten about this trait of his until holding my 6-month-old niece the other day. She was holding onto my finger, and as I attempted to reposition, she gripped on tighter. Brought me back…

I’d always catch him just watching me, while we were vegging at home, watching a movie. I’d feel him watching me out the corner of my left eye (he always sat on the left and I sat on the right – the table to the left of our couch was bigger, plus that seat was more central to the house and our giant flat-screen TV, so I let him have it). I’d pretend for a while that I didn’t know he was staring at me, and eventually when he didn’t stop, I’d look over at him. We’d have that gazing moment where we just looked deeply into each other’s eyes, and then there were more than a few times where, after a moment, he said “yup…… yup,” with a very confident smile on his face and a beautiful energy behind his words. It melted me. I knew exactly what he was thinking. With no other words, we’d always return to looking at our movie, normally snuggling up even closer after moments like that. And that relaxed, loving, perfectly content feeling that ensued, that I was absolutely where I needed to be in life, gave me the all the energy that I needed in life to get by. Our chemistry was untouchable.

When I’d nap on his stomach or chest during a movie, he’d always let me know it was time to shift positions by taking a really deep breath, shifting my weight enough to wake me up. Cute. I was also reminded of this when my niece was recently asleep on my chest. I found myself needing to take a deep breath and didn’t want to shift her position too much and wake her up before her full half hour nap was over.

One night when I was sleeping, he was lying next to me watching me sleep and apparently my breathing pattern changed, because he lightly shook me to wake me up and tell me that he thought I stopped breathing and was nervous. He said “Nor, Nor!! Wake up!!” and was very concerned about my well-being. I found his concern in that moment to be beautifully endearing, and I remember it like it was yesterday.

Dave and I watched a hell of a lot of movies together; he hated TV, and thus was a total movie fiend. Just to mess with him, I’d often remind him that the actors in the movies were just that: actors… and that what was going on, on our screen, wasn’t real life but just scripted cinema. He’d get so mad at me for reminding him of that, because it made the experience of following their stories so much less enriching. Ha!!!

Even before the Massachusetts laws banned texting while driving, Dave was adamantly opposed to it. If he ever found out I was texting him while driving, he would not respond to my text at all, or he’d respond with an “I’m not responding to your text, because you’re driving right now- talk to you when you get here.” And if I ever texted him while he was driving, he had established a rule with me that he would simply text me “111” meaning that he can’t be bothered to distract himself while driving, but that he wanted to at least acknowledge my attempt at communication with him, always promoting safety. Nerd alert.

For our first hundred motorcycle rides together on his ‘Eleanor,’ he always checked my helmet so diligently after I put it on, saying he had to make sure my “precious dome” or my “sweet noggin” was protected. We went on long day rides all of the time on his bike, and he often wouldn’t bring directions with us (before the advent of the SmartPhone). Instead, he’d just rely on his intuition to get us back where we belonged, even if we were in another state down some remote paths. He’d use the direction of the setting sun as guidance. His sense of direction was nearly flawless, and yet he was never too proud and pompous of a man to ask for directions if he found that he really needed them. He was my rock.

Dave was always the best promoter for all of my art shows and my music gigs. He’d come to the art studio and spend hours on end there with me during our bi-annual open studios, always bringing me lunch from our favorite sandwich place to feast on while I was on my feet there all day. He’d always call me before he headed to see me at the studio, asking if our other friends who were hanging out in my studio cared for a sandwich too.

The man never missed a gig that my band, Magnolia, played (except for the very last one, as he was consumed with working over-time at his second job, since we had just bought a house together and had some heavy payments ahead of us). He was always front and center with his famous shit-eating grin, working the HD Flip-Video Camera I had gotten us for Christmas last year.

A few years ago, I was in the movie Surrogates (starring Bruce Willlis) and Dave was more excited than I was to see it in the theaters, and he insisted on pausing and rewinding our TiVo to find me on the screen when we later watched it on TV.

Engagement stories:

He was always so anxious to have me pick out my ideal engagement ring, I’d come home and he’d’ve set up my computer on certain jewelry sites to design my own ring. One time, when I got to work setting up what I liked on the computer, he came over to look at what I had chosen over my shoulder, took the mouse from me, upgraded it from a 1 karat to a 3 karat diamond without saying a word, and quietly walked away.

We were taking a Sunday stroll around the Cambridgeside galleria one day, and a jewelry store happened to be diagonally in front of us, on my side of the isle. As we got closer to it, he slowly, subtly sideswiped me, such that we ended up walking right into the store together so we could get inspired, and he didn’t say a word as he did this, as though he had planned it.

He always told me he was so excited to “tag” my finger, or to “give my ring finger an upgrade.” Sometimes we’d be watching a movie, and my hand would be in his, and I’d just feel him holding onto that finger extra tight, lightly massaging it between his fingers like he was really thinking about engagement.

Snowboarding:

The man always took great pride in sharpening and waxing everyone’s skis and snowboards in any ski house we rented with friends over the years. He always asked around to see whose skis and boards were dull and in need of a facelift before hitting the slopes bright n early the next morning. He always did a stellar job and selflessly took the time to train me on his sharpening technique.

Dave would prepare for our many ski trips by making sure he was in the best physical shape possible, given the confines of his busy, 2-jobs-a-day schedule. By this, I mean that every time he brushed his teeth or sautéed the stir-fry, he could be found working his quads in some intense squats and lunges. He was beyond pro on the toughest of slopes and could impress all of us with his moves, catching serious air on moguls, icy runs, powder, and double black diamonds, briskly dodging trees through the woodsy trails. He only started snowboarding during his freshman year in college (!!!) and was an absolute pro in no time. After a long day of rocking the slopes together, he always made sure I was well massaged with my beverage of choice in hand in the hottub in our house of friends. I had it far beyond ideal with that one.

I often made it my job to videotape him and anyone else who happened to be skiing with us at the time, on our Flip VideoCam. A month before he was killed, Dave edited some video clips I had recorded of him, doing some mild snowboarding at Mt. Snow with his good friend Adam. He spent an evening some weeks after the ski trip mixing the clips, and by the morning, he had put together the following brief video... Note the song he chose to pair with the video:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150214068207516

Turns out there were an obscene amount of omens just like this one, leading up to his death. And I totally don’t even believe in this stuff… so I’m at a loss over this one.

Until next time... xo

Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T20:55:00.000-05:00

I could not have picked any better friends and family to lose my absolute favorite person in the world with. So this year, my deepest Thanks-Giving goes out to you fine folks, along with my utmost Giving of Thanks to the three years and four days that I had with my beloved David.

Dozens and dozens of Dave’s and my closest friends have come together to keep me sane through my sadness and have all instinctively found their own individual roles in this process. I have friends who took off work during my first Daveless days to keep me company upon my brief 2-month return to my parents house before I moved back in with my long-time friend Kelly, who I lived with before I lived with Dave. I couldn't fathom sleeping alone in the condo I shared with Dave after he was killed, and some of my closer friends took it upon themselves to even keep me company while sleeping so I wouldn't wake up each morning to the emptiness that would soon ensue in the coming months. Others put themselves out there as the one I absolutely need to call the second a spark of sadness hits, and they would reach out to me every night or every other night, even from Europe (yes, that's you Zoe). Others were around to offer me a glass of wine or a walk along the Charles River to blow off some steam and just let loose. And then there were the ones who took it upon themselves to simply get me away to Paris, the mountains of NH, or nearby daytrips just to help me get out of my own head with a change of scenery. And above all, my amazing friends all offered me a shoulder to cry on, always full of inspiring perspectives, always putting their own lamentations second, despite how close they were with our David, and how much they were hurting inside the entire time over his loss. Thank you thank you thank you. Much love to all of you. I'm going out for Thanksgiving Eve, but I have lots more to say in the coming days. Stay tuned.

god only knows...

2011-11-21T13:29:00.000-05:00

god only knows...

Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you wish you were dead.

2011-10-13T22:55:00.000-04:00

It’s true! Just kidding, but I’ve been tossing that one around in my head and needed to put it out there.

A few weeks ago I thought I was done blogging… Hope I didn’t kill off too much of my readership putting that out there. I retract that statement now – it was a fleeting sentiment.

It’s so strange how the passage of time does little for adjusting the mind to such life-altering experiences as this. The shock factor is only mildly abated for me now, 6.5 months in, than it was 6.5 hours in. Every day is still wrought with a billion little moments where you’re engulfed in your own unrelated thought chain, be it waking up first thing in the morning, or while watching a movie, or during a heated debate, or a meeting at work, or something else all-consuming. You come out of these moments and reassess, even for an instant, your spot in life, or maybe just your spot in the day. That in-between zone, where you’re left with nothing but your raw consciousness to hone in on whatever thoughts find you, is a tough place to be sometimes if your situation is less than ideal. I’ve been lucky with life in general, so for the first time in my life, over these past 6 months, my situation is just that, less than ideal. It’s always then that I have to re-realize my cold new reality, and sometimes it hits as if it had just happened.

Dave and I had a really really good thing. We were a truly healthy balance with personalities and interests that complimented each others so right. Sure, we argued like the best of them, but he always had the most constructive way of easing those moments, whether he was at fault or not. And bless his little heart for having that ability, because I’m not quick to admit fault first. He was always good for turning us around when the mood was down, because he was able to realize before I could, that arguing and disagreeing was just so stupid. Props to you for that one, Lad.

We always joked that we had so little in common, but as time passed, we realized it was only the surface characteristics where we didn’t necessarily converge – favorite musical genres, how we handled certain social situations, etc. Eventually though, even those boundary lines started to fade as we grew together. Our last weekend we ever spent together, we went to visit some friends in Brooklyn all weekend. On our exhausting drive home that Sunday afternoon, Dave commented that he was proud and impressed at how much more in common we had than we even gave ourselves credit for. We reflected on how far we’d come as a couple and how refreshing it was to have broken down all barriers and to each be able to just happily and freely be in love with our best friend.

The man was THE PERFECT PACKAGE. He was brilliant, witty, creative, humorous, selfless, thoughtful, handsome as hell, adventurous, spontaneous, family-oriented, driven, and the most personable guy I know besides my dad. He was fearless and could talk to anyone about anything. He had his life’s plan mapped out perfectly (very different from my free-spirited non-agenda approach). He had ambitious goals of buying several multi-family houses together, building our “empire” together, and meticulously investing ourselves into making these houses the best they could be, while hopefully profiting quite nicely. Because of his extensive planning, research and enthusiasm for this investment path, I was happy to invest my savings to support his dreams. His assets were well-diversified and he rocked the stock market with strategy, offering me financial advice whenever I was open to receiving it, and he inspired me to grow my savings into what it is today, to track my spending habits and add any additional income immediately into my Orange ING savings account.

He was raised to approach the world with thoughtful tact and to use his astute mind for all sorts of problem solving in life. I'm inclined to believe that everything I do is somehow a product of Dave’s influence. The man encouraged me to cook at home more often, rather than eat out at restaurants constantly like I was accustomed to. He had no shame experimenting with any ingredients in the kitchen and taught me an incredible deal about cooking and gardening. He loved learning, at any opportunity he got, and his zest for expanding his knowledge boundaries was infectious. He encouraged me to dust off my bicycle and take Sunday afternoon rides with him. He loved exploring new concepts that could have been considered beyond his scope. I taught him tennis soon after we met, having played somewhat consistently for my entire life, and he was a more than worthy opponent in no time.

His motorcycle was his other baby, and I would hear him outside our bedroom window at insanely early hours on a Saturday in the summer, hard at work shining up his ‘Eleanor’ and tweaking her chrome and mechanics to perform to all of his ideas. If something didn’t work, he fixed it right then and there.

He told me very early on in our relationship that I was his first real love, and to me, that was huge. He always flooded me with compliments on how I looked and how speechless he was that he could end up with the likes of me. My guy friends even told me that he'd talk like this when I wasn't even around - so of course this made it all the more genuine. At a party, we didn’t always need to be by each other’s sides, but I’d always catch him looking at me and winking from across the room. He always held my hand everywhere we went together, even when it was too hot and sweaty to be touching someone else, or too cold and frigid to have our hands outside of our pockets.

He understood the importance of remembering people on Christmas or birthdays with a deeply personal gift and would make a point to think of what would be most appropriate to give them months ahead. He really took time to understand people and what made them tick.

If someone was out of line with him, instead of getting worked up about it, he usually just didn’t care. Whenever he saw me upset about anything, he would cheer me up in the sweetest of ways – he’d get right in my face and wipe away my tears however he thought would help best, using whatever creative tactic was relevant at that moment. He treated me like an absolute princess, always his first priority in life, and always encouraged me to excel at work, or with my painting and music careers. Above all, family was everything to him. Even my family. He was known for always bringing his chrome polish with him whenever we’d go out on my parents’ boat to help my dad make the boat look just a little shinier, he'd bring a bouquet of flowers for my mom at random times, and I’d find him chatting about biofuels and GMO’s for hours on end with my sister (something very close to her heart).

In the summer of 2010, Dave took me to California for a friends wedding, and we rented a mustang convertible and made our trip into an awesome vacation, driving up the coast together, stopping at all of the hot spots and visiting with friends and family. He booked all of the nicest hotel rooms along the coast (San Diego, Laguna Beach, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Morro Bay, Sonoma Valley, and San Francisco), and kept surprising me with romantic gestures throughout our entire trip.

People can be so hard on themselves, hard on each other in relationships. Dave and I both embraced the fact that life just didn’t need to be so difficult. I look around at these other couples that are in rough shape (there are so many!!!) and I wonder how they let themselves get so far off track. In a sense, witnessing this makes it slightly easier for me to be single now, knowing that these couples have their own struggles and that I haven’t been privy to that. But on the other hand, it’s all the more frustrating, thinking I had something so beautiful and untouchable, such unspeakable chemistry and all around wholesome vibes with my David, and that seems completely unattainable ever again. I just cringe at how effortless and fun-loving my relationship with Dave generally was, in retrospect. And I smile knowing I never took one moment of that for granted.

Food for thought...

2011-10-07T09:55:00.000-04:00

So - what's it like? The whole experience of death / life-after-death... the biggest source of wonder in this world... Guess we'll all find out some day when it no longer matters.

as i remember you

2011-10-04T19:21:00.001-04:00

last kiss

hourglass shattered

orchid wilts.

we lost you at the dawn

of a new season

it’s been winter in my abandoned heart since.

we always said

i’ll love you forever;

your forever came far too soon.

you were my north, my south,

my east, my west.

my working week,

and my sunday rest.

Love, you’ve forever changed the color

of my skies

all the goodness in my life is gone.

first you,

and with you, beauty, joy, love.

you were my muse

i was your pet.

we had everything

together, we were fearless.

we really lived,

and goddamn, did we love.

i will never forget

your endless devotion

honest eyes, gentle smile

soft hair

unparalleled mind.

never again, love,

never again.

the world was finished with you.

you, and your thoughtful way and your solid values.

you, and your deep ambition, lively soul

the world was finished with you

never again, love,

never again.

Saw this yesterday for the first time...

2011-09-25T19:34:00.001-04:00

6 months today.

Speechless.

"Every man dies. Not every man really lives." - Braveheart

2011-09-16T10:29:00.001-04:00

Things I wasn’t expecting to do this year that actually happened (chronologically):

- Co-invest in a multi-family house with the man of my dreams

- Lose the man of my dreams to a drunk driver

- Receive my share of the multi-family house down-payment back

- Buy the car of my dreams

- Get a fish tattoo on my hip to commemorate David

- Start considering that some sort of afterlife thing ACTUALLY EXISTS

- Sing on an electronic re-mix of a classic rock song (don’t ask – it has explicit lyrics that I didn’t write)

- Become an aunt to my beautiful baby niece

- Receive a diamond pendant necklace from David’s parents on the 4^th of July, the day he’d been planning to propose to me

- Move to Cambridge to the coolest building I’ve ever lived in, in the BEST LOCATION I COULD HAVE EVER HOPED FOR, with my long-time friend and roommate, Kelly

- Consider writing a book

- Go Skydiving (postponed from two weeks ago due to weather, moved to next month)

- Get my motorcycle license (TBD)

And if my work/life balance weren’t so damn healthy I’d probably have been living quite contentedly in Bali by now.

But I think I can actually say again: Life does not suck.

Holy cow am I a changed woman now, almost 6 months deep. There’s a whole heightened sense of living that’s achieved after a journey like this, and I’ve been trying to figure how to put into words how my life’s perspective has changed in this small course of time. It’s like trying to explain the concept of ‘color’ to someone who’s only seen black and white… the experience is beyond words.

David always encouraged me to rock out even harder at all of my band’s gigs, so now I sing with even more soul. Whenever I didn’t command the stage or rock out to his specifications, he made sure to let me know this after a gig, giving me inspiration to step it up all the more for the next. I sing with a folk-rock-pop-americana type band… so there’s only so much ‘rocking out’ to be done on stage. But any other gigs I’ve played with others over the recent months, you better believe I’m singing with some serious ‘tude. These days I’m also way more direct with people about how I feel, and I tolerate very little bullshit from people who ought to have their act together by now. Something David always prided himself about, and I know he'd be happy to see that I'm doing the same.

Not much phases me any more… I was always pretty open-minded and easy-going about life before, but my sense of judgmental is even further diminished now. Stuff just doesn’t matter the way it did before, and I don’t mean that in a bitter, negative way, but I’m having trouble finding the words to describe the mild sense of contentedness that’s overtaken my daily life as I glide through each day over the past few months. My sense of adventure and spontaneity has taken a giant leap forward, which is awesome. My sense of memory and ADD are definitely much worse now than ever before, but that’s more than a fair trade-off as far as I’m concerned. Life is just way too weird and unpredictable to be taken so seriously. Work hard, play hard, but enjoy it, and dammit - SMILE.

A large portion of this ease-of-life is undoubtedly due to the perfectly sufficient dose of anti-depressants prescribed to me early on by my PCP. And maybe I’m just on a natural high right now b/c I have a four-day weekend in front of me (took some days off from work for a trip to Bermuda with some friends, which was just canceled due to a hurricane – buuut I still have the time off from work! So as a backup, we’re planning a nice hike/getaway up to my parents condo at Loon Mtn in NH, and I’m heading out to visit a friend in my old college town of Saratoga Springs tomorrow, after a nice bar crawl around Beantown today with my fellow non-Bermudians)… and I booked a trip to Paris with Rachel (the one from my conversation blog about getting signs from the other side). PARIS IS GOING TO BE AWESOME.

And I went to see Maureen Hancock, world renowned medium, two nights ago with Dave’s and my parents, and my friend Amber. Maureen absolutely floored us all – she knew Dave’s mom’s name instantly (the tickets had been booked under my name), and she knew that she had lost her son, along with giving us and all other 80 people in the room detailed facts about their lives or their deceased loved ones that she would never otherwise have known. The guy sitting next to me lost his 11 year old daughter in 2008 to Leukemia, and before Maureen showed up for the group reading, he explained to me that he had seen Maureen once before. The last time he saw her, she approached him and said “Your daughter wants to know where her bench is, and she says what the heck are you waiting for; put the bench out soon.” He then explained the back-story to me, that when his daughter had passed away, they planted a garden in their yard as a memorial and had considered at the time, putting a bench in the garden for her. They discussed it amongst only themselves but hadn’t gotten around to it yet by the time they first met with Maureen, and that was one of the messages Maureen delivered to them, that the daughter was waiting for her bench. !!!!!!

You need to watch the 3 YouTube videos of Maureen’s first episode of ‘Psychic in Suburbia’ – it’s only a half hour total and will change your life. Starts with this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt6x64VAqKw

One of my biggest inspirations to blog out my thoughts was one of my best friends, Zoe Strimpel, of London. I’d like to take a moment and shamelessly plug HER blog now, which has incidentally been a great source of humor and insight to me throughout the course of this whacky journey. The woman has a brilliant way with words, and her blogs about romance and courtships and rocking the dating scene in her London socialite world are hard to stay away from. She’s written numerous columns for The London Times and City AM News, as well as countless other publications around the UK. She gets paid to stay in 5-star hotels around the world, take luxury train rides throughout India, indulge in the finest of restaurants and spas all over Europe, and much more (and she takes me with her whenever I make my way across the pond to hang out! Bonus!!) She was published by Penguin two years ago with her book, “What the Hell is he Thinking”, and just this week her second book, ‘The Man Diet,’ has come out, dedicated to none other than little old ME. Thanks, Zo Fro!!

Find her blog here: http://zoestrimpel.com/

And find her latest book here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-Diet-womans-quest-romance/dp/1847563058

I read in one of the many self-help books that was given to me over this journey, that the grieving process is actually incredibly beautiful. Strange, but I can totally see why they’d say that. Grief is one of life’s fundamental emotions that we’ll all experience in some form or another, likely during multiple times in our lives, and however we deal with it, there’s no taking away the raw emotion that is the foundation for grief in losing loved ones. No matter how many people we have around us during that trying process, it’s a personal quest that we must endure alone, that anyone involved must individualize and face head-on, with little control over how they handle it. I’m fortunate enough to’ve had some sense of mind and direction about me that I didn’t really go too nuts at any one point, all things considered. If I could count the number of times people have told me they’re so proud that I’ve been so brave going through this, and how they’d never survive such a loss themselves, I’d be counting a very high number. I’d like to point out that it’s impossible to know how you’d deal with such a situation, however, until you’re there. No one can successfully envision experiencing this world without their favorite person constantly present as much as they’re accustomed to, just as I never imagined I’d withstand such a test—Once the experience becomes real, and you can only work with what you have, it’s a whole different ballgame of finding out who you really are and what you can take. In fact, I was reading back on some love notes I wrote David back in the day, and one of them said "I can't imagine this world without you. I would cease to exist." But so far that hasn't even happened.

Strangely, this blog has been some of my best therapy. There may be further posts down the line, but for now I’ve exhausted the bulk of what I needed to get off my chest. Thank you immensely for reading, commenting, and letting me know that there are people who care out there. It has helped me beyond words.

xoxo,

Eleanor

God etc.

2011-09-07T23:58:00.000-04:00

I’ve always wondered if something as life-alteringly horrific as the death of your favorite person in the world had the capacity to turn any skeptic toward religion, or deeper toward religion if one was already practicing. Seen it in many prior instances. But the answer is a very loud ‘not necessarily so’. In fact, if there’s any way for me to be less religious than I was before, color me that. (Sorry, mom & dad – I got my fair share of Sunday School, church, junior choir, youth group and all-around spiritualism in my day, and I deeply appreciated all of your efforts in bringing that to me; I am all the more cultured for it). There’s just absolutely no way in hell that I can blindly worship any higher power who could have allowed this atrocity to happen under His/Her watch. David was simply an incredible person – he lived well, rarely harming others (red ants and slow Boston drivers aside) and exhibited great positivity and love for life in nearly all that he did.

I’ve only known his and my families to mean well in life, too, so I don’t think they’re owed any penitence. And jeez, not to toot my own horn, but I’ve generally been pretty kind and honest, treating others with thoughtful respect, remaining true to my virtues, practicing my vegetarianism for 15 years now, while being an environmentalist and philanthropist where possible, all the while maintaining a sense of compassion to all beings. So wtf.

We’re all given minds with a certain degree of rationalization capabilities to draw conclusions as we see fit, about cause and effect; a balance of what’s right and wrong, and a general consensus that good deeds ought at least merit good rewards, or at least not incite negativity… right? So I cannot, in my conscious, human, somewhat-rationalizing mind, believe any worshippable higher power to be involved here, whether directly or peripherally. If the One responsible for all of the pandemonium known as life, were to approve of, much less administer treatment like this to His/Her fragile subordinates, then I give up. And if He/She higher power is somehow related to the death of David, then my under-utilized human brain, being only as complex as is allowed in this physical realm, is nowhere near coming to terms with rationalizing how a well-intended higher-power can oversee events like this and condone it, even for reasons way more complex than my scope of comprehension. That would simply contradict all logic that we’re bred to accept by merely being members of this biological universe and society, bound by laws of nature. Life is such a joke. And kids, the joke's on us.

A few stories

2011-09-05T10:49:00.000-04:00

Dave was full of idiosyncratic energy. He lived up to his nickname “Crazy Dave,” and then some. He was just a neat, spirited, playful, innovative guy, with enough thoughtful creativity in him to fill a stadium.

I have a billion priceless, amusing stories I’d like to share with you about Dave, but in the interest of everything sane, we’ll stick to just a few.

…

I first met Dave at Sherman Café, a coffee shop a block away from my Union Square apartment in Somerville. It was a lazy Sunday, and we ended up making a full afternoon/evening of it, having hit it off so instantaneously and both having nowhere else to be that day. A long walk with our coffee that windy day, along with a visit to our mutually favorite art gallery, a trip to the Museum of Science Omni Theater, a few glasses of his dad’s homemade wine, and a dinner in Chinatown later, we concluded our first date. Dave always called this "the power-date."

Even though it wasn’t one of our regular jaunts, we always then considered Sherman Café to be the cornerstone of our relationship. One day, about a year in, we went for a run together, departing from my apartment (not a common occurrence). Our path took us in the direction of Sherman Café, and just as we were coming up to it, I said “Hey look, it’s where we met!” He was immediately overcome by this extreme burst of energy, and he almost tackled me to the ground, hugging me and kissing me in excitement that we were finally passing by our spot, like an excited puppy that couldn’t be tamed. He didn’t care how disgusting I was from our intense workout, and just went absolutely nuts smothering me with his purely energetic, ecstatic love. This sweet, youthful enthusiasm from him was so typical of his affection to me, and I always just wallowed in it, with the deepest appreciation.

…

Eventually we got to talking about cohabitating. Originally the plan was to drop both of our places (I would leave the apartment where I lived with two of my best friends and favorite cats in the world in East Somerville, and he would sell his beautiful condo in West Somerville). We ultimately decided against this plan and opted to just have me move in with him, as cozy as his place was. At the time, we kept the idea on our horizon, no talk of a timeframe yet. Eventually, one night as we were coming in from an evening out and standing at the front door of his condo, he asked me to unlock the door. Confused, I responded that I didn’t have the key, to which he indicated that I did, in fact have it, and to check my pocket. I reached into my coat pocket, and there was a spare set of condo keys that he’d had made for me. He had planted them there just a moment before, and distracted me from seeing this with a giant hug just outside the door. Very well done, and pretty cute I thought…

…

Most recently, my favorite experience takes place at our condo back in November/December 2010. We were preparing the condo to be put on the market, trying to minimize the amount of stuff that we had showing in plain sight for condo showings. It also happened to be the time when I decided I wanted to start displaying my guitar on an actual guitar stand, as opposed to storing it in a case in my closet. I knew I’d play it much more often if it were on display and within easy grasp, and I sold Dave on this idea under the condition that if it’s going to be in plain sight, I must use it frequently. Sounded like a plan.

Life got busy, I began focusing more on my band and my oil paintings with my free time, and unfortunately the guitar took the backburner in my world. One day, Dave checked in with me to see if I’d given it much action. I responded that I’d gotten a little playing in, here and there, expecting him to be satisfied with that answer. He instead responded, “Have you really? Lets see…” and he slowly plucked every string on my guitar, eventually landing on the high E string, which suddenly sounded more like a low D. He had craftily un-tuned one string weeks before, in the name of keeping ‘tabs’ on my playing. Joke was on me – I hadn’t kept up with my playing like I’d promised, and he busted me in the most creative of ways.

…

None of these anecdotes do these moments any justice, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that for the duration of his time on this planet, the man used his mind in many a unique way. To anyone who knew him, this is the ultimate understatement of the century. I think it's an easy consensus, both to those who knew him personally, as well as those who've only known him through this blog, that when the world lost David Lad, it lost a classically magnificent mind.

Five months and a day

2011-08-28T18:41:00.000-04:00

Fun fact of the day: Dave was always five months and a day older than me. It was five months and a day ago that they pulled the plug on him in the ICU... so, today I have officially lived as long as he has, to the day.

Craig's email

2011-08-28T13:28:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I received the following email from Craig, a close friend of Dave’s who lived above us in our building and is also a fellow trustee/president of the condo association:

“Hi Eleanor,

I hope this email finds you well and you're enjoying the summer.

I have a strange (hopefully in a good way) story to pass onto you and I'll be honest and say I was a little on the fence about emailing because I don't want to cause any sadness for you. So I'll cut to the chase and tell you that I was invited to a "psychic party" a friend was hosting last Thursday night. I'm mild believer in these types of things. I had not seen this friend in a long time and she needed 10 folks to attend so I thought this would be fun and a good excuse to re-connect with my friend.

So, the psychic was doing my reading and had some interesting things to say about things I've been mulling over (life, career..etc.). Towards the end she asks me, "Who is Eleanor?" I think besides Eleanor Roosevelt (who I don't know personally) you might be the only Eleanor I know. I tell her I know an Eleanor who lived in my building. She then tells me:

"a man from the other side is calling out for her very loudly. He wants her to know he's around her always and loves her very much. You have to tell her this. It's important you tell her this."

So, again, I'm not sure how much I believe in the these things or how much you believe in these things but after a few days of mulling this over I felt like I should at least pass on the message. If it's all a weird fluke then we get a chance to remember Dave again with a laugh and if there's something to it then I like the idea he's watching over us. If it makes a difference, she also knew that my brother had recently passed away and knew the events around it and gave a message to pass onto my mother. To say the least, it's awkward to be the messenger for these types of things :) […]”.

Cool... :)!!!!!

revelation

2011-08-19T14:55:00.001-04:00

I woke up this morning and realized that nothing in life really matters if we just stop taking everything so damn seriously... well, I've actually always known this and lived by this theory, but I'm reminded of it much more prominently these days. Sorry, but you're going to die some day. Heck I probably even will too. i don't even know why we bother capitalizing letters at the beginning of sentences or using punctuation who really cares

what's the use in getting so upset over our loved ones dying if death and destruction are natural and all a part of life and 'the big plan' anyway. we're all just these random walking biological masses, who, over billions of years of evolution, have magically transformed our world into this big fancy development that it is today, but our entire existence is merely nothing in the context of the rest of the universe. whatever.

The Story

2011-08-16T01:01:00.013-04:00

It was just another day in the life of Lad and Lady, on Friday morning, March 25^th. I had finally been successful in waking up my sleepyhead boyfriend from his dreamland state and had finished grinding our Starbucks dark roast homebrew coffee. We rallied for the workday in our cozy little Teele Square condo on Waterhouse Street, loving life and each other, and of course giddy that it was Friday, Spring weather just around the corner. We rattled off our smartass remarks to each other as we scrambled to go about our morning routine without stepping on each other’s toes too much, Dave with his sausage egg and cheese on the griddle, and me with my hard-boiled eggs dipped in olive oil with bacos and herbs (his recipe – brilliant). He was traveling west for the evening to get some errands taken care of back home, and we were to have an open house at the condo that weekend, so there was much to be discussed.

I assured him I’d take care of any remaining condo cleaning, in preparation for the open house on Sunday, so he wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. We discussed the countdown to our new Waltham house where we’d just poured our savings into a down payment a few weeks prior. Dave was very meticulous with his multi-family home-buying plans, and wanted every aspect of our home ownership adventure carefully agreed upon and thought out. He had high hopes for the “empire” of real estate we would own as a team and always made sure I was on board with his ideas, very open to any thoughts I had on the matter. We discussed the rooms we were going to renovate in our new multi-family, how we were going to renovate them, and the fact that, for his birthday, I had given him an I.O.U., to pay for the carpet on the entire 2^nd floor of our new house, in place of a typical birthday gift. He was so delighted about that. We chuckled at how old we felt for getting so excited about such a mundane course of action, re-carpeting our new home. We exchanged a few more remarks about what time he planned on being back Saturday night and bickered about his plans to take our combined laundry with him to his parents house, as I dashed out of the house like I would any other day, Dave to follow five minutes later.

It was a normal day at work, and I allowed myself the evening off, my first night doing nothing at home in a long time, to just sit and relax alone, and I absolutely loved it. I watched two episodes of Season 2 of the show “24” and straightened up the condo, feeling very accomplished and generally very positive about where life was headed.

Throughout the evening, Dave sent me pictures from the restaurant where he went with his parents, and later he texted me that he was heading to an engagement party for our friends Julianne and Nate. Incidentally, Julianne had commissioned me to create some artwork to fill her walls, and it worked perfectly that Dave would also be around her area that weekend to deliver it to her. During the party, he texted me that “Everyone at the party says hi. How much money do you want for your paintings, and what the heck is the size of that grubby ring finger of yours,” and I responded accordingly. That was the last text conversation we ever had.

I retired for the night soon after that, absolutely exhausted from an intense week, and I was out like a light. Just before going to bed, I contemplated silencing my phone, so not to be interrupted by any late night phone calls from friends, and I actually pondered whether or not to silence it for a solid 10-15 seconds, finally opting to leave the volume on. At 10:30, I awoke to a phone call from Julianne. I picked up the phone, expecting it to be Dave and a few others calling from her phone just to be silly, and when I finished answering with a loud, happy “Congratulations on your engagement!”, Julianne’s sobering voice on the other end was startling. She responded, “thanks, but I’m actually calling because Dave was hit by a car.” At first this barely registered with me, and my initial impression was that it was no big deal (in fact this was the impression I took with me for the next 1-2 hours of the night). Not quite sensing the immediacy in her tone, I asked her for more details and if he was alright, and she said she didn’t know but that he was taken off in an ambulance and that none of them could get their cars out because of all the police cars blocking them in. She suggested I come out to Western Mass right then. Again, maybe I was too groggy and tired and missing the sense of urgency in her voice, but I asked her if she was sure this would merit my coming out all that way (close to a 2 hour drive). She said she would look into it and find out just how bad it was, but advised that I should have my parents drive me. I called my parents to let them know, all the while imagining that Dave had just twisted an ankle and gotten a little bruised up.

My parents got into the city from the North Shore to pick me up about an hour later, and I had calmly tidied up a few things and packed a few of Dave’s favorite books and his Amazon Kindle for him to have, should his stay in the hospital extend beyond a few hours. I was incessantly texting and calling Julianne for any updates she could provide, and I figured that since I wasn’t hearing from her with constant details, it couldn’t actually be that bad. Little did I know, she was just shielding me from the cold, hard facts.

As I got closer to the ER, I was still begging Julianne for details via text, and all she would give me was that “he’s breathing on his own.” I had already assumed that this was the case, so I wasn’t sure whether I should find this reassuring or not, having no idea what I was coming up against. I continued probing for more information from her, also trying our friend Ed, who I had been told rode in the ambulance with Dave. Eventually, after several incessant texts from me and a noteworthy chunk of silence from Julianne, I got the reply “Please just get here, Eleanor.” My heart dropped. That was my first clue that this was actually something serious, and that was when I first really lost it.

My dad parked us in the ER lot between 12:30 and 1 a.m., and I sprinted to the front door of the ER where several of Dave’s and my friends had been waiting for me. Ed, Dave’s long-time best friend, met me at the front of the ER, didn’t say one word, and escorted me directly to a room right off of the ER. He wasn’t crying, and he was strangely silent, but I remember feeling relieved that he didn’t seem in too much of a panic.

The first thing I saw as I approached the private room was a priest, in full priest attire, standing with Dave’s family. There are no words that can describe the sheer terror and agony of what my heart experienced in that one moment. I glimpsed around this tiny room, first at the priest with his bible, then at all of Dave’s sobbing family in that room as they ran up to me, exclaiming “I’m so sorry – I’m so sorry!!!!” His immediate family, along with most of his aunts and uncles, surrounded me and hugged me, attempting to explain the severity of his condition between sobs. It was all so unfathomable as I heard it all explained to me, that I had to sit down and keep verifying with myself that this was not in fact a dream, but an actual reality. Dave’s mom explained to me that he was on life support, and his chances of making it through the weekend were only 1%, and if he does make it through the weekend, he’s a vegetable. I’m so grateful for denial, because if I didn’t have a giant dose of it, I would not have made it through that night myself.

It was time to go up and see him in the ICU. My parents and his family escorted me up the elevator and down the hallway of the ICU. I felt about 20 hands on me as I just kept walking forward, unsure of what to expect, as his mom began explaining what was right around the corner. I was still grasping the books I had brought for him to read during his stay at the hospital. I must have blocked out a lot of what I was told about his condition, because I remember asking his mom if he was conscious, an obvious no.

We arrived in his room in the ICU… no words can do that moment justice. I can only say that I saw my sweet little man laid out motionless in his bed, face slightly swollen, eyes black and blue and swollen shut, and I just wanted to kiss him and hug him and shake him. I felt like we had been led into the wrong room. This could not be my David Laduzenski. This was not my man – my post – my muse - my knight in shining armor, into whom I had entrusted every last piece of myself, the man who harbored my deepest love and respect and admiration, the keeper of all my secrets, the man who I would easily give my entire life and well-being for. So many times I had told him all I needed in life was to love him. So many times we gazed into each others eyes and knew that nothing else in the world mattered except each other and that moment, together. I had honestly known, since the day that I met him (you can check my journal), that he was the one I was meant to be with. And he made a point to dedicate himself 110% to me, to my happiness, to our lives together, and to our shared love. We truly, deeply, whole-heartedly appreciated each other more than I will ever be able to convey. I will never forget how empty and lost I became as of this moment, seeing him in this unrecoverable state.

I sat at his bedside, silently taking it all in, concentrating as best I could, in the name of checking myself for confirmation that this was my new reality. I spent as much time as I could standing next to him, holding his cold, pale hands, whispering in his ear that he would be OK, but that he needed to start showing some movement so we could all begin to breathe again so we could begin to think of how to get him out of there. I sang him some of his favorite songs into his ears, crying. I stroked his cold, puffy face. I kissed his hair and rubbed his shoulders, something I had done the night before, but in an entirely different context, as I was easing him into a relaxed night after a stressful day at work. His mom sat at his other side, holding his hand, crying, fruitlessly trying to talk to him. His extended family watched from a few feet away as I stood in hysterics, nuzzling in his shoulders and neck the best I could, the intrusive, cumbersome bedside rails hindering any intimacy between us. I whispered him some sweet messages in his ear, and just as I did, I saw two teardrops come from his motionless eyes. Obviously, this instilled some false hope in me, that was quickly squashed by the trauma nurse who, rather coldly responded that it was involuntary. I remember the strong smell of ointment in there like it was yesterday.

Lots of our friends stopped into the ICU that night and the next morning. Somewhere after I started seeing a good deal of our mutual friends arrive, I realized I should call some of my girlfriends who wouldn’t have known about this yet. I called one of my best friends, Meg, who alerted many others, and they all made the 2 hour trip out to Bay State Medical Center. I don’t even have any idea what time I called Meg, since our time there all blended together. Somewhere in the middle of all of this I had a panic attack and had to be wheeled down to the ER for an EKG. They gave me a sedative and a nice fat bill to pay for my ten minutes in their care, only to find that it was nothing, and that I checked out totally normal…

By midday on Saturday, the Dave-Nor friends and family were swarming the halls of the ICU, with easily 40-50 of our closest friends there for support. Our friends who were from the area had the foresight to bring me a change of clothes and a toothbrush from their house (thank you Heather and Julianne). The amount of support was beyond incredible. And the good vibes were in abundance, so much that I began taking the inspiring word of Dave’s best friends over that of the doctors caring for him. Many times that day I heard people exclaim that Dave was much too alive of a soul to let this take him. I was full of false hope as I went through the day on Saturday, despite the motionless body that laid in that cold ICU room.

During one of our idle moments in the hallway, I stood with my parents who were just getting around to alerting my pregnant sister in Oregon to the news over the phone, trying to ease her into the facts as lightly as possible, so as not to cause too much alarm. My dad took me for a short walk and, in recognition of how outstanding and dedicated all of our friends were, said “this would have been one hell of a great wedding.” I will never forget the moment he said that, and all of the remorse and sadness that came with it, thinking how all of this devastation could so easily have been prevented. And there was no reversing this now – there would be much more suffering to come, on all of our behalves.

David had registered as an organ donor, and somewhere in the midst of taking friends from down the hall in the ICU into his room to visit with him, I was called over to weigh in on whether we would approve of his organs being excised - A conversation no parent should ever have to have about their son, no sister should have about her 29 year old brother, and no girlfriend should have about the love of her life. It was a difficult time convincing Dave’s mother that it was OK to honor his wishes, should it come down to taking his organs or not. She felt very badly about committing to this, understandably not wanting her son to be handled this way. Ultimately, he did save six lives with his organs, the only good that came of any of this. I'm told that only about 5,000 hearts become available each year in the U.S., but the waiting list is 30,000. Thanks to David, there is now one more very lucky man walking around out there with an incredibly strong, beautiful heart.

Later on, I was called into a room with one of the trauma nurses, as well as Dave’s sister Sarah and their dad. We were asked all about his health, his travel history, his habits and exercise. For the entire time during this meeting, my instinct was to want to text him to let him know how strange this meeting was, to laugh with him at the sheer awkwardness of this interrogation. But how foolish of an instinct that was, given the circumstances. I also found myself wanting to text him later while standing in the greeting line at his wake, staring at him in his casket. Guess there’s a lot to be said about old habits.

Early Saturday evening, most of our friends had made their visit and began to clear out of the hospital. We were told there had to be two ‘brain death’ tests before his fate was determined. I went out to dinner with my parents to get a breather for a moment. This would be my first time in my entire life ever having food in front of me and not being able to eat. I’d never known the sensation of lack-of-appetite, but I got my fair dose of it over the course of the next couple of weeks. My parents finished off their small dinners and we headed back to the hospital to meet up with Dave’s family and have the results of his final brain death test revealed to us. That was the longest walk down any hallway that I could have ever imagined. First coming upon his room in the ICU, the original room where they had put him was totally empty, which was enough of a panic factor as I wondered what the hell had happened, at which point we were told he was moved next door. I spotted his sister who immediately approached me and gave me the news that he had been declared brain dead. We stood in that room with his family, in shock, trying to swallow the news we had just been fed. I remember trying to get closer to hug him and again, the bedside rails formed an obnoxious barrier. I remember his uncle Rob saying “you two would have made some beautiful kids.” I remember his aunt Belisa saying the toughest part was watching me try to interact with him. And I remember calling his parents “Mom & Dad” as we left the hospital without our David that night.

I’m regretful that I never asked for one last moment alone with him, before they unplugged him from the machines the next day, although I’m not sure I would have come out of it alright. All I could do in our final moment together was kiss his temples, bury my face in his hair, stroke the little tuft of chest hair that was reaching out of his hospital shirt, and tell him that I would love him forever. And I will love him forever.

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/man-killed-while-buying-engagement-ring-20110329

Engineering

2011-08-11T11:17:00.003-04:00

Wow... for years, Dave and I talked about getting our companies to collaborate on a design project, b/c his company does industrial design work, and my company has been in need of a 3rd party industrial design firm to give a serious 'facelift' to our surgical monitor. Finally my company got funding approval for this expenditure and asked for references on a good design firm from myself and my colleagues. We got some quotes from various companies, including Dave's, and the jury's been out for a few weeks as to who we would choose for the re-design of the user interface on our unit (a very hefty project that will involve extensive time and money). After lots of consideration of many factors involved, the Engineering Manager at my company just dropped into my office to tell me he's going to recommend using Dave's company. I'm so excited. Dave would be so happy about this - it's finally happening. Why can't he be here to celebrate this momentous occasion with me.

It's all just a giant video game

2011-08-02T23:01:00.008-04:00

So we’re 4+ months deep into this now… weird. David Laduzenski has been dead for over four months... Crazy Dave has been dead for over four months. He’s still in my phone as “Dave Zen,” exactly how I first put him in, the day we met, at Sherman Café in Union Square.

Wow. Still so unreal.

About a month ago, when the fog first started to settle and I woke up from what felt like a 3 month break from life, I began to remember what normal human functionality felt like. I had gone to work and done my best, functioned in a social environment most every night, and all weekend, every weekend, but some self-preservation threshold had kept my mind from really waking back up to where I was expected to be, in my Daveless world. I remember first starting to listen to music beyond just the stray CD’s that friends had burned for me as comfort tunes, which had specifically harbored little to no association with memories of my David, all in the name of clearing my mind. Once I crossed that line and re-broadened my music horizons, every song was defined by my Dave association. I’d spend the first 5-10 seconds of every song I heard on the radio assessing the depression factor in allowing it to stay in my air waves, and/or how much Dave loved or hated it, or how much he WOULD love or hate it. I think I’ve fortunately grown slightly less introspective in this respect over the past month, but only slightly. He still owns all of James Brown, Belle & Sebastian, Sinatra, Appleseed Cast, Seger, Earth Wind & Fire, Postal Service, Bright Eyes, the Decemberists, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, electronic music, and certain classics we used to sing to each other like “Yellow is the Color of my True Love’s Hair.”

It has been my impression thus far, with all of this afterlife/ supernatural/ spirit realm talk, that sometimes it just ain’t that easy for our deceased loved ones to jump the communication barrier back into our world, if that is, in fact, what happens after death anyway. Mediums continue to be slightly disappointing, while still carrying that ounce of wonder with them every time I talk to one. They still manage to get it perfectly spot on for at least 30% of the reading, which has me TOTALLY FREAKING ANNOYED that it’s not more black and white.

You hear of so many stories where people’s spouses have passed away, only to visit them months/years down the road in a ghost-like form. It’s so difficult to actually believe in this stuff until you experience it, because, face it -- that’s really really weird, or at least from the perspective we’re too often bred to adopt, with societal norms as they are, the concrete world leaving little motivation for questioning existence beyond our physical boundaries.

I was never actually convinced of this after-world, ghostly concept until I heard it from numerous sources all over the charts, who I would consider to be extremely legitimate. And even now, it pushes the limits of all that I've ever held to be true, so I am way out of my comfort zone trying this new thought process, but I'm giving it a shot.

So how the hell are some spirits able to only pull off a simple flicker of the lights or a phone call from outer space, when others are able to walk through walls and move objects around to mess with their old friends? And how much time do you have to do before you get upgraded to the level where you can start laying on those obvious signs to your still-living peers? Is there a ‘cloud cred’ equivalent to our ‘street cred,’ and what does it take to finally vest? How much time are you required to do before you can manifest into one of those translucent ghost-like figures you always hear about, where spirits come back looking like their old selves and loiter around their old familiar jaunts, confusing the heck out of everyone they encounter?? Does it just come down to some completely unfathomable list of competencies that we’d never understand until we’re on some other plane? Clearly Dave can’t do these tricks yet, or if he can, I haven’t heard about it. This is not like him - the man is a champion at all things video game and excels at everything he puts his mind to. From every angle, this afterlife looks like a giant game of Super Mario to me, and he just hasn't jumped the flag or conquered the dragon at the end of the first game yet. Is it because he’s young and relatively inexperienced with this afterlife thing? Has he not excelled to Level 2 yet? How many levels are there?? Why do we even bother asking questions when we know we’ll never know the answers?!!!!!

I was chatting with my friend Michelle J today about this, and I believe the term she came up for it was “ghost code” – that there’s some kind of barrier preventing Dave from being allowed to get to the point where we’re 100% convinced of his presence, and that he can only allude to his spiritual existence at this point. We’re expected to only have faith in what’s potentially there, with only brief glimpses of somewhat unfamiliar territory at sporadic moments, enough to keep the questions coming. I could buy this thought process, I suppose, but that’s only with my 29-year old, somewhat rational human mind that knows only my physical existence thus far. And so it continues. Ahh, life...

Drinkin' thinkin'

2011-07-30T00:43:00.004-04:00

I'm enjoying a nice bottle of red at home tonight, my first night at home alone in forever to just reflect, cellphone silenced, no interruptions except the purring of my roommate Kelly's cats.

There were some seriously strange omens from the months leading up to the weekend David lost his life, and of course they didn’t seem to accumulate until I started psychoanalyzing every aspect of the last chunk of time with my man.

To start, I think it can be said that our staple TV show together as a couple was the Lost series. Last fall we started streaming every episode consecutively on Netflix, multiple episodes a day, starting from Season One. On a nightly basis, we would cozy up with a blanket and a glass or three of wine. For anyone familiar with the show, it was obviously an immediate addiction, and it consumed our dreams on a nightly basis and our breakfast discourse on a daily basis. Dave immediately took to the theory that the characters (who, to give some background, had mysteriously landed on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere after a fiery plane wreck) would die off in their own individualized ways, after they overcame the one life obstacle that had held them back in their own private lives back home. The show zeroed in on each major character’s life, detailing exactly what had challenged them in their lives off the island, be it never opening up to love; finally learning to put others first; or coming to terms with some other huge life-altering revelation. Dave was locked on this theory so immensely and brought it up so consistently since the first episode, while other Lost fans had overlooked this or seen otherwise.

How strange that he would be so hung up on this theory; and how striking that his fate would ultimately harbor such a parallel twist… Multiple sources have related to me that they felt the same circumstances surrounded David’s death: that he had truly overcome any youthful qualms that may have restricted him from growing as an individual to become a beautiful, upstanding gentleman… that he had finally known the depths of true love in the purest form, and selflessness toward others who needed his help in any way… that he could connect with people beyond the norm, in creative and thoughtful ways… and that he had made a point to see the best in people and to affect all the lives he touched so positively. The man was larger than life, and it reflected in his stature and his relationships of all sorts. It could be said that, in this way, he overcame the obstacles that presented themselves throughout his life’s development, and thus there was nothing more to achieve. True or not, I’d like to try to believe he may have been taken from this world at least partially for this reason.

Another strange occurrence, also relating to the show Lost, can be found in one particular line from a dialog that Dave loved asking me to repeat, multiple times a day, no matter where we were together. The character named Juliette, who Dave often thought looked strikingly similar to me (or at least some specific facial features of hers did), had warned another character, ‘Sun,’ that if Sun stayed on the island and had her unborn baby, she knew Sun would die. Dave repeatedly asked me to look at him with this particular facial expression, and state, as seen in the show, “You are going to die,” in a very serious, matter-of-fact manner. His rationale was that he liked what my eyebrows did when I said this, but I assure you I’ve had to repeat this line hundreds and hundreds of times for him upon his request, and he would always immediately come to me and kiss my forehead after I fulfilled his wishes, always admiring my ability to imitate the character so precisely and, I think, simply loving what my eyebrows did in that situation. In context now however, that whole experience seems a bit too coincidental not to bring up.

About a year ago right now, I read the book ‘Time Travelers Wife,’ which told a beautifully touching story of two chance lovers finding each other, and carried the reader through all of their one-off romantic trials and tribulations, but it ended rather sadly. Spoiler alert: the husband ends up dying, after a truly moving love story is established and the two characters seem all too perfectly happy together, to’ve been torn apart by happenstance. I ended up renting the movie afterwards and making Dave watch it with me. At the end, we chatted about the notion of one of us leaving the other before our time, and he said “If I ever die, I hope you move on to find someone else,” to which I replied “If I ever die, I hope you DON’T move on.” Word for word. Just goes to show that’s not something to joke about, because if the tables were turned, I certainly would hope he wouldn’t feel bound by my statement made so obviously in jest.

There are many smaller omens that came from this elusive man, some of which I won’t divulge here. But one in particular was that his daily alarm clock was the whistling ‘ghost’ sound, which can be found among the iPhone’s standard noises. We actually had dueling alarm clocks in the morning, so I heard the ghost noises every morning, multiple times after he snoozed the stupid thing for about 5 sessions every day. He was not an easy one to wake.

Very surreal how all of these strings can be drawn from our time together. And despite all of these seemingly foreshadowing moments, David has expressed to me since a very early point in our relationship that he was more than enthusiastic to see me grow old and to see the “crows feet” make their way to the edges of my eyes. We spent last Halloween dressed as old people together, canes, grey hair and all. We talked about what we’d name our kids, when we’d get married (he tossed around the idea of marriage four months into our relationship – pretty ballsy!), what kind of car we would have pick us up from our wedding location, the specific songs we’d have play at our wedding (he recently decided that if he could make the call on what music we would play, I could have my black Rolls Royce and decide on our wedding colors). We had made plans to take time from our jobs for a couple months and travel the world together. We made a list of the countries we wanted to visit most, and had our list of “11 goals for 2011.” I’ve since justified that since he won’t be fulfilling his list of 11 goals, I don’t need to either. Just another way to keep our souls in synergy for as long as I can.

An online conversation with my friend Rachel B.

2011-07-25T10:46:00.006-04:00

Rachel: :) well -- i just wanted to let you know that i think of you every day, even if i don't call or ping you

me: awe, thanks love.

Rachel: you know your encounter with the mysterious phone ringing?

me: yes. happened today too actually.

Rachel: my mother did the same thing to me the day after she died

me: really????

Rachel: it's easiest for spirits to use channels of electricity -- like phones, TVs, etc. -- to communicate

me: the thing is, i feel like that just - happens anyway. that would be sooooo incredibly cool if it were actually him

Rachel: that's your inner skeptic. you just need to let go -- and trust in your faith of Dave's presence. then it will be much easier for him to communicate with you

me: so yesterday, the caller ID said "Outside 000-000-0000"
SOOOOOOO WEIRRRRRD

Rachel: not weird-- it's electricity!

it's dave's electricity

me: why can't he make that happen on queue then?

b/c if he can read my mind, etc etc, you'd think he could do this stuff at the drop of a hat

Rachel: well, first of all, if you have to tell him to do it on queue, it's because you don't trust that it's real -- you're looking for "proof"

me: uh huh...? :)

Rachel: even if he wanted to do it "on command," the fact that you don't really believe makes communicating that much more difficult

me: yeah... but... what if it was some auto-tele-marketer thing

Rachel: ever wonder why they tell people NOT to cross their arms when receiving a spiritual reading? it's because that kind of body language and mentality blocks energy

me: i know... buttt

i just feel like it's so easy to believe this stuff b/c we want to for comfort, when these things have happened to people everywhere all the time for no spiritual reason but just for electrical malfunctions etc, ya know?

Rachel: you just need to let go, elle... be open to the possibility and stop doing the human nature thing of asking questions

me: i know. i'd like to…

Rachel: maybe they're not electrical malfunctions, though

me: its just weird that any comfort with this kind of stuff is 100% based entirely on faith

Rachel: and maybe all this time we've been misinterpreting them as malfunctions

but it's not just on faith

me: there is absolutely no chance of getting something real as proof… it’s always going to be slightly ambiguous

Rachel: didn't some of those mediums say things that no one else could possibly have known?

how do you prove love, elle?

is there really proof that someone loves you? i mean -- i'm not talking about whispers of sweet nothings and long gazes into each other's eyes -- but, scientifically, how do you PROVE love?

it's the same thing. how do you PROVE happiness? or sadness? you know? these are things we just KNOW.

but... we can't necessarily prove them.

There are many things in this world that we know to be true without scientific backing.

me: i feel like everything that's "normal" in life can be "proven" b/c of its mere physicality. but this stuff is entirely faith-based

so you're saying every time i ever got a call before where there was no one on the other line, it was from a deceased loved one?

Rachel: no -- not at all. but it might have been something beyond just a "malfunction"

me: but now every time it happens to me it's from Dave?

Rachel: no. not necessarily. but what if it is?

me: ACTUALLY. today's was WEIRD

Rachel: your thoughts are energy... your thoughts are electricity... and dave's energy needs your energy to communicate

me: i was re-reading my blog... and right when i got to that part where i'd written about the phone ringing, it rang again with the 000-000-0000

Rachel: :)

how often had your phone rung like that before dave died?

me: i literally don't remember.

b/c i think so little of it...

Rachel: right. but -- now that you DO think about it... your energy is focused on dave

me: but that leaves absolutely nothing to coincidence then

Rachel: i don't believe there is coincidence

you may come to realize this (or believe it) in time, too

but everything happens for a reason. everything.

me: ok, but then under THAT doctrine, if i hear 3 songs on the radio that pertain to dave, am i to be so selfish to assume that the radio DJ arranged it like that subconsciously/electrically, for ME ALONE??

Rachel: every move we make affects the next move we make -- which affects the cycle of events in a given day -- which in turn affects the events of others' lives in a given day

why would that be selfish?

me: b/c throughout the entire greater boston area, where ever the breadth of the station reaches, all the people hearing that station hear the songs in that order specifically for MY circumstances

Rachel: perhaps. what would be so wrong about that?

me: b/c it's so presumptuous to think that. what about all the other people out there missing their own person too

Rachel: if they are open to getting signs, then they'll get their own

me: ok i suppose i can buy that

but--!!

my very spiritual hippy friend who i'd consider to be a pro at this stuff too, said that on the contrary, you want to specifically NOT believe them. b/c that way their signs get stronger and stronger as a challenge, to fully instill your faith in their existence

Rachel: i'd say you'd want to stop asking for signs -- because that shows reticence to believe and blocks energy/communication -- but to maintain an open heart and mind and leave open the possibility that these things may be (or may not be) a sign

and when they're signs, you'll know it -- you'll just feel it. that 6th sense thing -- intuition

me: yeah but so far i haven't really felt it. you've felt it FOR me :)

am i just not equipped yet to feel it for myself?

or once i stop questioning

yeah, that's what you mean. ok, but...

Rachel: you hit the nail on the head

you're not open yet. you're still mourning and deeply skeptical

me: i dunno, i just feel like that's surrendering - that's just like taking the last resort for comfort and tricking yourself into a different mindset to ease the worry

Rachel: without knowing it, you're basically plugging your ears with your fingers and going "LA LA LA LA LA" whenever dave is trying to communicate with you

me: the only reason i do that is b/c it's not huuuuuge signs

Rachel: surrendering to what? to the possibility that you can come to peace with what's happened? what's the wrong in that?

me: surrendering to the idea that convincing myself that this is true, is my only way to re-establish my sanity.
why can't he spell Dave in the sand next to me at the beach? if the phone thing is from him, all he's been doing is using somewhat obvious, common techniques and i'm supposed to surrender my whole foundation of belief b/c i miss him so much, which completely contradicts my scientific nature of always asking questions and living on a proof-based knowledge

Rachel: and, for what it's worth, it's not EASY for spirits to lower their vibrations (which is how they communicate)

so those "not huuuuge" signs may be, for a spirit, HUGE!

me: i just want to KNOW beyond a reasonable doubt, that what i'm buying is actually real

i guess this stuff just isn't really for me

fuck.

Rachel: let me ask you this: even if his name appeared in the sand next to yours, how would you PROVE it was dave?

beyond any reasonable doubt?

COULD you?

me: that's true, i couldn't

unless it appeared in the sand while i was looking at the sand!

that'd be hot.

Rachel: but even then -- how could you PROVE that was dave?

me: if it showed up by an invisible force and wrote "Dave" in the sand in front of me, i'd consider that a supernatural occurrence that would at least be related to him

Rachel: you'd "consider" it -- but you couldn't "prove" it

that's my point

me: I don’t really believe in any definites in life in general. So it’s maybe not dave himself necessarily, but enough of a brush with the supernatural to think he's got something going on out there

Rachel: why would you consider that a supernatural occurrence, but not a phone ringing from nowhere?

me: b/c phones are always screwing up

it could have been someone with a blocked cell phone number and right as i picked up, they went out of service

Rachel: lol

me: very possible!

Rachel: all i'm saying is this: the more you don't allow yourself the POTENTIAL for belief, the less likely you are to receive any messages. it's like trying to talk to someone who, like i said earlier, has fingers stuck in his/her ears and is screaming, "LA LA LA LA LA!"

me: yup, makes sense.

Rachel: what's the harm in just letting go a little? in just... being open to the possibility?

me: or maybe the alternative would be the case: that it challenges a spirit even more to one-up himself by the time he pulls his next stunt!

Rachel: BAHAHAHA

it's not a stunt

you crack me up

me: i do like to entertain the idea of it... maybe somewhere between 5-10% of me believes this stuff is genuine

and it usually fades lower in time

‪Rachel: ‪it will come in time... it's human nature to want to over analyze

me: I suppose…

On Ambivalence...

2011-07-20T22:56:00.002-04:00

The biggest theme I’ve been grappling with throughout this process, aside from sheer disbelief and sadness at losing the man into whom I put every last fiber of my being, is my inner battles with what to believe in now. On the one hand, I find myself reading books by compelling mediums like Maureen Hancock that leave an extreme skeptic like myself, completely dumbfounded and suddenly trusting in these strangely obscure spirit communications. I’ve read so many books now that really seem to describe death very similarly, all saying that it’s peaceful and beautiful and loving – so not to be mourned by those left behind. From what I gather, these authors all want you to envision death and the afterlife just being some giant orgasm in the sky, where time is non-existant and anything goes. But are these authors just actually incredibly smart, intuitive individuals who get off on making this stuff up, secretly collaborating behind our backs just in the name of easing the pain for the still-living? Pathological mental philanthropists, if you will..? If so, I appreciate the sentiment, but I just want the truth.

Now, obviously any angle of the 'what next' question could be argued for longer than this lifetime and still never be resolved. I’ve had people on both sides of the afterlife debate put their heart and soul into convincing me that either A.) Dave is absolutely the one responsible for the giant rainbow outside our hotel window because we literally asked him for it an hour prior (thanks, Johanna) verses B.) He’s gone, he’s dead, he’s in your heart but that’s just the memory, deal with it (my interpretation only; no one actually said this so callously). I’ve found myself going against my better judgment and erring towards the happy spiritual outlook, but only once the mediums I’m dealing with have substantiated themselves with solid credibility. They tell me things they would never have known, with details so unbelievable that you can’t help but alter your life’s outlook while you’re in the moment with them. Mind you, I’m also very weary of generalizations that could be applied to anyone who’s passed away (“and he says he really misses you, and he really loved you more than anything in the world”, or “I’m getting the letter J… did he know someone with that letter for their first name?”)

Then, time passes after one of my more brilliant medium experiences. Weeks pass, and I’m left wondering why medium X told me that whenever I smell strawberries when there are no strawberries present, Dave is there. Medium Y told me that if I ever saw a white feather show up somewhere completely random (like a desk drawer at work), Dave is there. So far neither of those have happened, and maybe I just haven’t given it enough time, but if I know Dave the way I know Dave, he would be working those things by now and then some, if he knew that’s what I was promised. So where is he.

And although I've written it off as coincidence, two other 'weird things' have actually since happened, as predicted by the mediums. They said that I would get a phone call with no one there on the other end - happened today at work, and my caller ID listed it as "Outside", when usually there's a phone number or a name on the screen. Also, I was told by a medium several weeks ago that if I ever hear a very high-frequency sound in my right ear, it's him trying to talk to me. Coincidentally I happened to go to a loud concert with my friend Amber around that timeframe, so I'm not quite sure which is to blame for the incessant high-frequency noise in my ears that's been ever-present in my head for the past week. But what's coincidence and what's supernatural? If Dave were still around, this all likely would have still happened, and I wouldn't have given it a moments thought. It's silly to be extra observant now when we weren't so observant when we still had him - I just want to compare apples to apples here and see the facts as straight as possible.

The lack of signs when I’m most expecting it is what sends me back in the other direction of questioning what I’ve been told, of thinking my baby is not, in fact, here lingering and floating around in my world where he should be. And I try not to lose sight of how compelling some of these mediums’ statements were, not too terribly long ago, that drew me in initially. It really takes a lot for me to give them any kind of credit, and rightfully so, with information so public on anyone these days. So then the only option is to go back for another medium reading, maintaining as much anonymity as possible, and throwing out another $150 for the session to get another fix that I can hold onto for sanity’s sake for however long I can, until it wears off with my accumulating disbelief. Essentially this sounds like a drug addiction, constantly having to quench my psychological thirst for greater understanding, but the only negative side effects of this drug are a lighter wallet, coupled with more all consuming ambivalence in the not too distant future.

Reflections on the LAD (Life After Death)

2011-07-13T21:49:00.005-04:00

For the past 3 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days, the world has been without our David Lad. For the past 3 months, 2 weeks and 4 days, I have battled my existential demons, and I have seen this lifetime in a light I’d never before imagined. There have been far too many Daveless nights spent bathing in a sea of tears, and this is just the beginning. I’ve found myself in a contemplative daze, pondering the ins and outs of what life and love, death and beyond, is all about. Four tissue boxes, countless Oreos (thanks Kelly!), and many a wine bottle later, I’ve found I’ve covered very little ground in my quest. But I am also very much a changed person over it already.

Naturally, part of losing your Love is the all-consuming denial. David was hit by a drunk driver while standing in a friend’s driveway on Friday, March 25^th, 2011 and was declared brain dead by the evening of March 26^th. We spent all day on March 26^th in the ICU with a good portion of Dave’s and my 50+ closest friends and family, visiting with Dave’s nearly lifeless body, crying our eyes out and hoping for a ‘miracle’. The doctors gave us <1% chance he’d make it through the weekend, and if he did, he’d be a vegetable. I remember showing up to the hospital late at night on March 25th, knowing only that he was in the hospital from being hit, and immediately seeing a priest standing with his sobbing family. That was the moment I was hit with the news of just how severe the accident was. Despite the doctor's statements on his condition, it was the encouraging words from our friends and my trust in his all-encompassing energy that kept me believing it would all be alright. Since first hearing the life-altering news that he wasn’t going to make it, in the ICU of Bay State Medical Center on that cold, early-Spring night, it has been a long, agonizing process of attempting to come to terms with what happened to him: he was this totally unsuspecting, innocent guy who was simply out that night to celebrate his friends’ engagement and was planning on getting fitted for a tux for his sister’s wedding the next day, along with buying my engagement ring that he had talked about for months and months. He had left a small gathering at his friend's house to get some artwork I had done for his friend and was standing in a driveway when someone swerved off the road and took his life. Fortunately, the man who hit him came out to support him and helped convey the details to the investigators. But all this time, I’ve felt as though I’ve been living in a cloud, and just recently I seemed to come out of that, to find that suddenly it’s mid-summer and that this is how life must go on. I’ve repeated the cold, hard facts to myself numerous times, but it will be a while, if ever, that I’m able to knock it into my unconscious mind that my David Laduzenski is dead. I often find I need to look down at my memorial bracelets his friends and sister have made, in order to remember that this is all reality. Here is this man who, only last night, was kissing my temples, thinking I had already fallen asleep… who awoke with me the next morning and made our daily smoothies and coffee together, as we scurried to get out the door to work… and who is now supposedly transcending time and matter into his new dimension of existence (or so say the mediums and the majority of my closest kin).

I remember the moment I actually physically felt my heart break, aside from the long, agonizing, hellish daily experience of first attempting life without him. It was in the morning about two weeks in, when I woke up at my parents house and felt the sharpest, loneliest feeling, jutting directly through my heart. Maybe at that point I finally consciously harbored enough understanding of the circumstances, to where the process had actually gained some traction with me and started to become the slightest bit real. I guess I’ve been lucky in relationships and never truly known what heartache felt like, but now I know it is the most excruciating pain imaginable, especially in this form, and I would do absolutely anything in this world to have him back.

That said, my support network has been INCREDIBLE. My parents were there for me around the clock with words of wisdom and orange juice to ease my sorrows, as I spent my first two solo months living back with them. Dave’s and my shared plethora of friends and family have been there at all hours for me to an unimaginable degree, not letting me have even a moment of loneliness. I have you all to thank for causing me to delay my blogging process this long, because each night is a new adventure with my great friends (or at least drinks on the town, as a welcome distraction). For all those of you reading this right now, my gratitude is beyond words. I would not have made it through the darkness without you.

In a world where I have always seen myself as the quintessential optimist, I have to say, Dave’s sudden, untimely death (how redundant to describe it as such - every death of a loved one is untimely), has certainly cast a bleak spin on my outlook of the world in general. In this context, life on earth all seems so meaningless, and in retrospect, short-lived. People are in and out of our lives so fast, and really, so are we. I’ve had this conversation with others multiple times, and multiple times I fail to embrace the alternative opinion: that since our time here on earth is ultimately so ephemeral, life is all the more meaningful now. At this stage of the game, however, the notion of living in a world full of meaning but void of my David seems a perfect anomaly. I can’t begin to fathom a world where injustices like this just sporadically happen to beautiful, undeserving people. Maybe my soul and mind are just in a really dark place still; maybe I’m just not smart or philosophical enough, but I just can’t, and likely will never be able to, wrap my head around the brilliance of a world that allows such an atrocity to happen to someone so innately good, so deeply ambitious and smart, so loving and well-rounded, someone so full of balance and candor and positive energy.

We get momentum in our life’s journey, and at least in my opinion, gain at least a modicum of trust in the world, to where we grow to believe in what we hold close to us. I’m extremely appreciative of the fact that I’ve been fortunate my whole life, coming from a healthy and stable nest, in a beautiful oceanside hometown, with awesome friends and family, a great job and education, and have been relatively well-grounded with the means to make of myself what I choose, within reason. And I’ve come to realize that having this as a foundation in life, has made the contrast of what I’ve had, verses the feeling of what I’ve lost, an even greater polar disparity.

This tragedy was exceptionally painful because Dave never really let me down; he was constantly full of surprises, showing up at my office on random days with a bouquet of flowers, secretly planting love letters on me to be discovered later, or really making the effort to pull through on attending events when I was least expecting him. I really had it good with that boy, and I take solace in knowing he truly understood how appreciated he was.

Not being much of a good Christian in the more recent years (ok, who am I fooling, I haven’t really ‘done religion’ since junior high), I’ve turned to psychic mediums in an attempt to gain some better understanding of where Dave is, to somehow connect with him on a deeper level than just crying wishing hoping regretting. I began this journey as a cynical skeptic, and I understand the importance of evidence-based readings, so I proceeded with caution in conversing with the multiple mediums I’ve spoken with since his passing. What I’ve gotten from all these readings and all of my interpretations is enough material for another week's worth of blogging. In sum, I’ve been pleasantly impressed and sorely disappointed from the range of readings I’ve gotten (I believe there have been 5 or 6 different mediums at this point). The best medium I spoke with was over the phone, who told me that Dave has a friend named Ron who rides a motorcycle, with a birthday in June, and that Dave says Ron should be careful on his motorcycle, because he was concerned about what might happen to him (all very true). Unreal. The same medium also gave the initials ‘LV’ of Dave’s babysitter, as his mom had requested that I ask this to test her legitimacy (also true). I have lots of other examples at how this medium knocked all the other ones out of the water, but I don’t have enough wine to get me through all of that typing for the night, so we will leave it at that.

A common theme among three of the mediums I talked to was that Dave is happy with his new ‘afterlife’, and that he’s around me all of the time and already understands his greater purpose in being stolen from his earthly existence. Only one medium expressed the opposite to me, and that was unsolicited at a grief ritual I attended in Gloucester. Some mediums told me that he was extremely proud of me and how I’ve progressed without him, while others told me he was worried about me and hoped I’d take better care of myself. Either stance could easily be true, so it’s hard to say which prevails. As such a skeptic to the whole spirit afterlife thing, and also to the motives of some of these mediums I talked to (all of which is 100% new to me), I had a hard time believing there was any part of Dave keeping up with me. I just couldn’t believe that my David, as crafty and creative and thoughtful and well-connected as he was in the physical realm, could not show his presence better in this ‘afterlife’, if said afterlife truly exists. The afterlife always seemed like a fairytale schpeil that we fed ourselves in an effort to ease the pain of loss. As long as you convinced yourself that it was real, you could relax a bit more, living under the doctrine that your person would still somehow live on and be near you.

With all the spirit medium chats I was having and all the books on a spiritual afterlife I was reading, I expected to feel more of a connection to this person I had been so deeply connected to in the physical world. I wrote an email to Dave’s mom, asking if she truly believed he was content with his new digs and would have chosen it over continuing his happy, physical life, as some of the mediums I’ve talked to have attempted to convey. She replied that of course he’s not; he had absolutely no reason to want to leave his comfortable, exciting, loving life. She related that these were his happiest times ever, and he had everything in the world going for him. So then, as I considered my little man somewhere out there possibly missing me the way I missed him, and lamenting his disappearance as much as I do, this may very well have been the tipping point in helping me to feel his sweet presence – to believe that, in some alternate universe, we’re ultimately experiencing a parallel sensation of sorrow and longing, wishing to have our lives back the way they once were. I decided that this was is possibly a step towards feeling some kind of connection with him. Of course, the double-edged sword here lies in the idea that now that I seem to feel his presence with this shared sorrowful sensation, this also means he may not be perfectly happy somewhere out there in the atmosphere, looking down at what he left and actually feeling sadness. There’s no winning here.

Those who knew Dave closely have probably heard him recount the incredible cosmic dreams he used to have pretty often – Always flying, soaring through space or unknown earthly lands, exploring and finding his new adventure in some awesome, indescribable, extreme place. So I take solace in the notion that he now potentially has the capacity to find himself in comparable places however, whenever, and wherever he wishes.

There have been many words of wisdom sent my way over the recent months, and I find myself recycling several mantras I’ve been given by various friends and family members. A couple weeks ago, it was Dave’s close friend and previous roommate, Rachel Kilmer, who said “you were a godsend for Dave. All he ever wanted in life was to love and be loved, [...] and he was always worried he would never fall in love or find the right person… we really feel like you were meant to be here for him and we are so thankful that you guys found each other. It was like when he found you, I didn’t have to worry about him anymore. He really did love you so much, it was so great to see and hear about.”

Today, one of the mantras I’m embracing comes from my friend Maura Bertolino, in one of our long-winded, philosophical g-chat conversations. Very simply put, she said, “maybe we would all wish we had died young anyway.” I’m holding onto this, in the hopes that maybe in all our mourning, he may actually somehow have it better than the rest of us, in whatever form and realm David might be existing or not existing right now.

I guess I can only hope...