The countdown

**************Update 9:16 PM 12/31/09**************

We were only at church for about 45 minutes before Kacie got sick. I gathered them up and headed back home. I am just hoping that I can be asleep when the new year hits. I think it will be a little less painful that way. I am also hoping that whatever has upset Kacie's tummy will be short lived and she won't be sick all night long.

**************Original Post******************

It's down to the final hours of 2009. I was watching a little of the nightly world news at 5:30. The journalist was doing an "in memory of" segment of all of the "famous or influential" people that died during the last decade.

All I could focus on was that Keith's name wasn't on that list. His name should have been on that list. At least that's what I think. He was a HUGE influence in my life, the lives of our children, and many other people (some I know and others I don't know).

With the hours of 2009 drawing to a close, so many thoughts and memories are running rampant through my mind. On this night 10 years ago, I was very pregnant with Kacie. She was born at 11:05 AM on Monday, January 3, 2000. On this night six years ago, I was sitting in a sleep chair at Huntsville Hospital keeping watch over my husband who was newly diagnosed with colon cancer. He was 5 days post surgery. He would come home on Friday, January 2, 2004. Yes, that would be the day before Kacie's 4th birthday.

Our lives had been changed forever.

Here I sit on this night in 2009. I am so grief stricken I can't think straight. My heart is so broken, I'm afraid it won't ever be put back together. I am fighting the black of depression once again. I am having to fight it very hard today. The entire day has been tough. As the hours to the new year draw closer, the black of depression seems to get closer too. Not only is the depression weighing on me, but the grief is especially heavy today too. I've felt it looming for the past few days.

To be frankly honest, I really don't want this new year to come. I don't want 2009 to end. I don't want 2010 to begin. I don't like what 2010 represents. It represents the beginning of the first entire year that I will spend without Keith. I know, I've already spent the better part of six months without Keith. BUT I HAD HIM FOR SIX MONTHS BEFORE HE DIED!!! I don't get to have him with me ANY of 2010!

I could always try to put a positive spin on the new year. It will be the first year in six that I don't have to wonder if it will be the year that Keith dies. That's already happened. For some reason, I just can't make that one fly.

I can't put a positive spin on the coming of 2010, whether it be from my grief, my depression, or both. I just can't. I'm tired of trying. I've been trying all week long to find something positive about the new year. My grief has won this time.

The kids seem oblivious to anything that I am feeling. They aren't having the issues that I am having with the coming of the new year. That's a good thing I guess. There are times I wish I could have their sense of innocence and just simple faith.

Despite what I want, we will be going to our church for the new year's eve service in just a little while. We will play games, eat pancakes cooked by our pastor, and pray in the new year. I am hoping that will be better for me than staying here at home and crying because I miss Keith so dreadfully. Crying, because it will be the first year since December 31, 1991, that I will not be able to share a first kiss of a new year with the love of my life.

I am hoping that I can focus my prayers on letting God lead my life and heal my heart in this coming year. I am hoping I can get through the first few minutes of the new year without crying, but I doubt it. I am hoping that I can concentrate at least a little bit to enjoy playing some of the games. I am hoping for a small reprieve from the black of depression and the overwhelming grief that has been shadowing me for the past few days and especially today.

I am not making any resolutions for the next year. I only want to get through it with as few scars as possible.

May God be with you and yours during this new year.

Kristy