The Reality of Life

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Photo by Mimie Fusaro that she took when she found one of the boys cars in her purse. She asked her followers, "I bet no one has one of these in their purse."

April 8-9, 2012

I'm just trying to get through my grief, battling the feeling of loss feels like a losing proposition. If it was strictly my own grief, I think I could win it. I’m strong minded and strong willed. It’s my Italian, Cuban, Irish background that makes me be able to carry such a heavy burden. But both my sons level me, to the point that it hurts immensely. I carry this burden on my shoulders for my children. I called a psychologist that I found through my insurance provider and told her about my kids and my loss via the phone. She basically told me, “your 2 year old will have no memory and your 4 year olds will fade in time.” That sinks into me, that reality in life, "no memory." I am not naive to this but the thought of it hurts nonetheless and does not lessen the burden on my shoulders.

Nothing prepares you for a loss. Even if you see it coming due to sickness, you are never prepared. This still feels unbelievable. The only difference, I think, is that when you’re unprepared for it your mind feels unfulfilled. The words I always wanted to say to her, go to waste, because I'm not quite sure if she will ever hear it in death, and there’s no comfort in that.

My mornings are filled with unimaginable clarity. As soon as my eyes open, my reality is so focused in my mind, it will either make or break my day.

The clarity is clear so vivid that I find myself saying, “Please help me God” in my mind over and over, until my sons wake up.

The truth is, I need to fix this and myself, because time is running short and work beckons my return. I know my kids need me and I need them. I need to find the resources that will help me, that will in return, help them.

I lose the sense of reality by living in our house. I use the same things that we have always used as a married couple.

When I get our kids together and we get ready to go out, our feeling seems normal. It probably equates to an amputee losing an appendage but still feeling the sensation of the lost limb. I can close my eyes and reenact every movement throughout my house knowing exactly where everything is without a single trip. But I find that I fall right on my face when I realize the cards that I have been dealt. Trying to keep myself grounded to the reality of life is the hardest of all.

Every day I go through the motions of life doing the same things I’ve always done, pretending I'm not doing it alone. But then, the harsh reality strikes me without notice and it knocks the wind right out of my bpdy. Not only the wind, but the motivation to do anything. Like the carpet had been taken from right under my feet and I fall right on my ass.


A normal person gets up and laughs it off with the embarrassing snicker, the persons mannerisms and attitude portray an, "Eh, I meant to do that." But this grief makes me unable to get up. It makes me just want to lie here curled up in a ball unwilling to grab the hand of someone extending it towards me, to help me off the ground.

If I help myself the guilt of not using those resources to help Mimie weighs on my mind. What people do not understand is that I don’t want any assistance that benefits me, that could have benefited Mimie in life as well. The guilt for me is - why didn’t I give that to her, to make things easier at her time of need. I got to stay focused on what’s important.

I took a trip to the cemetery this Easter Sunday to place fresh flowers out for Mimie. The act of getting the flowers I can handle, because I am focused on a task. But the act of placing them on her mausoleum is an act of strictly seriousness, almost business like.


Once I arrive to the cemetery, I keep stern. Not a smile, not a laugh, not a peep. I park next to her site and I immediately do what needs to be done to complete the task of placing her flowers out. I hold back all the feeling and emotions I can, because I am trying to stay strong for my two boys that have came along on this journey, only to break down like a dam, overwhelmed by the swell of water, rising, caused by a simple word my four year old says, “mama.”


Those little words ground me and brings me back to the reality of life.

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