Nathan,
I am two things I never thought I would be after I said I do. No, that's not true. I am many things I never thought I would be after we married, but two of these things are bigger than and contribute to the rest. I am a widow and a single parent. Those words seem so weird and foreign to me and yet nevertheless they are my reality and they will remain my reality no matter how many times I cry, beg, plead, and wish it weren't.
Sawyer is two and a half and as you know, both the most determined and stubborn little boy on the face of the earth. He has a sweet soul but he knows what he wants and doesn't and he has a strong sense of what is fair and what isn't. Our daughter is about to be two months and she is a sweet baby. One most would classify as good but she is needier than Sawyer ever was and it never fails that any time her brother needs something she decides to cry.
There's no doubt that parenting is hard, kids do not come with any sort of instructions or a cheat sheet. It's magnified by the fact that for half of Sawyer's life and one month or Aria's, I had you to pick up the slack and to help me on the harder days. I had you to give me a break when I thought I might snap and then suddenly and without warning you were gone and I was thrust into figuring out how to do it by myself.
The kids need fed, the bills need paid, the kids need baths, toys need picked up, and my homework needs done. It's a lot for one person. It's never ending. I get it, this is what parenting is and it's hard regardless of circumstance. This is parenting and I signed up for it. I was a willing participant. However, I signed up WITH you and you're no longer helping to shoulder the burden and there is something inherently different about widowed parenting. Particularly when one is widowed in the way that I was. Traumatically and without any warning. There is a deep loneliness. A desperation to hear your voice reassure me that I'm doing okay. A longing to feel your arms embrace me. A desperation that makes ever decision that has to be made cut all the way through the heart and soul.
Every tantrum thrown and every second that Aria is fussy without cause, I am acutely reminded of your absence. I haven't got a husband to turn to and my sweet children with all their wide eyed wonder and innocence have been touched by tragedy that has left them fatherless. What would you say if I could vocalize my struggles and have you respond?
Losing you has been the hardest thing I've ever had to survive through and it's likely that I won't encounter anything more difficult in my lifetime. At least I'm hopeful that I won't. Our wedding day was one of the three happiest of my life, we had so many plans and we had a lifetime to make them happen. And even if I knew then what I know now, I would still marry you each and every time.
I'm glad I didn't know though, because there would have been a darkness that loomed over our marriage and memories. We were married a year, but were friends for 20+ and though we went through so much in that time, I was so blessed by it. I thought we had a lifetime but then we went to the store and when we came home my life was changed forever. I was widowed at 29 and my children, two and one month had lost their daddy.
Sawyer may have a memory or two but they will be faded and foggy and Aria-Lyn won't have a single memory of her own. You won't be there to teach Sawyer to ride a bike and Ari will never dance with you at a father/daughter dance, something you were looking so forward to doing. You will never coach Sawyer's soccer team or help with homework. You won't be there to teach Aria what a real man looks like and question all her dates. You won't be there when they go off to college or to give Aria away and give Sawyer marital advice when they are lucky enough to find the love that I found within you.
I continually ask myself why and what. Why you thought this was your only answer and what changed in the span of an hour. Why didn't you realize we could and would overcome everything just as we had in the past and what went through your head in the moment before you pulled the trigger? It's a daily struggle and I am sure that I will never have answers to these unfathomable questions. I don't think I'd understand how you could leave us even if I did have the answers.
The idea that you're gone, that I'm forever without you, that I've lost you brings me to my knees. It breaks my heart and shatters my soul over and over, multiple times a day. The only things that give any semblance of peace are that I had you and that I will have you again someday in Heaven. All of this is painful. I'm often consumed by grief that shakes me to my core, I hate that the life we had together, the one I loved so much is gone, but I will ensure that whatever life remains in it's place for our children and I, you will ALWAYS be a part of it.
The greatest truth I've learned in this? There is no one lonelier than a widow.
This is because the widow was lucky enough to find love. To find someone who saw not only their heart and their strengths but their flaws and loved them anyway. The widow is both so lucky and so very unlucky at the same time.
I love you. I love our children and someday I hope that I will learn to love the life that I have now. The one that I neither chose nor wanted. I suppose for now I will simply be grateful for the life that we had. That I had you. You will live through the memories that I carry with me. I will be thankful that our children had you. You will live on through them. You are in them. There is not a single thing more wonderful than that.
Always,
Jess
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