It's been six days since I've written to you. 144 hours. 8,640 minutes. 518,400 seconds. 86,400,000 milliseconds. I've had many reasons for this. Most of them don't matter, but the two biggest are simply that traveling with two children without you was exhausting and time consuming and secondly, I think I was hoping that if I let some time go by, when I finally wrote, I would be able to write something other than "my heart's still breaking" or "I don't want to live a life in which you're not in it" or the most cliche of all the things a widow could say "I need a drink. A large one. Maybe a vodka and soda, hold the soda." Unfortunately, all of those things still ring true and now I almost feel as if I've done you a great disservice by allowing so much time to lapse. I almost feel as though I've abandoned you in some weird way. I know anyone reading this will probably tell me that I haven't. but that's because they don't understand that sometimes I feel as though this is the only connection to you that I have left. They are probably also judging me for knowing how many milliseconds it's been. Little do they know, I know down to the millisecond how long you've been gone. I won't share that here though. I will save it for another time and possibly another place. I think at this point I need to resign myself to the fact that this really won't get any easier. No matter how much time goes by or what I do with this life, it is not going to get easier. It is always going to hurt. I am always going to miss you. Long for you. Feel jipped of the life we should have had together.
No, this is never going to get any easier than it is today. It will get different as life goes on and changes, but it will not get easier.
I have good moments, days when I find peace in many things. Many things like the fact that you're finally with your mom, that you finally have peace, and that you didn't plan to leave us, it just happened in a moment. However, night always comes and in the night my heart is full to the brim with sadness, confusion, longing, loneliness, and so many dang questions. Why did you have to leave me? Why didn't you know that I needed you? I told you all the time. Why couldn't it have been someone else? Why didn't we get a better ending? Why didn't God stop this from happening?! I know the answer to that last one, but I will never like it. I think one of the reasons that this won't get any less painful, any easier, is because when you left me you took a piece of me with you. A huge piece. A piece of me that I can neither get back nor replace. I'd give up my entire life for one more conversation. One more hug. To hear you laugh one more time or feel you kiss my forehead one more time. Hell, I'd give up everything to simply watch you hold our daughter or laugh and play with our son one more time. Just one more time of one more anything.
I have so many regrets. So many things I wish I'd said and even things I wish that I had said more. I told you I loved you. I told you I thought you were brilliant and amazing. I told you that you were a wonderful dad, and an even better husband, but I didn't tell you enough. I didn't tell you enough to make up for the times that I didn't tell you. When I was too busy to appreciate you. I didn't tell you enough to make up for the times that I was negative and hurt your feelings and I didn't tell you enough to make up for the times that life was too busy for us to realize it was passing us by so quickly. I told you I appreciated you. I wish I would have told you more. No, scratch that, I wish I would have shown you more. You told me I was an amazing wife. You told me I amazed you and that you were lucky to have me, but now that you're gone, I don't feel that way. I feel exactly the opposite and that makes it so much more difficult to deal with all of this. This must be the reason they call the grief that comes with losing someone to suicide complicated.
I took you for granted. I am sorry. I love you. I appreciate everything that you did for me, for our family. You went above and beyond and it never went unnoticed, even in the moments when it likely seemed that it did. I guess I just always assumed that we'd have more time. Years. Decades. Forever. You weren't perfect in our relationship, but you were perfect for me, and if I had known how little time we truly had, how this would end, I would have done so many, many things differently. Too little too late, now, I suppose, but I want you to know that I am so proud to be your wife, to carry your name. I am proud to be the mother of your daughter. I am proud to say you were an amazing father to my son. You accomplished SO much even when life was dealing you a crappy hand and I think you deserve to not only be acknowledged for that but remembered. To be talked about and praised. And I will do all of that daily.
The kids had a beautiful Christmas full of love and laughter. I managed to survive Christmas. Nearly every night after I was in bed, I'd cry, but I survived nonetheless. It's strange to say I survived it, rather than enjoyed it, since this used to be my favorite holiday. I used to tell you that I had to love it, being that I was born a Christmas baby. You'd laugh and roll your eyes. I loved everything about it though, the lights, the tree, the decorations, mostly I loved the time with family and other loved ones, but that last reason, is the reason that it was so hard this year. Why I wasn't sure I was going to get through it, because the person I loved most, that I still love most is no longer here to spend it with me. Leading up to the dreaded day, I was asked several times, by several well meaning people what I wanted, what I needed, what I was hoping to get, I never had an answer. I said it was because I hadn't had time to think about it, but that wasn't the truth. Not even a little bit. I had thought about it several times, but no one could get it for me. No one will ever be able to get it for me, because all I want is the one thing I can't have and that's you. The life we were meant to have. I want our children to have their daddy. I want to continue making memories and having family vacations with you. I want you to teach our son to drive a car and take our daughter to a father/daughter dance. I want to have the wedding we always talked about after we got married at the court house (still don't regret that by the way). I want my life to go back to the way that it was. I want the things that we hoped for together. I want the life I shared with you back, because even though it wasn't perfect, it was ours, we were together, and I was happy.
I think that's what made this almost unbearable, because I was thankful to be with my family. To have them to love on our children. I was thankful and I was glad to be there and yet I hated to be there at the same time. Actually, I feel that way any time I am around my family and anytime I am around yours. Not because I don't want to be there or because I don't love them, but because it is hard to watch everyone with their significant others, with their complete families and be reminded that I don't have you, that my family is permanently incomplete. Don't get me wrong, I don't wish this on them. I don't wish this on anyone. I just wish it wasn't my reality, that I didn't hurt every time I was around a couple and I am by myself. I wish I didn't have to feel jealous or hide posts on facebook that contain family pictures or engagement announcements, but I do. I am happy for them, but my heart simply can't take it. My grief has brought me so many wishes that won't ever come true.
I don't feel like I fit into my world anymore.
I love you. I miss you. Forever.
Always,
Jess
“I feel like I’m in the wrong world. Cause I don’t belong in a world where we don’t end up together. I don’t. There are parallel universes out there where this didn’t happen. Where I was with you, and you were with me. And whatever universe that is, that’s the one where my heart lives. I never used to believe that love was real. Now, after loving you, I don't believe life is real without it. This is why it feels so impossible to let you go, because no matter what happened, how bad or good things were in our relationship, I was thankful for it because I needed it. I needed you in this life"
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