Things are not better, but they are different.

To my dearest Nathan,
One of the things I heard over and over directly after you died was that it would get easier and the pain would lessen.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news but that cliche is bullshit.  I thought for a moment that I should apologize to anyone reading this for the expletive but honestly I write these letters for myself and to you, and you would have just chuckled so I'm not going to.  For that reason and because there isn't anything that accurately describes my thoughts on "things will get better" than that.  They absolutely without a doubt do not get better and the pain doesn't lessen.  It doesn't do either of those things but it does get different, though I am not even sure that's the right word.  It's more that you learn to live with it than anything else.  You learn to lean on Jesus and to figure out what makes you feel the most joy in a really awful and sad life that you didn't ask for but were handed anyway.

I still miss you as much as the day it happened and the pain in my heart is still as real and intense as it was back then.  The difference is that I have learned to smile and laugh with our children and do it genuinely most days.   I get up and I clean the house, I run errands, and I spend time with friends.  I pray and I read my bible and on the hard days I pray some more.  I am still super angry with God, sometimes more so than others, but I am working on it.  I get asked often how I am and I always say that I am okay, sometimes I mean it and sometimes I'm lying, but that's okay because at least I am surviving.   I am sometimes okay, but I am never better than okay and I think that things may be like that for a long time and I think I'm fine with that.  I read once that the size of your pain is equal to that of the size of your love and if that's the case than my pain will be infinite just as my love for you was, is and will be forevermore.

I laugh without guilt anymore and most days I can say honestly that this wasn't my fault though sometimes in the stillness of the night the guilt and the questions and the what ifs creep up and I find myself wrestling with them as hard as I did in the beginning.  For the most part, I have released that burden.  I have given myself permission to say that this was your choice, not mine and that had I know, I obviously would have done anything in my power to prevent it.  I have allowed myself to find peace in the fact that you had a frontal lobe brain injury that impaired your judgement and decision making and that, that injury was likely at least 90% of the reason that you made the decision that you did.  It's utterly heartbreaking, but at least I know it's not something that you sat there and thought about for months, weeks, or hours.  In fact you probably only thought about it for mere seconds and had you thought about it a bit longer and let thoughts of the children and myself run through your mind, you'd still be here.

I am able to talk about you and smile instead of crying the majority of the time and I talk about you a lot.  Too much maybe, I am sure there are many that are tired of hearing about you, but I won't ever stop.  I embrace and find thankfulness for our memories and our good times.  Our marriage was short, but our friendship was so long and I am so grateful for that.  I still cry but not as often as I did and I find so much joy in hearing Sawyer talk about you to people especially his sister and it makes my heart swell when he tells me how happy you are and that you are with us. And although my heart breaks into a thousand pieces when he says he misses you and wants you to come back, and even though those pieces break even more when I remind him that you can't and his little voice sweetly says please mama,  I love that he still loves you  so damn much.

Things are not better. Things are okay and they are different but they are not better.  Things are not better, but we are learning to live again and find the joy in the small moments even if that joy is fleeting, and that's more than we were doing a month ago.

We miss you.  We love you.  Forever.