It’s been one year but it feels both shorter and longer...

I kept thinking words would come. Words that would somehow adequately describe what I was feeling. I am a writer. I maintain a blog. Words ALWAYS come. They come even when I don’t want them to. This time though, this time they never came. 

There are simply not words to covey how in one year everything has changed. Everything is different. And yet, in its difference, it is still immensely painful.  Grief always meets me in the quiet dark of the night but now I don’t run from it. I embrace it like an old friend. I remind myself that the amount of pain I carry with me is a testament to the great love we shared. 

Everything is different. Aria-Lyn is crawling and talking and Sawyer is in school and acts like a teenager some days. Everything is different. I can smile and go out to spend time without friends without being smothered by guilt. I can talk about you and though sometimes I still cry I think of you with so much joy at the happiness you filled my life with. 

Everything is different and yet nothing has changed. You are still the last thing I think of at night and the first I think of in the morning. I still miss you so much my heart physically aches.  I still wish you could somehow come back and say it was all a mistake. Sawyer still talks about you all the time and asks me to watch ninja turtles and power rangers like you used to and Aria still won’t ever have a true memory of her own. Everything has changed and yet nothing has. This still is the worst pain I’ve experienced and the most awful hand I think our children will ever be dealt. 

Sunday we went to the cemetery with your sister and it was a nice moment to share with her. We went back yesterday.  Tahnya made me the sweetest gift in your memory and she took you a red rose and got me one to match. It may be one of my most treasured gifts. It equals that the thumbprint necklace and the wreath are. 

 We laughed and ate junk food (so many of your favorites), drank some wine (I know you think we should have had beer instead), we listened to Chevelle at exactly 8:04 PM (I know it made you smile) and have decided to dub the day “Nathan’s day.” It sounds much less grim than the anniversary of your death and some how helps us to smile a little more. 

You’d be so happy that Lindsey, Chera, and Tahnya were there for us yesterday along with so many more friends and family members who took time to text, message, and call to check on us.  You’d be so glad that so many of these same people continue to love and be there for us on a daily basis.

I am thankful you know what a treasure you are. What a great man you were. 

Until we see you again. 

We love you. We miss you. Forever. 

It'll come. I know it will. It always does, but for now....for now it seems impossible.

Dear Nathan,
From the very start of this horror, I have said that there would be good that came from this.  That beauty would come from the ashes because you deserve that, I deserve that, and most of all our children deserve that.   And so after the initial fog lifted and I made it past the first two weeks of the nightmare that had somehow become my life, I started talking.    After the realization that even if you're living in a nightmare, you simply can't wake up from your life finally set in, I started telling our story and I haven't stopped.  I have been candid in both my pain and with exactly what you did.  I have no secrets.  I will answer just about any question that someone asks me, and I have had my share of inappropriate questions, suggestions, and comments.  They've made me angry, they've made me sad, and they've flat out mind boggled me,  but I have handled them with as much kindness and dignity that I could possibly muster because this isn't about those people or even about me.  It's about the fact that if I am not speaking out, if I am not advocating, then  I am doing a disservice not only to the great man that you were but to the love that we shared, to your pain, to my pain, and to a great many others who may carry around this type of pain.

I am becoming a part of the problem if I am hiding my pain, the kind of pain that is all consuming.  The kind that swallows you whole as you lay in bed trying to will yourself to fall asleep.   The kind of pain, that finally helps you to understand why they say that sleep is a cousin of death.

I speak out because we need to be aware.  People need to know that suicide is real.  Traumatic brain injury is real.  Mental illness is REAL and no matter how you hide from it or try to push it to the darkest recesses of your mind, it is real and it will continue to be real and ugly and awful until we stop hiding.  Until we pull it out to the middle of the room and push our thumb into the huge gaping wound that it is, it will be real and we are failing the people around us.  I refuse to be a part of the problem.  I refuse to be part of the stigma and the shame.  I couldn't save you, but if your story, our story can save someone else than I have somehow in some small way righted a wrong that can't really be righted at all.

That said, I need prayer.  As I am sure you recall,  our church, just before the sermon launches, shares a life story.  They're beautiful stories about good coming from the ashes, light shining in the darkness, and the ugly becoming beautiful.   They are stories that need to be heard and I have been asked to begin the process of sharing ours. 

The first stop on the journey is to type out the story.

Seems easy enough for someone who has used writing both on facebook, in a blog, and various media outlets on the world wide web as her platform for sharing.  Should be easy for someone who has begun the process of writing a book, right? You would think so, but you would be wrong.  I have sat down to write it out several times in the last two weeks and have deleted what I manage to get out and given up.   I start to write and I suddenly feel as though there isn't really a story to be told here.  There isn't anything to say that anyone should or would want to here.   There is only a dull ache in my heart and the reminder that my children are growing up without the daddy that loved them so much and I am going to bed by myself again.

I can literally feel every ounce of hope draining from my body,  every ounce of hope that I usually try to give to others suddenly seems to be running for cover. 

I know that there is a story and I have hope and I know that I need to share that hope, but something in me just shuts down.

It'll come.  I know it will.  It always does, but for now....for now it seems impossible.

As always I wish you were here to help me battle this, but I guess if you were here I wouldn't be battling it.  It's a catch 22, if there ever was one.

Whatever.

I love you.  I miss you.  Forever.

Maybe I just couldn't love you enough....

My darling Nathan,



I remember the day we decided to take our 26 year friendship to another level. You had been through a string of bad decisions, broken hearts, and disappointments.  I had too and yet you were everything I wasn't, and I think that's what attracted me to you. There were a thousand things about you that drove me crazy, but just as usual; I picked the ones who were the absolute worst for me.

Although it was what I had always wanted, I didn't think we'd work as more than friends back then, but it quickly evolved into exactly that…something that worked. What we considered "dating" was really just two people learning about each other. Late night phone calls where we'd talk about anything and everything, late evening sitting in your truck, we'd share a bad cup of coffee from a gas station, getting completely swallowed up in conversation. I knew I was in love with you about a week later. I had never been so sure of anything in my life. We got married exactly a month later.  We talked about the future, growing old together, about how we wanted a daughter, and about how if we simply couldn’t fathom how either of us would ever survive without the other.  I was in love with you. Almost everything about you.

Things weren’t perfect.  Nothing ever is, of course, and anything worth having takes work.  We had a difficult season.  It was so hard, but we fought through it.  We fought and clawed our way to the other side and came out standing.  And not just standing, but standing beside each other, hand in hand.  We had a daughter, to complete our family.  Sawyer adored you as much as I did.  We were in a new home.  We were FINALLY through what I was sure would be the hardest season of my life.  We were finally sharing more laughs and smiles than we were sharing tears and heartache.  We were finally happy and everyone who saw us in that time says the same thing.  We appeared so happy, looking forward to the future.  We were.  Or I thought we were.  I was naive.  I should have known that things can always get worse than the worst that you think they’ll be and they did.  We were in a happy place and you still took your life and for me, things got a thousand times worse than they had ever been before.  I am surviving but it’s painful and it’s not the life that I wanted for me or for my children.   What's left of the life we had is shattered into pieces, and there's so many I don't know where to begin to put them back together. I'm good at picking up the pieces and putting them back together, I've done it many times, over and over. This time the pieces don't seem to fit together like they did before.   

I've replayed conversations in my head. Over and over, on repeat until I wish there was a way that I could make it stop. "Promise me you’ll always be there. Promise me, that we’ll get through anything together.” I should have known, but I guess I was blinded where you were concerned. "I promise. I’ll never leave.  I’ll always weather the storm right beside you.”  Yeah right.  After everything that’s happened…all I can say is yeah right.

Why didn’t I see this coming?  You were my person, my heart, how did I not see this coming? That’s one of the many questions that I ask constantly and as much as I wish I could turn off what I feel, it's there. I’ve had people tell me to move on. As if that's something as simple as just saying "I'm going to move on."  As if it’s as easy as deciding what you’re going to eat for breakfast.   As if I can magically stop loving you, and decide that I didn’t want and expect to be married to you for the rest of my life. "Every day gets easier..." It doesn't. Some days it’s harder.  Most days it’s not easier or harder, it’s just different.  I heard someone say that the pain from the loss of a spouse changes, it stops feeling like someone is stabbing and suffocating you all at once and becomes more like the pain of arthritis.  Not as all consuming, but still there and though you can ignore it some of the time, it’s impossible to ignore it all of the time.  You can get through the day but it’s still always there.  Maybe I still have some days that are harder because we share the most amazing daughter. And we have a son that still says he wishes you could come home.  That he misses you.   Our beautiful girl and that handsome boy are the best part of my life; they are my happiness.  They are perfection in an imperfect world. 

I guess I just want to know why everyone seems to get a perfect little family and we didn’t.  My pain most days now, is much more arthritic than a gaping stab wound, but that doesn’t take away from the difficult  moments in which  I want answers that aren’t coming, that won’t ever come.  It doesn’t take away from the times that I miss you, like when I forget to take out the trash because that was always your job.  The days when I need something fixed and I have no idea what the hell I am doing, but I have to figure it out because you’re not there anymore.  Or like how I have no idea how I’ll explain everything that’s happened to the kids when they’re old enough to comprehend.  How I’ll make them believe that you loved them and that if you could have you would be there to watch him take vows to his wife and walk her down the aisle to her husband.  How are they ever going to understand this when I don’t even understand. 

  All I know for sure is that you did something that wrecked so many things and so many people, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  I’ll keep saying it until I am blue in the face.  I forgive you.  I’m not angry.  I never have been.  Mostly, I just want you to know I don’t think of you as a mistake.  You were a blessing even after everything.


Even through everything that has happened I have loved you.  I have loved you every minute, everyday.  I loved you through the hard season.  I loved you through our triumphs.  I loved you through the trials of parenting Sawyer and through the birth of our perfect daughter.   I loved you even when I hated you and I know that you are gone, that you can’t come back, that my life has to keep going on without you, and that I likely have a long time before I’ll see you again in Heaven, but I can promise I will never stop loving you because of what we share and because you never stop loving your soul mate. I wish I knew how you got to the point that you did or how we could have fixed it or what you were feeling in that moment, but those things don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Choices were made, and although I didn’t get a say in the biggest choice that altered my life so profoundly, what’s done is done.  

I’ll just end with this,  I prefer to think no one could have loved you the way I did and still do, maybe I was….maybe I am wrong. Maybe I just couldn't love you enough.   Either way, I’ll see you in Heaven, love.

We love you.  We miss you.  Forever.

i am thankful that though there is pain in this fallen world, in the next there will be none

Dearest Nathan,

Today was a hard day. We have experienced great heartache this year, the kind that could tear people apart and our  family (for others reading this: Nathan's side) has suffered yet another tremendous and unexpected loss.  However instead of letting it pull us apart and expose our ugly human sides,  we choose to allow it to bring us together, to surround each other in love. 

This loss has reopened painful wounds, that although I know won't ever completely heal, I had naively believed had become tolerable...even ignorable.  It has reminded me that pain, although survivable will be a constant in my life for the rest of my days.  It has made my longing and grief for you rear it's ugly head,  though in truth it's never really gone at all.   However, it has allowed me to count my blessings that are easily forgotten in the monotony of the day to day and so I am thankful. 

I am thankful that we used today to both celebrate your uncle Ken and enjoy time as a family. I am thankful that BOTH of our kids are so loved by their grandparents and their many aunts, uncles, and cousins and step aunts and uncles and cousins. I am thankful for friends like Tahnya who accept the role of auntie and are there when we need them. For friends that have walked beside us through the good, bad, and ugly we have experienced since losing you. 

Mostly I am thankful that we know through Psalm 34:18 that God is near to the broken hearted and saves those crushed in spirit and that we will see the ones we love once again in Heaven and what a glorious reunion it will be and how my heart will rejoice not only because I'm in the presence of both Jesus and with you and my other loved ones again but for the peace and reprieve from grief I will finally be granted. I am thankful that He knows our pain and he takes us in his arms and holds us near. I am thankful that though there is pain in this fallen world, in the next there will be none. 

#missingnathanalways but #hopefulthroughjesus 

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.

Basic things are still hard some days, but at least I'm able to breathe without being reminded which I suppose is something to applaud

Dearest Nathan, 

I recently read an open letter titled "To the New Suicide Survivor", I felt like whomever the author was, she had lived my life and was writing down all my thoughts and it forced me to remember and reconcile with those first few days and weeks that my brain has done a damned good job forgetting. A defense mechanism I think. 

In the letter she kept saying that the new survivor would be okay. I don't know if I agree with that. I am certainly not okay, but I am surviving. I'm getting through my new normal relatively unscathed which is more than I could have even begun to hope for in the beginning. I think that's as good as it's going to get for me though and even though I am not okay, that is okay. 

I still remember the sound of the gun. I still remember the moment our eyes locked for the final moment. I remember the pain in my heart when the officer said "I'm so so very sorry". I remember not having a clue where or what our children were doing but knowing that our neighbors were taking care of them.  I remember telling my dad and Tahnya both I wasn't sure I believed that God existed anymore. I remember hugging both your brothers, almost hyperventilating when I saw your dad, calling Lindsey and being stone cold sober as I told her the news, and even thetears Cory   and I shared as we discussed what we would do about Sawyer. 

I know you didn't mean to hurt anyone. I know you had a traumatic brain injury and I know you also believed that we deserved more than you could give us. If you could have seen him yourself through our eyes you would have known that we thought you were a hero. You didn't just have mine and our children's hearts, you were our hearts and they permanently broke when we lost you. So many other hearts shattered when you died too. I think if you would have realized the torment and utter wreckage you would leave behind, you never would have left. I don't believe you would have done it had you known how broken the kids and I would be. God how I wish you would have known. 

The week after you died is a blur, I received more hugs, phone calls, letters, and meals than I have ever received in my life. So many loving words and even some unnecessary and mean words from people who sought to hurt me and tarnish your memory. I gave my Facebook password to Tiya and she sifted through some messages trying her best to keep me from seeing anything that was less than helpful. 

My sister and Lindsey force fed me all week, Tahnya messaged me at least three times a day on the days she wasn't able to come be with me and my parents made sure I didn't feel alone. Angela did my hair and nails because otherwise I would have looked like an unkept bum at your service.  Chanda drove all the way from California to be with me and her presence did my heart wonders. Erin and Jenn did entirely more than I can write here or thank them for. And Kate. God. She didn't even know me and she dropped everything for me on more than one occasion to be with me. The one person who really understood. 

I am not a hugger. I don't want to be touched. Outside of you and our children their are only a few who are exceptions to this rule, however I am so thankful for the hugs I received in the first few weeks because a hug is a person's way of physically telling you that you are loved and I needed to feel that in those first few weeks. 

I needed to especially feel that in the first week because in that first week I had some scary thoughts. Very scary thoughts and although having your own suicidal thoughts is normal in the wake of your spouses suicide, I am thankful that I was never left alone long enough to truly realize those thoughts because had I been, those first days were dark enough I likely would have followed behind you with little to no hesitation. 

Basic things were so hard. Lindsey and Christie and so many others kept reminding me to breathe and I think if they hadn't I might have literally forgotten how. Basic things are still hard some days, but at least I'm able to breathe without being reminded which I suppose is something to applaud. 

I still remember the sound of your work van being towed and the way the glass looked on the ground. I could stop staring at it. A part of me died that day but the part of me that survived, she's still surviving and I think you'd be proud of that. 

Had someone told me this would happen I would have laughed in their face. I never would have believed it and if I'm honest, even six months later there are still moments when I still can't convince myself that you're actually gone and never coming home.  I still cry at least once a day. I've decided that, that is both healthy and also a testament to the love that we shared and the love that I still have for you. 

I don't think I'll ever be fully okay but I am better than I was in the beginning and some progress is better than nothing at all. 

I love you. I miss you. Forever. 

this idea is often offered as a solution to their broken heart. Simply find another and the pain will cease... as if losing a spouse and then finding a new one is like trading in an old car.

Dearest Nathan, 

It's been so long since I've written. Part of that is I still haven't gotten internet set up at the house and it's a pain to do from my phone. The other part is I'm just tired and emotionally drained and so usually by the time I have a moment I just go to sleep. I'm going to be better about writing to you though because it's good for me and I feel like it keeps our connection intact. 

National Widow’s Day was a few days ago.  May 3rd to be exact, just three days before the 6 month marker of losing you and International Widows Day will be on June 23rd. Fifteen days after what should have been your thirtieth birthday.  These are days that I didn't even realize existed until I was made a widow myself and two days that I have turbulently mixed emotions

One half of my heart is screaming that I hate those days. I hate them with every fiber of that half of my broken heart. It's a reminder of what I desperately wish I could forget. It's a reminder that this nightmare I walk in, isn't one I'm going to be able to wake up from. It's a reminder that the life I had, the one I chose and built with you, the one I loved even in the ugly times was snatched away in mere seconds and without my input at all. It's a reminder that I have lost not only my husband but my best friend and that 26 years has been reduced to loss and heartache. 

These days are a painful reminder that I am different from my peers. I am separate from them. It is isolating in an already isolating situation, particularly as a very young widow. 

Yeah, half of my heart loathes this. It loathes that there is even a reason for a day like this to exist. A day for society as a whole to recognize the widows in the world for their achievement of not only enduring but somehow surviving the inexplicably  soul shaking, heart crushing, earth shaking, life changing, all consuming pain that comes with the loss of ones better half. From losing half of yourself.

And yet... the other half of my heart appreciates it. The other half of my heart realizes that it's nice to be acknowledged and thought of.  I know that probably reads a little funny, but the truth is that widows are very easily pushed aside, even forgotten sometimes.  It's not done with menacing intention. In fact sometimes I'm not even sure it's done on purpose, it's simply that where our lives stopped theirs continued but more than that it's that we are an unwanted reminder that pain and fear are very real and that mortality is a huge part of life. No one is immune from or can escape death. To really acknowledge and embrace a widow you must also acknowledge and embrace their grief, this is something that takes strength, courage, and understanding and not everyone has those things within themselves. 

Grief and heartache. Depression and anxiety. They're all things that are uncomfortable and so with time, people begin to view a widow's widowness on a diminishing scale. The more time that goes by, the less that many people choose to allow a widow time, space, and patience to feel those things. We put a time limit on pain.   And the fact is the younger that the widow is the more that this becomes truth. People decide that because a widow is young they have the time and potential to find another spouse to settle down and share life with. Not only is it assumed that they can but it is assumed that they will.  In fact this idea is often offered as a solution to their broken heart. Simply find another and the pain will cease... as if losing a spouse and then finding a new one is like trading in an old car. 

It seems to be forgotten that the love they had, they still have, it didn't vanish simply because their soulmate died. It is forgotten that the loss is no less painful or significant than it would be if it had happened when they were old and grey. In fact in someways the grief might be more treacherous because they not only grieve for what was but also what should have been. It is a different loss, yes but it is certainly not less. 

I've heard so many times that I should be over it. I should move on. The words used are often different but insinuation is apparent.  I hear "time to get out there" or "you can't live in the past" or the one I hear most "you're only thirty, you'll meet Prince Charming and he'll adore you and your kids"

It's enough to make your head spin. I want to scream at them to shut their foul mouth or push them away. I don't do either because the truth is people don't know any better. They think what they're saying is helpful.  They can't truly understand either the magnitude of my pain or their words because they haven't experienced this type of loss. They have not walked this road and thus don't really know how to navigate.  And it'd be unfair of me to hold their ignorance against them. In fact I'm jealous of them. I used to be them and I pray they stay blissfully ignorant until they are old and grey. 

I can't hold it against them because if this had happened to someone else instead of me, I would likely have said and done the wrong thing too. I wouldn't have gotten it right because I wouldn't have understood either. If this hadn't happened to me but rather someone else I too probably would have forgotten that your level of widowhood doesn't depend on age and that a widow doesn't cease being a widow after a certain number of months.  Not because I'm cold or cruel but simply because like it is for the vast majority, it would simply be difficult to relate to and empathize with such an unthinkable situation. Why? Because when you're young you mistakenly fall into the trap that you'll always have more time and that nothing like this could happen to you. 

Yes. I recognize an acknowledge that it is difficult to be around a widow. Especially a young widow. I understand that it's hard to watch her cry and grieve and sometimes supporting her feels like too big of a burden for one person or friendship to handle and carry.  I acknowledge and accept that as truth. However, here's the thing... as hard as it is to support the widow, it's a thousand times more difficult to BE the widow. Until you are a widow you can't fathom the amount of tears that are cried. The heaviness of grieving and single parenting at the same time or grasp the harshness of the deep loneliness that comes with losing a spouse and best friend. 

Suffice all this to say, I think a bigger part of my heart is in favor of widow's day. I think you would be too, Nathan,  because it's the one day out of the year in which the awkwardness and the fear is removed and people are able to embrace and acknowledge my loss and the loss of other widows. It's the one day when I can grieve without judgement or time limit because the significance of the loss can be felt simply through the deceleration of a day called widow's day.  

The day takes away the ability to ignore the widow and for that I appreciate the day because to ignore the widow, to demand she move on and forget is to ignore the person that she lost and I refuse to allow you to be forgotten or ignored. You mattered.  You still matter. You were important. You are still important. Not only to me but to our amazing children and I'll be damned if that's brushed aside because people are uncomfortable by grief. The world would be a better place if we'd all get a little uncomfortable. 

The truth is, and people don't like it when I say this, but I will always ache. For the life that we had that was snatched away both quickly and traumatically. I will always have times of sorrow and tears for not only what was but for what should and could have been. I will grieve for as long as I loved you. I will grieve because I still love you. I will never stop loving you and I wish people could understand that and yet I am relieved that they don't. 

I am not pathetic for any of this. My life is not pathetic for the pain it holds. My life is hard and unique. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, not even my truest enemy, but with this life I have been granted a profound ability to understand, empathize and offer compassion to others.  I have been given a deeply rooted knowledge of life, love, and even death that is hard to adequately put into words. I have been given the opportunity to speak out about things like grief and suicide. To educate and make people aware even if it's uncomfortable and I will do it because your memory deserves that. 

Speaking of National Widow's Day, Tahnya brought me flowers and a card. She's one of the few not afraid of my grief. One that doesn't demand I move on. I am blessed to have her and I know you're glad that if I can't have you that I have her.  

Anyway, my hope is that whomever reads this letter will make a mental note that International Widow's day is June 23 and that they will remember a widow in their life on that day. It's awkward and uncomfortable, but widow's often feel lonely and forgotten so my prayer is that they are allowed this day to be remembered and embraced and loved for the treasure that they are. 

They often feel expected to satisfy some unrealistic expectation of “happiness” that may or may not be reality simply because some amount of time has passed. They have often mastered the fake smile, talk the small talk, and tell you how well they have been doing, regardless of the truth that you may or may not want to hear. A widow knows that talk about sleepless nights, unstoppable tears, or the fears of living a life without the one they loved most are topics of conversation that will leave them feeling emptier than  before and more than that they know the awkwardness it brings the other person in the conversation and so instead we talk about anything that leaves you telling us how strong we are; a phrase most despised among the bereaved, but often brought on by our own decisions to put on the strong face. 

On June 23 I pray that whomever reads this letter will allow a widow in their life to be honest even if that means being weak for a moment and to love them through it because sometimes it's what they really need. 

Anyway, I know you've been visiting Sawyer and playing with him lately. He tells me about the things you guys have been doing and calls you silly all the time. I'm glad you're near because he misses you so badly. He keeps telling me that it's okay because daddy Nathan is happy. As much as I wish you were here with us I'm glad you have indescribable joy in Heaven. You deserve that.  I can't wait to be reunited with you someday in the presence of Jesus. 

Until that day though.... we love you. We miss you. Forever. 

Always, 

Jess