Unexplainable...

Dear Michael,

I miss you.

We participated in Thanksgiving this year as opposed to last year when we just had to avoid all things related to the Holiday. The entire time my mind was racing with thoughts of you. I forced myself to participate.

I prepared a good meal, all the while remembering all of the times you were here for dinner with the family. Conner even commented as he sat down with his plate, with tears welled up in his eyes, "Dad sure would like this food, mom." We just had a quiet moment looking at each other and nodding while everyone else was still filling their own plates.

I miss you.

My mom wanted a real tree for Christmas this year so we drove the farm, everyone loaded into your truck, and searched for the perfect tree. I drove in silence most of the way and cried. Mom sat beside me, patted  me on the leg and said, "I love you," over and over. I found no joy in what should have been a beautiful moment: Mom'a three grandchildren and her two daughters doing the old fashioned Christmas tree hunt. Instead though, I was sad.

I miss you.

I have found that I am SO much more quiet and drained than I ever have been before. I can't explain it to people. The only ones who understand are unfortunately the ones who are part of widowhood themselves. I can't explain the tug at my stomach that literally stays with me as I walk through every day, nauseated with nerves. I can't explain the switch that has been flipped that seriously requires each moment of laughter, each glimmer of a smile, to be forced. I have never had to FORCE myself to smile or laugh or enjoy life's most precious moments. But here I am, forcing just about everything.

I miss you.

I miss your laugh, your light. I miss your hands to hold and your broad shoulders to lean on. I miss your kisses and your compliments. I miss your presence in all things, whether it meant that your were physically home from work or just that I knew you would be coming home from work. The reality always existed that you WOULD be coming home. And now that reality is gone. And that is the most difficult thing to imagine or to try to explain.

Conner told me the other day, while he and I had a snuggle fest in his bed, "Mom, sometimes when I think about Dad, I have to look at a picture because I can't see his face perfect anymore." And he feels guilty about that. He feels guilty that his image of you is beginning to not be as clear as it was two years ago. And it's not that Conner has forgotten what you look like; it's just that enough time has passed that he is scared to death of forgetting what you look like. He's afraid of forgetting your voice. I cannot begin to explain to anyone how much this hurts and literally kills a piece of me.

I miss you... but HE misses you so much more because YOU are missing him growing up.

You are missing these mood swings that sometimes just about push me over the edge. Ugh...12 is SO HARD and I can't imagine what it's like without a dad. Our son literally has NO male influences in his life. Not ones that actually come around. I mean, so many of them SAY they will but then rarely, if ever, actually show up. I can't begin to fathom what goes through Conner's mind when he needs his dad. Anger, disappointment, sorrow, frustration, confusion, isolation, abandonment, fear....so on and so on.

Everyday I carry so much that it is weighing me down and robbing me of my soul's happiness. I am not happy. I am not ok. But I have to fake it every day just to get through. I have a job and bills and a son to raise. My own inner guilt and turmoil of knowing, KNOWING, that I have to move forward, that I cannot give up, that our son needs me more than ever, that I HAVE to be his everything, weighs more heavily on me with every passing day. I've heard so many times it makes me want to puke that "time heals all wounds." I call BS. No it doesn't. In my case, it often feels like time or making things worse for me. And it is unexplainable.

I wish you hadn't left us. I wish you had been happy with our 182 acre farm at Garwood and never brought us to this train wreck I'm in now, alone. I wish you had been happy with a "normal" job and paycheck and hadn't let your gazillion money ideas consume you and what time we should have had with you. I wish fall and winter were not such dreaded times for us now because they used to be our favorites. I wish you hadn't left me so much debt. I wish you hadn't gone to work that day, by that you had rested like I wanted you to. I wish so much, babe.

But more than anything, I wish our little boy's heart wasn't so broken and that mine would begin to heal. Because I have accepted reality, and it sucks, I now know that you're never coming back and that my life will never be the same. But it's so unexplainable to others how this makes us feel every moments of the day.

I miss you.
We miss you.

#stillhis
Love,
Your Wife