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Run Away
On Monday, I woke with a pit in my stomach. “Six months,” I thought. “Six entire months since Shawn left this world. How could that be?” I didn’t quite know what to do with the anxiety I was feeling, but my cousin Amy offered to take my kids for the morning and I gratefully left them with her. “I’m going out on a run,” I told her. “Great,” she said, “there’s a loop you can run around here, or you can cross the main road and go further.” I took off. It was raining, which is weird for Texas in July, but it meant that the heat didn’t hold me…
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6 Months
In the past 3 weeks, I’ve endured Father’s Day, Shawn’s birthday and our wedding anniversary. Today, it’s the 6 month marker since his death. I woke up nervous, though I’m not sure why. It’s not like anything has changed today, and the specific time period of six months is a made-up marker anyway. But I’ve now lived a half of a year without Shawn, and that is something that gives me pause. If you had asked me a year ago if I would be able to handle six entire months without my husband, I would definitely have said “no.” And yet, here I am. I am not whole anymore, but…
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Go, Go, Go
Shawn and I met in Japan. We were just out of college, two young kids looking for adventure and a job that would support our wanderings. We ended up in the same town teaching English, me at the middle school and him at the high school. We loved travel. From the first moment we met, we talked about where we wanted to go and what we would do in those places. When we spent a weekend day together even before we were dating, we would get up early and explore whatever city we were in for at least 12 hours. In fact, I have a vivid memory of one night…
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An Anniversary of Sorts
Shawn and I were married when I was 25 and he had just turned 27. Back home in small-town Oregon, many of my friends were already married by 25. But my friends outside of my hometown were somewhat scandalized. At some point during our engagement, I overheard one friend ask another, “how long have they actually even known each other?” Another dear friend of mine asked me, “are you sure you want to marry Shawn? Like, for the rest of your life? You’re only 25!” None of these people really knew Shawn. They only knew that I was deciding to get married at a fairly young age. But everyone who…
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What If the Plane Crashes?
I’ve taken my kids on airplanes since the very early days of their lives. Claire was only six weeks old the first time she rode on a plane, and I remember boarding the flight with Shawn and about fifteen bags to guarantee we had everything. As I sat down, the man in front of me turned around and said, “that baby better not scream for the entire flight.” Claire was six weeks old. Through some miracle, she slept through the entire flight and I smugly de-boarded the plane afterwards. Shawn was livid at the rude man, but I felt victorious. I must have been doing everything right if my baby…
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Shawn’s Birthday, Part 2
As promised, I took the kids to the cemetery on their Dad’s birthday, which was Wednesday. I had no idea how it would go. They were at a tennis camp with my friend Christine’s two kids, and so when it came time to go, Christine decided that she’d come with her kids too. So we loaded them up and took off right after lunch – just two moms on an outing with their kids to the cemetery. We talked a lot in the car about the cemetery. I told them that it looked like a park and that Shawn’s grave had a marker on it and grass growing over it.…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
