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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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90s Party
When Claire was in kindergarten, Shawn and I teamed up with two other couples to throw a party to benefit our kids’ elementary school. Since that first time, the now-infamous 90s party has happened every spring at our house. This year would be no different, and part of that was because of Shawn. When he was in the hospital, I remember telling him that we’d do things to protect his immunity during the chemo treatments, including cancelling the 90s party. “What?” he’d said, horrified, when I brought it up. “You can’t cancel it!” So we decided we’d throw the party anyway, and figure out a venue later, if Shawn was still…
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Mother’s Day
On Friday, Austin came home from first grade and announced he had made a card for me. He handed it over and I told him I’d put it away to open on Sunday. But the front of it was hilariously cute. On it, he’d written, “Happy!!! Mothers!!! Day!!! Mom!!!!” and drawn a stick-figure likeness of me and him. I couldn’t wait to open it. That night, we had to go to the elementary school picnic. Of course, it was scheduled at the same time as the preschool picnic which was across the street. This seems to happen every year and was never an easy situation even when Shawn was alive. …
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My Flawed Husband
I love reading things written by other widows. Even short Facebook posts are helpful for me because they remind me that I’m not the only one experiencing loss and that my feelings are not actually that bizarre (thank you, Hot Young Widows Club!) Sometimes, I find a good blog and spend hours learning more about the experiences of someone else. This happened to me the other day, and I read all about a woman who also lost her spouse at a young age. Like me, she wrote about the life she shared with her husband and young kids. But there was one glaring difference. She did not post anything that…
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It Doesn’t Matter
When I turned 39, I decided that since no one was around to buy me a really nice birthday present, I would buy myself one. Shawn and I both believed that it was important to do nice things for yourself, so I knew he would have approved. In any case, I recently got a great new camera and I’ve spent the past few weeks taking test photos of my children. Last week, my cousin came to town and we took the kids to the zoo, so I used the opportunity to bust out my new camera and see what it could do. I think I took about a thousand photos…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
