We are coming up on the anniversary of Sonny’s death. In ways, it feels as if it was yesterday and other ways a lifetime ago. I haven’t written here for months, I have attempted but not been able to put words on the screen- at least not words that I wanted anyone to read.

I am a hugely private person- contrary to the fact that I write a blog and prior, a Caring Bridge which has gone into depth regarding our life with cancer, sickness, and death. Thanksgiving, Birthdays, Christmas and all the emotions that link themselves to those holidays have come and gone. Afterward, I thought I’d be able to write again, but no. I had gone into the shell of myself, just trying to make it through each day. I stopped going to church, I was just tired of the tears and the feelings of disappointment, loneliness, and isolation. I couldn’t share it for fear of being exposed and vulnerable.  If I could use one word to describe my widowhood it is vulnerable. I hate feeling needy and needy is how I have been feeling.

Yesterday afternoon my kids came over. We had a long talk, with tears flowing I heard my own kids say they felt our family losing its bond, drifting apart. They felt unheard and unseen by me and the truth is, that was the truth. I have been so wrapped up in myself and my own grief that I have not been good about recognizing theirs. I have been working a job which has kept me away from them after years of really being very available for time- meals, shopping, childcare- time. I never intended to do this to my kids but grief is a nasty monster that has the ability to creep in and separate people from one another. I am a person that always looks forward to when I hope things will be better and tries to move past the current mess. Grief will not allow you to do that. As much as I hate it, I have discovered that I must allow the grief to happen, the tears to flow, the anger to express itself and the emotions out. Oh, I hate tears. I. Hate. Tears. But they must flow and I must allow them to leave my eyes and drop hotly down my chapped cheeks- even if they happen to flow in public.

We feel as if we will have two anniversaries of the death, being that Sonny died on Easter Sunday and Easter does not occur on the same day every year. This year Easter falls on April 1 and the anniversary will be on the 16th. Sixteen days- and that is not counting the anticipatory days that proceed the actual anniversary. We have plans to be together and I pray that we will find some closure. Not to the end of the grief- it will be with us always. Someone made a flippant comment to me that I had gotten over Sonny quickly. I felt slapped in the face. People out there reading this let me give you a word of advice. Don’t judge. Don’t assume. You never get over loving a person who has died, you try to move forward, always carrying them in your heart and hopefully taking them with you into your present life, relationships and future love. We are people made to love each other through friendships, marriage, and family. Life without love is not worth living. even though loss is the outcome of all love, eventually all of you will experience what I  (and many others) have.

I have a note on my wall from the Shack, “Love always leave a mark”. Sonny has left an imprint on our hearts. A punctuation mark on our lives. Not a period that emphasizes a full stop but a semicolon that implies a different idea but still one that relates to the first part of the sentence, a to be continued place keeper. Despite the fact that grief is the hardest work I have ever done, I would never want to live without that mark.