Really Real Widow Post

One thing I’ve learned about widowhood is that for me, the lead up to a date, is often harder than the actual date.  Parker’s birthday is in a week and it’s been on my mind for almost a month now, with each day getting a little bit heavier on my chest.

She would have been 40 this year.

We met the year of her 30th birthday.

She had the hardest time with turning 30, and a friend of ours said “30 isn’t the problem, 31 is, because then you’re OVER 30.”  So then she had a hard time turning 31 as well.

I try so hard to wait for the actual day, except, I don’t get to control all of grief.  Like, I can keep it from taking over my life, but the more I fight the feeling and the emotions, the more they are going to control me.  So I tend to just say, yep, this is a grief thing, and then just let it have it’s space while I do my own thing.

The problem is, in the middle of my own thing, I’m still getting sucked into memories of birthdays and days leading up to birthdays.

So I try to give those thoughts their space and then go back to what I was doing.

It’s a constant process and I don’t cry as often as I once did, but the closer I get to a major date, the more the grief is there, and the more time I spend playing this game.

Sometimes the memories suck me in.  Sometimes I go down the rabbit hole and it hurts and it’s hard to find my way back out.  I wonder who she would have been now.  And if it would have been as hard for her to turn 40 as it was for her to turn 30.

I know that these questions, and grief in general, are the reasons that I’m crying, every, single, morning, right now.

So I give the tears their minute or two of my day and then keep going.

Although sometimes those tears turn to sobs, and those sobs turn loud enough to wake a sleeping Wonder Woman in the other room.  And I’m lucky enough to have a Wonder Woman who just comes and holds me and checks on me, and totally gets this, and then just as quietly lets me go back to writing a few minutes later.

I feel like I’ve been holding in those sobs forever and like this huge weight just came off my shoulders.

It’s not fair that Parker will never get to hate that she’s turning 40.

It’s not fair that she’s gone.

I wish I had some upbeat final ending for this one, but today I just hurt for her.

It’s not fair that she doesn’t get to have a birthday week.

It’s just not fair.