Really Real Widow Post

Today is Parker’s Birthday.

Facebook memories are always a mixed blessing. I can look back and see all the years of happy birthday posts, and then I can see 2 years ago where I posted all the pictures of 4 of us getting tattoos together for her birthday, and last year where I wrote one of the first “really real widow” posts for her birthday.

Yesterday my sister and I travelled around Massachusetts and did a whirlwind one day tour that was amazing. As we saw different things and I tried a lobster roll, there was this hidden part in the back of my brain that wondered how Parker would have liked all of it.

There’s a part of me that wonders what we would have done for her 40th birthday.

How amazing would it have been to take some big trip and see something new for this big milestone year?

How unfair is it that she’ll never get to see this year?

How unfair is it that I never got to freak out over planning something for her, that she took it away from all of us?

How unfair is in that she was in that much pain that she felt it was the only way out and felt that was the best thing for all of us, and for herself?

I wonder who she would be now. What would have changed about her? I’m starting to get smile lines, would she? What about grey hair? Where would it start? Would she want to color it as soon as it showed up?

Would she have stayed in school and what major would she have settled on? Would she be a radiology tech by now? How would she enjoy it?

Where would we be living? How would she react to Draven moving?

Would we even still be together?

The world deserved to see the answer to these questions. She deserved to still be here.

I’ve accepted that she’s gone, I know she’s not coming back and I’m happily settled into my new normal. But there are still days and hours of days where I wonder, what is the world losing because we lost her. It’s not a one time, one moment loss. We are losing out on countless birthdays and smiles and happy moments with her.

The world is forever changed and there’s a 40th birthday that will never be celebrated.

But Parker will always be remembered.

Happy Birthday.