This is a Really Real Widow Post.

Sometimes it hits me out of nowhere.

Well, I guess it isn’t from nowhere.  I know what triggered it.

A friend shared a meme, a comic strip.

“I don’t want to die.  I don’t want to stop existing.

I just . . . want a break.”

Parker was going through her own version of hell.

She needed the off ramp.  Not permanently, but just to a rest stop.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to ask for that and even if she did I wouldn’t have known how to give it to her.

How do you give someone a break from a life that’s surrounded by struggle.  How to you find the moments of joy when you feel like all of the joy has been sucked out of everything.  How could I help her to see that there was still life worth living.

How could I have given her the break she needed.

I do know, if love could have saved her she’d still be here.

And that goes both ways.

If her love for me could have saved her she’d still be here.

If her love for Draven could have saved her she’d still be here.

If her love for her mom, and her sister, and her niece, and her friends could have saved her.

She’d still be here.

And if our love for her could have saved her she’d most certainly still be here cause she had a lot of people that loved her.

That still love her.

But I can’t love her back to life.  I can’t go back and give her the break she needed.  I can’t go back and show her how much life is still worth living.  I can’t show her that things get better, that even the hard times have good things written all over them.

One of the hardest things is the fading of memories as time goes on.

I can’t always recall the sound of her voice.

I can’t hear her laugh when I try.

I can’t remember what she smelled like.

And for the life of me I can’t remember the last time we kissed.

Memories fade, even when we don’t want them to.

But I wonder what would be different if I could have given her that break that she so desperately needed.