This is a Really Real Widow Post.

I had a bad dream this morning.

I won’t go into details, but in it I became a sorta kinda widow this time around.

The kinda widow that isn’t really a widow, because she looses her fiancee. So what are you when you don’t lose a spouse because you aren’t married yet, but the person you were supposed to marry, dies.

And I woke up gasping, because this can’t happen to me twice.  I can’t lose “the love of my life” twice in one life, and I rolled over to watch her breathe (I’ve done that on so many other occasions), but she’s not home.

So for just a second I thought of calling her at 6 in the morning just to hear her voice on the other end of the phone.

But, that would be rude.  And that would be letting anxiety win.

This is life as a widow.  Early morning dreams of death and dying and of it happening again.

Life as a widow is really meaning it when I need to know you got there safely because I know what my anxiety will be doing until I have that confirmation.

Life as a widow is stopping at the doorway to our room some mornings just to watch her breathe.

It doesn’t happen as often anymore.  I have it under better under control.  My brain feels more secure in the fact that Wonder Woman will still be alive when I wake up.  That she will come home safely after work each night.

I panic less often, reaching for her warmth to feel her chest rise and fall.

But when it happens and she’s not home I’m left gasping at 6 am.  How do I really know this wasn’t some sign.

How do I know she’s she’s still okay.

Oh look.

She just commented on something on Facebook.

Crisis averted.