My daughter has a friend over for a playdate today and it has been a good introspective snapshot of where I am at.  I keep thinking that I have all of this new confidence, but some remnants of the old me remain, like persistent weeds that always finds new tunnels to the surface.

Shelby has now, quite literally, walked in her mother's shoes.  It's odd to me that, at the age of 12, she actually fits in them, but then again, she isn't stricken with the growth-impeding disease the Megan had.  

After buying her new hiking shoes and boots for years, we decided to have her try on Megan's last pair.  They fit her almost perfectly. Like that first time Shelby came down the stairs wearing her mom's t-shirt, I was taken aback, and Shelby thought nothing of it.

Credit goes to Megan for that trait.  She was very realistic and unemotional about her own death.  She accepted it and moved on to better things. It was rare for her to be scared or have deep thoughts about it, unlike me, who constantly dreaded it.  Shelby, like her mother, never worries over Megan's death. I have yet to see her show any sadness, since the funeral mass. It's honestly the best Megan could have hoped for.

So this blog is a bit different than I usually write. This week I’ve been obsessed with terminology. Have you ever stopped for a minute and thought about words? Where did they come from? How they got their meaning and if they fit? Well it hit me this week that I HATE the terms widow and widower. I think the definitions are ridiculous and need to be changed. Let’s look them over, shall we?

A month from today, Sarah, Shelby, and I will be hitting the road for Texas.  It is time for our annual “Drewfest” weekend, where Drew’s closest friends gather to remember him, celebrate him, and in general, have a fun time like the “good old days”.

Personally, this will be my fifth Drewfest.  I’ve been part of them since 2015, a few months after meeting Sarah, and less than a year after Megan’s death.  I wrote about the first one in a letter to Drew, right here, for Soaring Spirits, and coming up on this one, there are still many times when I feel like an “Outsider”.

It’s an interesting thing how people around you say they understand and they will be there for you. However when you have a tough day and they respond by saying:

“I thought you said you were ok and moving on.”

“I was ok that day but there are no rules to what’s going on in my heart and my head.”

In all honesty I don’t know how to say what it feels like when you let someone in a little and they back away instead of standing by you. The best I can do is share the lyrics to P!NK’s song “Attic”

I had my sister and a friend in town this past week and it was wonderful. We had a great time relaxing and just enjoying each others’ company.  All of us are working a side business together with a big company and doing very well.  The company had recently reached out to me and asked me to host a local event. What an honor and what an amazing time. Tin would have loved all of it.

Sarah and I are planning our wedding, taking place next year.  Vaguely, it is going to be somewhat informal, in the sense that the traditional rehearsal, church, event hall, catering, DJ, etc are either going to not be a part of it, or otherwise substituted in a more unique way.

I’ve helped plan a wedding before.  14 years ago, Megan and I were “locked in” so to speak, by May.  Our wedding was in August, and everything was booked, arranged, planned, and scripted.  Invitations were not only sent out, but most RSVPs had been received. We had spent 6 months already getting everything in order. (Because of her health situation, all of it was somewhat “accelerated” from the traditional year of planning).

The point is, I’ve personally done this before.  Most widows have. I have the benefit of a happy memory of doing half the work of planning a wedding, followed by a happy memory of nine years after the fact.

Since becoming an involentary widow almost 8 years ago, I have changed in many positive ways. 

I am more empathetic. 

I am more sympathetic. 

I am less judgemental of people's lives and situations and circumstances. 

I listen better. 

I stop to talk with people more. 

I find more meaning and beauty in very tiny things. 

I exist in the moment more. 

I love profoundly and deeply. 

If nothing else, 5 years down the road, I still have many questions and few answers.  The amount and content of said questions only grows with time. Many of them are “what-ifs”, and still more are “what-woulds”.  

“What if they hadn’t died?” is the first question for almost everyone.  I can confidently say that it will never be answered definitively. In fact, in the world of multiple-choice answers, the number of choices has increased from A, B, and C, to the point that we’re way through the alphabet, and onto weird, made up characters.  

In Megan’s case, seeing as she had a long-term illness, my second question was “what could I have done differently?”.  It was the guilt setting in. Misplaced, mind you. There was literally nothing I, or anyone else could do that would have prevented a genetic, debilitating mutation from occurring, but my brain asked it constantly for months, nonetheless, and I felt it was somehow my fault.

I still ask question one almost daily, mostly in passing at this point.  I’ve long since accepted that the second question is answered succinctly with a “nothing”, and largely moved on from asking it.

Every so often, however, the “what-ifs” creep back in.  More and more frequently, the “what-woulds” are taking over.

Well the past two weeks I have been absent from blog writing. The first anniversary of Tin’s passing was quickly approaching and I honestly was scared. Scared to think about it. Scared to talk about it. Scared that when the day came, it would make it more true. For the first few months, holidays, birthdays I felt like it was a short enough time span to still be a dream yet the passing of the first anniversary meant it really wasn’t a dream. It wasn't a nighttime nightmare. It was reality...