Six Months

My Dearest Love,

Today you are dead six months. Six months. I say this and then I wait for something to feel different. Nothing happens. I feel like this is such a milestone and yet I have made zero progress in my mourning, in my life, in anything at all.

I have been trying to not think about you dead every Saturday. Today I didn’t even try and stop the pain from the coming. I went to bed thinking about you and woke up crying. I was invited to dinner with friends and just said no thank you. I just didn’t want to fight the sadness today. I didn’t feel like faking my emotions and wearing my phony smile. Today I just wanted to let the sadness in and feel it coursing through my veins. I have no fight left in me today and just gave in. I don’t care about hiding the truth today – that I am just plain miserable.

I hit a major wall this afternoon and couldn't stop the tears. I am just so sick of the boxes and the packing and the children not listening and the utter chaos that has consumed me. I went over to the garment box and took out all of your shirts. I am angry there is no room in the box for any of my things. The box is filled with all your clothes and you are dead. What the hell am I holding onto them for? I pulled them out and of course just the sight of them set me off. I hugged them and cried and then I threw them down the stairs in anger and followed them down punching and kicking them and stamping on them and having an all out battle with your shirts.

The kids looked on, shocked by my actions. I said the first thing that came to my head – I thought I saw a bug and was trying to kill it. Oh they said, and continued watching Sponge Bob. I have told them in the past when I am crying that sometimes I cry because I am so happy and feel so lucky to have them. So now every time I cry they ask me if I am happy. I nod my head up and down and they feel better. For the record, I never cry when I am happy. I laugh.

At dinner tonight I looked at them and said, you know daddy has been dead for six months now. My four year old said, so daddy is never coming back? I said no, never. Strangely enough my six year old didn’t even comment. He asked me for more ketchup for his chicken. That was it.

I just wanted them to talk about you and even cry a little. I feel like they are losing a little bit of you everyday. I am trying to keep your memory alive and try and talk about you as much as I can. But we can go days now without bringing you up. Some days I am relived when you aren’t discussed, it makes life a little bit easier. But some days, like today, I feel like maybe I am punishing you by not bringing you up to the children and I feel terrible. So I say something, anything about you that I can think of – just to keep you in the loop. Today I was consumed with six months so that was all I had the energy to say.

I just feel numb after six months. I thought I would feel something. Not better, not worse - just something. I am annoyed with myself for feeling so empty today. I am angry and sad and tired and stressed. I have packed this house entirely by myself. Though I have lots of offers to help me, I have said no to them all. I feel like I need to do the packing – maybe to punish myself for feeling so horrible about how you ended up dead.

You have missed so much in six months I couldn’t even begin to list it all. This is only the beginning. You are going to miss every wonderful event moving forward and it breaks my heart. You are missing every sniffle and insignificant moment in your children’s lives and they will never be the same. I will never be the same and it just feels like a mistake. A horrible, terrible, tragic mistake.

You can’t possibly know the sorrow embedded deep down in my soul and it is only when I really let it out do I realize how much pain I am truly in. I have been trying to keep it together and take care of our children. Take care of all the responsibilities I must do now. I am trying to be fine.

Today when I take a day off from struggling against the sorrow I feel it all over again. Wave after wave of sadness, guilt, anger, pain, misery and feelings that I can’t even put a name to.

You are so missed and so loved and so not forgotten. I wish somehow you knew. I wish there was someway I could tell you that we are not fine – not at all. But despite the flood of emotions – the strongest one of all is our love for you.