Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Cinco de Mayo

I am more than halfway through my first year of mourning. They say the first year is the worst because you have to deal with so many firsts – duh! Every holiday my husband has missed, every birthday, everyday something significant occurred, every single Saturday has laid heavily on my heart. Nothing passes by without me noticing. It seems to be up to me to decide how badly I am going to let it hurt. Which is why I moved on my birthday; to completely and utterly distract myself. Mother’s day is coming and I am not even going to think twice about it. It will be just another Sunday – I will be fine.

But tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo – this quite possibly could be the one holiday I can’t recover from.

My husband and I used to own a Mexican restaurant. It is where we met and fell in love. Many of my fondest memories still live in that restaurant and always will. Cinco de Mayo was always the most insane and busiest day for us. Mexican Independence Day and no American would feel complete without drinking a Margarita. As this was our craziest day each year we would also have the worst fights about nothing. But still I loved it. I would make about a million margaritas as my husband would try and keep the customers happy, as we shot each other glances from across the room. Roll our eyes or just wink at one another. Inevitably I would throw a check book at him and he would ask to see me in the walk-in refrigerator to discuss our beer inventory, where we would kiss in private and make up.

But that was then, this is now.

As if the week could not get more complicated, my mother sent us another one of those books – those dealing with death and children books. Mom – I forgot to say thank you. Ironically it is written by the same person who wrote my new favorite book, “Grief Therapy”. I read it to the children tonight and as my four year old walked around while I read, I realized this is just so beyond her. My six year old listened, what he got from it I don’t know. There is a picture where a child goes to a cemetery to visit the person who died. I pointed it out and asked them if they would want to go see daddy’s name. I couldn’t say body or final resting place or anything like that – I just said name. My son looked at me and said, “We went there already!” I said we could go back and bring rocks. I told them that we leave rocks to show daddy that we love and miss him. I should probably Google the real reason we leave rocks – as I have no clue.

My son said yes, he would like to go. The four year old was intrigued by the rock factor as she comes home with pockets full of pebbles daily. They didn’t ask me anything or even cry – I was relieved.

Will they understand tomorrow when I am crying in my coffee? They will never know how much I wish May 5th was over with already. I used to love Cinco de Mayo with all my heart. It was a day that my husband always smiled and laughed. I loved watching him do what he did best, making other people happy. I loved getting angry with him about how he cut the limes the wrong way and would love making up even more.

I will miss him more tomorrow than any day this year. Cinco de Mayo for you might just be the day that falls between May 4th and May 6th, but for me it is everything.

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