1 year ago today...

4/20/14. The day our lives changed forever. I'm unsure how to get through this day. I try to relive that day so often, trying to remember everything that we said and did that morning, and I remember so little of him on that day. This photo to the left is the last photo ever taken of Mike alive. He was working on our neighbors patio while I was at our house with the kids. Not long after this photo was taken, he took his motorcycle out for a ride, and crashed it about 2 miles down the road. I stare at it in awe, wondering what could have been different if we had known what was going to happen. It's a bittersweet photo for me. He was helping someone - which he loved to do. He died doing something he loved - riding his bike. And he's flipping the photographer the bird, which just shows his personality so much. His 'who gives a fuck' attitude at its best. In a couple of hours his life stopped. He ceased to exist. He was just gone. And in that brief second, I lost everything. His family lost everything. My kids lost half of their parental unit. I lost my person. Please think of this when you are fighting or arguing with your husband or wife. Stop and think for just one second - what would you do without them here? What if they walked out the door and never came back. Just gone - poof! What would life be like then for you? If it helps to put things in perspective, I'm glad. If it helps someone realize how much they really do have and how much they take for granted, then that's a good thing. Because I know how it feels to lose all that - and it's not pretty.

Easter morning 2014 - the last photo I have of Mike and the kids.

What has this year been? It's been a constant struggle to stay afloat. It has been hurt, pain, fear, loneliness, sadness, heartbreak and insecurity. It has been falling to the bottom of a deep dark hole and trying so hard to crawl back out of it - but every time I get close to the top I slide back down and have to start over. I have seen amazing highs, and done some amazing things as I discover what life is really all about and how precious it really is. I've smiled wider than I possibly ever have in my life. And I have sunk lower than low into depths that most only dream about (and then they wake up sweating, so glad that it was just a dream - except I can't wake up from mine. It's my reality.). It's been finding out who my real friends are and aren't. It's been sleepless nights followed by never wanting to wake up. It's been a journey of self discovery without my other half. About finding out what I am truly capable of. It's been making mistakes - lots of them - but owning them and working through them. Learning from them and moving ahead, not back. It's been being alone in rooms that are full of people, unable to see clearly. It's been being told I'm strong, but feeling like the weakest most vulnerable person on the planet. It's been a roller coaster of every emotion imaginable (and some not imaginable).

I've been alive around 14,300 days. I'm 39 years old. Since 2001, I have had around 5130 days and nights with you being mine, Mike - starting from our first date. I was with you over 1/3 of my life up until now. And I've now gone 365 days without you here. It seems surreal.  Most days I think I've convinced myself it's not real, and that's how I get through it. Today it was all too real. The first anniversary of your death, and the end of my year of 'firsts' without you here by my side. I made it to the first anniversary, and there were many days I didn't think I would.

So today, I did the only thing I knew to do. I had coffee with you on the porch. I brought flowers to the crash site and your grave. I talked to you. Asked questions you couldn't answer. And I cried. Pretty much all day. I allowed myself to let go of all the emotion I've been bottling up and really just let it all out for the day. I chose to spend most of it alone. I really and truly needed to be by myself today and let myself feel the pain of your loss. My children's pain. My pain. I own it - and most days when it starts to come out from my depths, I acknowledge it and then I fold it up neatly and put it away for another time. Today I did not do that. I let myself be mad, sad, angry, and feel complete and total despair. The kind of despair that only comes from losing a spouse. From having what you saw as your entire future shattered into a million pieces. Many of those pieces are of me as well - parts of our life that were woven together until there was no beginning and no end. Little by little I try to pick some up and put them back where they belong - but I will never be the same person I was up until 1:40pm on April 20th 2014. Nothing will ever make me whole again. A year out and I finally can start to see through the fog, and the first thing I can clearly see is my own reflection. But it looks so different from the reflection I used to see that I hardly recognize it. So this is what a year as a widow looks like. It's no better than the day this all happened. If anything its worse and harder as the reality of this all continues to settle in. I lose you every day - every day I wake up without you, and go to bed missing you. Every day I want to call you and tell you something exciting or funny. Every minute I think of you or the kids ask about you. I lose you over and over again each and every day, knowing I can never get you back. I miss you now more than ever, babe.

Easter Sunday. 2015.

The day has come. Easter Sunday. Lucky for us 4/20 and Easter Sunday won't fall on the same day again until 2025 *sarcasm*, so we get to celebrate and remember Michael's death 2 days in April every year - at least for the next 10 years. Easter and then the 20th. Like with most things, the anticipation of the day was far worse than the actual day. I had decided for my own reasons that this year I wanted some time to myself. I find that I don't say 'no' enough and do what I know it is I need and want. Instead I worry about everyone else's feelings and what they want. This holiday I was going to take for me. I was going to visit the cemetery and do some other things after the kids did their baskets and stuff in the morning. As fate would have it, I ended up in the ER Saturday night with Gunnar who had a terrible case of strep throat. So I was home alone with him Easter afternoon instead. Adella when to Mike's parents where she took part in their dinner and Easter egg hunt. Gunnar would have gone as well if he was better.
It was a nice relaxing day. But it was a long day. A day I couldn't wait to be over with, and when I looked at the clock and it was 9am, my stomach turned thinking to myself how much more of the day was yet to come. The replay of that day going through my head over and over. And as I tried to remember and to forget all at the same time it occurred to me that much of that day is blocked from my memory. I barely remember Easter morning when Mike was at home. I know he was there but I don't remember a single thing he did or anything we might have said to each other. I remember him saying he was going next door, and that was the last I saw him. I don't remember what he was wearing or if he said anything. I remember laying down on the couch to rest and I remember hearing motorcycles. I remember falling asleep and hearing the door open, then making a comment like 'do you think the neighbors could not rev the motorcycles up when our kids are napping?' but I didn't physically see Mike, and he said nothing back to me. He left.
The next thing I remember is being in the shower and thinking of what I had left to do to get ready for dinner. And I remember coming out of the shower and seeing Mike's brother there telling me I needed to come into the kitchen. And I remember there was a police officer there and he put his hands on my shoulders and told me that there had been a motorcycle accident and that Michael was dead. And I remember looking at both of them and just saying 'no, you're joking' over and over again. I don't remember much after that. I was upstairs getting dressed saying over and over 'this isn't real, this isn't happening'. But it was. I remember going to my brother in law and sister in law's house where my kids where taken and hugging them, and trying to just figure out exactly what had happened. But I couldn't make sense of it. I remember going to the crash site that night and seeing the tree he hit. I had to see if for myself. I remember seeing water on the driveway where he had been. Where they had cleaned up. And I stared at the spot knowing that's where he was. I needed to see the last place he was. I needed to have in my head a picture of what that place looked like and try and go through the accident in my head. I remember going to bed that night, not having told the kids yet what had happened. Trying to figure out what in the hell we were going to do. What would I do without my husband? What would the kids do without their dad? How were we supposed to go on? I remember not sleeping, and just laying in a daze staring at the pillow next to me in disbelief. Wishing and hoping that I would wake up in the morning and this day was all a bad dream. No luck there. But there are hours missing from that day for me. And from the following days, as everything zoomed by. Funeral arrangements, logistics, paperwork, the tasks were non-stop. But above all what I felt that day and what I feel now really aren't all that different. I've learned to cope and live with the loss a little bit day by day. But I lost my person. I lost the one person in this world who I was everything to. I was his world. And he was mine. Despite everything that we have been through. And that is what I miss the most. Still today. I miss being someone's everything. The first person they can't wait to call to tell something. The person they say good morning to first, and kiss good night last.The person they can vent to, laugh with, cry with, or get pissed at. Sure I have lots of family and friends who care about me. And my kids - they are my world, of course. And I'm very lucky for that. I have people in my life who will drop everything and come be with me if I needed it. And that is wonderful. But they all have their own lives and loves. I'm not everything to any of them. I lost my everything that day. And now I can be surrounded by people, but still be alone. I go and I live my life with a huge piece of myself and my life missing. But I don't have anyone to share it with anymore. To share my bad day (or my good), frustrations and triumphs. I sit down at the end of the day and I am alone. My everything died that day.