Today marks one year since Dave’s passing.  I cannot believe that a year has already come and gone.  So much has changed in the past 12 months.  

This will be my final journal entry for his Caringbridge page.  I am so thankful for this platform.  It has given me the ability to tell our story, educate, recount, and process 12 years of End Stage Kidney Disease.  Over the past year, Ashlee has graduated college, she’s gotten her first real job, I sold our family car, have dealt with living in a Covid world, working from home, lived through all the “firsts,” I paid off our credit card debt, and I have even dated!  Personally, I have grown a lot in my grief and learning to move forward with it, and by all account’s life is really good for me.  

However, time does not heal the pain, it only teaches me how to live and grow from it.  I am not the same person or the same soul that I once was, there are some parts of me that no longer exist. Grief has made me a stronger and kinder person. With grief comes a life altering perspective that never would have been obtained any other way. I feel everything deeper; I am able to love harder; I know how precious and finite time is and so I try not to waste it.

Of all the widow’s countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on this first anniversary of Dave’s death I have to think…I kept myself alive! It was hard, I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep, I was living in a widow fog, and was so forgetful, my cognitive skills were out of balance and I didn’t think I would ever gain them back. Being a good mother while my heart is breaking is one of the hardest roles I’ve ever had to play as a parent, and it’s still hard with a mourning child. I have spent the better part of 2020 working on myself, focusing on me, becoming my best self, enjoying life’s adventures and doing and seeing things I have never done before. Dave and I had many conversations about what my happiness would look like after he was gone, and he wanted me to live a full and exciting life knowing I would have to carry this grief with me for the rest of my life.

Grief never ends because love never ends. In time, living with grief just becomes normal. And yes, it is unfair and brutally painful but, in an effort to move forward (not move on, but forward) with my life I accept the way that grief has changed me, and I kind of like it. I live life in moments and appreciate the breaths I’m given because I know how quickly everything can change. My heart is larger, and my soul is softer and kinder because I know pain.  I would rather live with the everlasting sorrow of outliving Dave than live a life not having experienced our 30 years of love at all. For that I am thankful. 

Thank you to everyone that kept up with our story, trials, and triumphs over the years.  Your support, love, encouragement, and prayers has meant the world to all of us. Thank you for crying with me, comforting me, bringing me food, and checking in on me; I have no words to express my gratitude. 

On this day, Friday September 18th at 10:59am I ask that you all recognize a moment of silence in honor of Dave; please say a prayer for Ashlee and I as we continue to navigate forward in our new normal. Thank you, we appreciate you, and love you all!