Not sure what to say really.

July 13th was the 9 year death day of my husband Don.

I dont like to call it an “anniversary”, since that word feels like something that should be celebrated with cake and champagne and parties.

This year felt exhausting to me, and also, maybe I was too tired to even feel tired.

I just felt BLAH.

There was a lot of lying in my bed and silent crying. Thats where no sound comes out, and you arent really thinking about it, so its not a violent or hyperventilating kind of crying. Its more of one where you are just sitting there, and you suddenly realize that you are crying. A lot of the day was like that.

I took a drive up to a local lake / park, scattered some of his ashes there for no particular reason other than it felt peaceful there and I dont have anywhere very local to go where his ashes are – so now I do. He has never been there before, so I guess I brought him there in his little ziploc baggie. The whole ashes thing still freaks me out after all these years, so I make jokes because Im uncomfortable.

9 years is almost a decade, and its almost twice as long as we were married. He has been dead twice as long as we were married. And the longer he is dead, the more things he is missing. I am grieving FOR him now, for the life he got robbed of, for the time he won’t have to do really good things. Someone like him would have done some really good things in this world.

But instead of good things, its just me and him in a plastic baggie, walking down to the lake that meant nothing to us, so I can place ashes that used to be him, in the water.

The more years that go by since his death, the further away I feel from him, and from that life we shared. That life we were building , that was interrupted by cruel death, feels like it was ages ago. It makes me incredibly sad, and it makes me feel like Im slowly driving away from that life – looking in that rearview mirror, seeing that husband of mine in the far off distance, getting smaller and smaller as I drive away.

Its an impossible feeling to describe, but I can tell you that it feels lonely, and weird, and just very very sad. I dont have any deep words of wisdom on this today, because I guess I just need permission to be sad and not know what to do with that sadness. All the things I normally do to help my grief – they all feel empty, and they arent really helping much. Sometimes nothing helps, and you just have to let the sadness come through, visit, then pass.

Im struggling to know what else to say here. 9 years and youd think I have some sort of deep message to pass on, but I dont. At least not today. Today I just miss that beautiful man, and Im mourning that life that never came to be. RIP the life I knew …