Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. 

It would have been 12 years of lovely marriage. 

Instead, we got 4 years and 9 months. 

But who’s counting? 

And does it even really matter anymore? 

I mean, I think that no matter how many years it’s been since the last anniversary, this day will always hit me like a bag of bricks across the heart. I just think it will always hurt that my marriage was ended abruptly by death. It will always hurt and be unfair to me that I will never celebrate a decade of marriage with Don Shepherd. Or 2 decades, or 3. Or our first child, first house, vacations, life struggles, career moves, on and on and on. I think that no matter what, I will always feel intense sadness on my wedding anniversary, and I will always have this “lost puppy” feeling, of not knowing where to go or what to do on that day.

Tomorrow just sucks. Tomorrow is hard. Im still uncomfortable with being around humans on that day. I feel awkward and filled with sadness when they cheerily say: “Happy Anniversary!” , or when they tell me to “cherish the love you had!” Yes. Thank you for the advice, but don’t you think I already cherish the love I had and still have, every single second of every day? Cherishing something while also being aware that it is forever gone , is a pretty empty feeling. 

So, tomorrow, and probably forever on every October 27th, here is what I miss: 

I miss getting flowers from my husband on our anniversary. 

Now, sometimes on that day, I will buy myself some flowers. If I feel up to it. But usually, I just do nothing, because buying myself flowers feels worse than not having them. 

I miss dressing up together and going out for a special dinner at a really nice restaurant, or at our wedding venue, on our anniversary. 

Now, I drive to our wedding venue by myself, and go sit by the rocks and the water in the bay where some of his ashes are. I go and “talk” to him. It feels lonely and pathetic and sometimes for a moment, it gives me slight peace. But it’s almost always depressing, and I leave there feeling the weight of my reality. I keep going because the only thing worse than sitting there and talking to ashes, is NOT sitting there and talking to ashes, and pretending like everything is normal. 

 

I miss hearing people say Happy Anniversary, and being filled with such joy at the words and the idea that I chose this wonderful, beautiful man. 

Now, people say those words or type them, and I want to hide in a far away corner and never return. Married, alive people have Happy Anniversaries. Being dead is not happy anything, and being alive on your wedding anniversary is the furthest thing from happy. 

I miss not feeling lost and out of place on that day. 

I miss not feeling like a toy at the bottom of the toybox. 

Empty, alone, and surrounded by walls of nothingness. 

 

You were my husband, 

and I was your wife. 

Most days now, I can be thankful for our neverending love story, 

and for all the ways in which you have helped me grow and love forward, 

even after your death. 

 

On October 27th, 

I want to shut out the world 

and be with you. 

But I cant. 

The world keeps coming in, 

and you keep being dead. 

And that date screams at me,

that we are no longer married, 

and I am not good at pretending. 

 

I love you forever, 

and I wish I knew how to make our anniversary 

Happy. 

 

But I don’t. 

Maybe I never will. 

 

 

 

“And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky.” – Rumi