Widow's Voice

Can You Hear Us?

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Photo by Sam Schooler on Unsplash

This past weekend as I was getting the twins ready for one of their classes I heard Charlotte in the living room full-on talking. I thought she was trying to tell me something so I went out and asked her what she had said. She goes, “Nothing, I’m just talking to Daddy.” And that constant knot in my stomach that follows me around most days dropped. “Daddy is in the sky, mama. But he can hear me.” I looked at those sweet innocent eyes looking back at me and said to her as I tried to hold in my tears, “Yes baby, he can hear you. You keep talking to him.” “He’s watching us, mama. He’s up there?” And she points up to the ceiling and before I can respond she says, “And you’re here Mom.” “Yes, I am. I will always be here.” I responded as I went to hug her. And she went back to playing and talking to the air which I can only imagine was her talking to Erik. This whole interaction felt like it was a lifetime to me. Another moment where time felt like it just froze and caught me by surprise again. Another conversation that I never imagined having with a four-year-old. And there she was. Like it was completely normal. None the wiser. Just speaking to her father like that as if that’s just how it’s supposed to be. So innocent. Something I wish I could hold on to for the twins forever. But I know that’s not reality.

That interaction got me back to thinking about how much Erik has missed since he’s been gone. And how much more he would be missing as each day passes. Each year. Each milestone. Each new adventure. And as I prepare myself for a new venture for the twins and me, that unsettling feeling of Erik being gone is more so even after 2.5 years. It’s those moments when I actively realize that he is no longer here for the twins that hurt me more than realizing he’s no longer here for me. Because not only is he missing out on their lives, but they are missing out on a life with their father. And that is a loss in itself. So Erik if you can hear us, we will continue to talk to you in the only way we know now, to the sky as the twins would say.

About Diana Mosson

Diana was widowed at 29. Her love story with her husband Erik began in the most unexpected of places, the Long Beach DMV. That day, it felt as though fate had brought them together. Their fairytale romance blessed them with a lifetime of love that would now be expressed through grief.

Saint Patrick’s Day of 2022 became the time stamp of when Diana’s life changed forever. The day that she became a widow and a solo parent to one and a half year old twins. The day that her husband died by suicide. The day that her training in emergency management kicked in as she tried to save her husband’s life. And the day that she learned her husband was suffering in silence.

Diana is sharing her story and experience as she navigates how to overcome this new reality in the hope that it will be someone else’s survival guide one day.