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Knowing Ahead

Posted on: January 5, 2020 | Posted by: Mike Welker

The holiday season is over.  Starting in early November, every year, I begin pondering Megan’s death at an elevated rate, leading up to the anniversary of it.  With Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day all occurring in the weeks just after, it’s two months of absolute stress, that nobody seems to understand, including myself.  My work becomes overwhelming, the weather is never “nice”, no matter what the actual conditions, and it feels as if my world is falling apart. 

I present myself as totally and unalterably angry, save for the three to five days where I am just flat-out depressed, until sometime on or around January 2nd of the new year.  There is no specific pattern, other than November starting, along with the initial thought of “this is the month Megan died”. It’s all a plummet from there.

I have no control over it.  I can intellectually analyze it and realize that my anxiety is wholeheartedly related to her death occurring within the month, but 95 percent of the time, it is buried in my subconscious, with the quick-hitting excuses of “work sucks”, “money is tight”, or “I’m just tired” taking the forefront.

The holidays have become something to “get through” anymore.

I got through them.

Yearly, in complete amazement to me, January second is the actual “New Year”.  Sarah and I have a tradition of taking a long drive to some random place on New Year’s Day, which has almost become the initial indicator that the worst of times is over.  I’m always in a better mood, and more at peace, both during and afterwards. My hobbies begin to become more interesting again. I WANT to do things outside or with my hands.  I want to make things, explore, and learn in general.  

It has nothing to do with “New Year’s resolutions”.  Those have, are, and will continue to be silly to me, because they are almost never thought-out, or followed up on any longer than a week in my experience.  If anything, I just get to become “me” again, without any qualifiers or decisions to “make a change”.

All in all, in the five years plus since Megan’s death, I can almost foresee the future, at least in the overarching routine of things.  

I’ll be woodworking and dreaming of camping in the first few months of the year, while working on major projects at my job.  Spring will come into view, and fishing, hiking, and camping will be obsessive pursuits. Summer, and Shelby being off school will bring beach trips, amusement parks, and boat drinks or light-colored beers with lime wedges in them.  This summer will also bring a wedding, and as such, no longer calling Megan “my wife”.

I still don’t know how her title will change, but Sarah will be my wife, so Megan will become…my “first wife-although-not-divorced”, my “late-first wife”, my “widowmaker”, my “zombie bride” (she’d actually love that), my “person in a box in the dining room”?  I don’t know, but it certainly won’t be “my first chapter” (still hate that term)

Fall will start to appear, and harvest festivals, drives to the country, apple cider, and campfires are going to be most of what I am wanting to do…up until my late-October birthday…my 40th.

Then, the shit will hit the fan all over again.

Sure, there will be new things.  New hobbies, new possessions, new skills, new knowledge, and ultimately, a new spouse.  Shelby will be another year older, our debt will hopefully be all but gone, I might have a new job, and we may even be preparing for a new home.  

 

But Megan will still be dead. 

 

I may have simply become more observant since her death, but I cannot recall any time before that where life seemed so routine.  Where I could predict, and almost schedule where I would be in a few months. There have been very few constants other than literally life, death, and taxes that I can remember.

The major constant, up until Megan’s demise, was that I was a husband.  I haven’t felt like one since November 19th, 2014. I’ve been a widow in both title and thought.  Maybe this is the year it finally changes. I can hope that I will no longer be a “widow”, but once again, a “husband” 

So here’s hope for a new year, new title, and a new holiday season in 2020.

Categories: Widowed Parenting, Widowed and New Love, Widowed Anniversaries, Widowed Holidays, Widowed Milestones, Widowed Emotions

About Mike Welker

Three months after my discharge from the Marine Corps, at 22 years old, I met my wife Megan, on December 10th, 2002. The very next day, I was drawn like a moth to a flame into dealing with a long term, terminal illness. Megan had Cystic Fibrosis, and after 8 years or declining health, she received a double lung transplant, and a new lease o life. Our daughter Shelby was born in 2007. In early 2014, those recycled lungs, which had brought our little family three years of uncomplicated health and happiness, finally began to give out. She died from chronic organ transplant rejection on November 19th, 2014 while I held her hand and let her go. I'm a single father and widower at 34 years old, and no one has published a manual for it. I don't fit the mold, because there is no mold. I "deal with it" through morbid humor, inappropriateness, anger, and the general vulgarity of the 22 year old me, as if I never grew up, but temper it with focus on raising a tenacious, smart, and strong woman in Shelby. I try to live as if Megan is still here with us, giving me that sarcastic stare because yet again, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

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