So yesterday was the anniversary of the day that Don proposed to me under the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in NYC. I share this milestone date with a dear widow friend who lives in NYC, and the “crapaversary” of her death date is the same day as my proposal anniversary – December 18th. Yesterday she posted in her own blog about her , for the first time in 14 years, she forgot that it was the death anniversary. Eventually she was reminded of it, but she initially had forgotten and was sort of shocked by that, and felt she needed to sit with it for awhile in her brain.


I completely empathize. It got me to thinking about when we first have this loss, we spend so much time counting and knowing the hours, days, months, sometimes even minutes, since our person died. We spend lots of time talking about it with other widowed people too. We say things like: “Well from July through December is especially hard for me because July is the death day, then September is my birthday, October is our wedding anniversary, November is his birthday, then you have all the holidays, so its just the worst.” Yes, I may have said this a time or twenty. In the first few years, and even longer sometimes, it often feels as if each second of each day without them must be counted, acknowledged, spoken about. It feels almost wrong to not speak of it, and on the rare occasion where you forget for an hour that today is Wednesday and he died on a Wednesday, your body usually reminds you. You just feel “off.”


As years go by, the missing of them becomes different. In some ways, I would say that the missing of Don after a decade is MORE intense and profound than it ever was before. But it’s very different than in those first few years. It’s no longer a constant mind-numbing pain. It’s no longer waking up feeling nauseous and sick to your stomach. It’s no longer having the need to post on Facebook about every milestone, every thought, every emotion that comes with widowhood. (speaking for myself here) Yesterday, on December 18th, I didn’t post about it on Facebook. That might be the first year that I haven’t. It wasn’t any great big decision on my part – it was just that I didn’t NEED to, so I didnt. I still wrote about it in here last week, and I acknowledged it privately with my husband and a few close friends who “get it.” And I felt perfectly okay with that. There was a melancholy about me yesterday, and an overall feeling of sadness mixed with gratefulness, and I went about my day. Several times something made me think of Don, and I laughed or smiled or said hello to him. But honestly, that happens every day. In my experience, after 10 years, and after the 24/7 type pain is no longer present in the same way, there ends up being more room and more ways to feel your person nearby. I talk to Don every day, I feel his presence every day, and I consider him a part of my life, always.


So really, when it seems like maybe you “forgot” a milestone day, I think its really your heart just remembering it silently, and in a way that is more about being between you and your person – rather than sharing it with the world. When the heart is in intense pain, it wants to scream out to everyone and find comfort/validation/hope/something. When the heart is more at peace, it is sufficient with finding the love within the quiet. Happy Proposal Anniversary, Don. I could never, ever forget.