As we have now entered the dark month I find myself significantly more anxious during my days, more than I have been for a while. I feel like I have been trying so hard to not live in the days of 2022 leading to that dark day. It seems as if any second I have to take a second to myself my mind just wants to replay that horrible day in my head over and over again. That day that changed my entire life and the lives of my twins. All the days leading up to it; all the hours, minutes, and seconds that I’ve analyzed over and over a thousand times again just coming right back to the forefront of my mind.

St. Patrick’s Day of this year will be Erik’s second death anniversary. I found myself feeling everything more deeply this year than I did my first year. Maybe it just has to do with the fact that my first year was a blur and I was most likely numb and in a haze, but this year everything just seems so much more vivid. Each detail settled in my mind more deeply. Each day leading up I’m fixated on what we were doing, trying to analyze everything and still not understanding.

Last week I had to pull something off of one of my old phones. I hadn’t turned this phone on since Erik’s passing. I ended up coming across old voicemails that Erik had left me. And there weren’t many because we rarely ever missed each other’s phone calls, but of the ones that I did have I remember sitting there thinking to myself, should I? Do I truly want to put myself through listening to them? But I so badly wanted to hear his voice again. And it’s not like I didn’t have other recordings on my current phone that I could hear his voice if I wanted to, so I wasn’t understanding why this longing was so deep as I sat there just staring at his name in my phone. Hubby. The words looked larger than life. And before my mind could stop me my fingers took over. Click. The voice I felt like I hadn’t heard in a million years, but the one I would give anything to hear in person again, played. And just for a moment, I had my silly loving husband back. In my head anyways. With all the pain from how Erik passed and all the pain of trying to live without him, I had forgotten how it felt to just be in a carefree moment with him. And in this moment I felt a true laugh again just hearing his message. His personality that I missed so much radiating through my phone. And just like that, it ended. And again I felt my heart drop as it did anytime I had the realization that he was truly gone. The tears came in full force as I had expected when I debated listening to the voicemails or not. But as I sat there with my hands wrapped around my stomach I was glad my fingers clicked it. Because even just for that very fleeting moment I was able to remember, deep into my bones, the love that I always felt from him, even with something as simple as a silly voicemail, something I missed so much that it hurts to even think about.

So as I get closer to the dark day, I remind myself that it’s okay to feel what I feel. It’s okay to lean into all the hurt and pain from my loss. Because that day isn’t just a date on the calendar. It’s the one that my heart will always break for and the one that every part of me will remember.