Widow's Voice

The Dreaded Week

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Here we are yet again. Another year. Another death anniversary. As this week began, so did the replays. The replays of each day of this week leading up to Erik’s death. The replay of each detail. Each interaction. Each moment. My mind looking for something I might have missed. Running through the what-ifs. Looking, searching, longing for any answer. It’s this time of year that my heart feels most heavy. It’s a reminder of what I wish I could have stopped. If only I could go back 1,097 days; to before the day that would become our dark day.

St. Patrick’s Day 2022. It has now become the holiday I dread most. This year marks number three. Three years since you were last on this Earth. Three years since I have felt your touch. Three years since I have heard your voice. Three years since you have seen your babies. I remember that last bedtime routine as if it was yesterday. The last good nights. The last hugs. The last nightly whispers in each of their ear. The last kisses as you placed each of them in their cribs. Three years that I’ve had to live with the reality that we would never experience any of that ever again.

Each passing year comes with its own emotions and challenges. This year the twins have started to get more into St. Patrick’s Day because of school. This was the year I could no longer just push the holiday aside and pretend it didn’t exist. They have been talking about the holiday at school since March started. Getting excited about leprechauns and pots of gold. It has been extremely hard to put on a happy face each time they bring up this day. But it’s what I’m doing. Talking and matching their excitement about the day as I try to hold on to their innocence to reality for as long as possible. Giving them as much time as I can before they start understanding this reality. And that is one of the hardest parts of year three.

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.