Oh, the sadness of October. 

My wedding anniversary. 

Followed by our honeymoon anniversary,

just days later, 

and then Don’s birthday, just days into that. 

 

October 27th we married. 

In 2006. 

Its toward the end of the month,

and its true what they say.

The build-up to these milestone days,

is often worse than the actual day itself.

 

But then again, 

the actual day itself 

is , for me, just heart-wrenchingly sad. 

There are no triggers. No panic. No anger or hysterical sobs.

Just intense and very real sadness. 

The kind of sadness that sits in silence by the ocean,

listening quietly to the waves, as they swish by one by one by one. 

 

It’s the kind of sadness that not many understand. 

It has no drama, and would be boring to describe in a movie about grief. 

This sadness makes me feel the need to put a pause on life ,

just for a little while. A few hours. A day or two maybe. If possible. 

I need to just sit with the idea that my husband is no longer my husband,

but a cherished time and memory. An inspiring thought. A dream unrealized or

interrupted. 

He is the man who loved me first, and who changed me forever. 

He died loving me, and I will have his whole heart forever. 

There is a sad comfort that lives in that knowledge.

And yet,

There is a longing and a heaviness that sits within me,

around this time of year.

The heaviness of knowing that this man will never feel life again. 

Never hear music or toss a baseball around with my brother again, or laugh with my dad or talk politics with me and make me feel better almost instantly about the state of things in our world. 

He cannot be my friend in the way that I most miss him being my friend. 

HIs soul and our connection will never leave – 

this I know for sure. 

But its not enough for me. 

Sometimes, I just need more than that,

so much more than that. 

There are only so many ways I can say the words

I miss you, 

but dammit,

I miss you. 

 

My boyfriend is taking me to Cape Cod on the night of my wedding anniversary.

We will stay overnight at a hotel where our room has an oceanside view.

It is the same town where my husband and I honeymooned years ago, but not the same resort. This way we can drive over to the resort area where I first placed some of his ashes, and I can put more of Don in that ocean water. And I can sit on the rocks where I sometimes sit and talk to him – and just be in the silence of that knowing. 

And listen to the waves crashing. 

And wonder if he can hear me.

Or if he knows,

how much I miss him, 

and how amazing it is that I have this man,

who will take me to him on these milestone days, 

so that I can feel pieces of him,

in the wind or the swishing of the waves.

So that I can visit him,

the only way that I know how.

 

October comes and goes,

each year,

but the missing continues to live 

within all of the silences. .