Grief Takes a Sucker Punch

Today was a normal day, as normal as they get for me, anyway.

I grabbed the mail, quite a bit for one day. I sifted through lots of junk and then some cards from the Hospice social worker, which the kids loved getting. Then I came to a formal looking envelope addressed to Mrs. Brian Halley. I like that. It looks as great as it did the day I married him. You would think it would have upset me, but it was a good feeling. It was a wedding invitation for a friend, and it made me smile to think that I was still thought of as Brian's wife. I know that sounds funny, but it has been a while, and I still consider myself a Mrs. I still think of myself as married, he is still all I ever want for my life. It has been a real adjustment to think of myself as a young widow, and today I just thought of myself as Brian's wife.

Then literally, without warning, I got sucker punched. I moved the wedding invitation to look at the next piece of mail, and it was addressed to Brian from the Dept. of Motor Vehicles...hmm. I opened it (actually there were 2 identical envelopes), and there were the new handicap hangtags for Brian. I lost it. The very last line let me know that if the person this was addressed to is deceased, I am required by law to return the tags.

Super. As if the handicap hangtags weren't enough...it felt bad to ever need them, but it felt worse to not need them anymore.

Wham! Wham!

I have tried to head off any unnecessary pain being inflicted on us for things like this. I just didn't see this one coming.