Valentine's Day Love

Dear Brian,

Here I sit, the 2nd Valentine's Day without you.  I would be lying if I said things are easier.  They are not.  But I am getting used to what my life is now, which I think makes it easier to handle.

Tye lost a tooth tonight.  It is his 2nd tooth in 10 days.  He brought me flowers the other night, rainbow dyed roses because he knows I love rainbows.  He was very proud of himself, and seeing him smile made me love you even more.

Someone helped you out today.  Flowers arrived this morning with a card that just said AND BACK.  They were beautiful and I am thankful that you have angels here on earth to help sneak around for you.  I was very surprised.  I would say the flowers made me think of you, but you are always on my mind.  My days are still full of lots of memories of you...some make me smile, some make me laugh, still many make me cry.  Sometimes I miss you so much, and other times the love we have was enough for me to last a lifetime.

I remember the first time I got flowers from you.  It was shortly after we started dating, and I got roses at school, with a card congratulating me on winning a basketball tournament (when I still coached).  I remember being just in awe that someone actually sends flowers just because, and not always for Valentine's Day or the obvious dates.  And yet, you always still made sure Valentine's Day was a special as it could be, even on our last Valentine's Day.

I honestly try to forget Valentine's Day 2008. Thank God someone thought to try to give us some privacy that night and have an evening with no kids where we could just have dinner at home and snuggle.  That was the night of your seizure, and it was one of my few moments during your illness that I was actually scared.  I shutter at the memories of those moments.  And while so many great memories are etched in my mind, so is this memory, of thinking that all was lost, of thinking that this might be the point of no return, and wondering how it happened so fast.  I had seen melanoma do a lot of things to you, evil and hateful, but this was one of the hardest, especially when you stopped and then seemed almost unconscious, followed by talking jibberish.  I prayed that night that God would spare you anymore pain and suffering, and begged him to let you die in peace.  After the hospice nurse came and things settled back down, I held your hand and begged God to take you.  Always before I begged him to let me have you a little while longer.  I begged that He might ease your pain and allow us so many more laughs and hugs and kisses and snuggles...

But this was the night that changed, the night I knew it was only going to get worse.  And whether any of my prayers concerning your health were ever really answered, which is still debatable, I consider this night to have been the time when I threw in the towel.  You would think it would have been in Chicago when you were in such pain, or when I almost lost you in Columbia in Novemeber to a staph infection, or even on New Year's Day when we came home with hospice.  And for that, I am so sorry.  I know you held on longer than ever because I wasn't ready.  I know you did the treatment in the fall because I wasn't ready.  I believe things were up and down constantly after New Year's, because I wasn't ready.

I was never ready.  I knew I would never be ready.  The pain of losing you was beyond anything I can ever explain.  I lost so much with losing you.  My future ended, and the present day just picked up with me as a mother and teacher and daughter and sister, and that is what I still am today.  I didn't want this.  I begged for God to have mercy on me, even have pity on me.  I looked in the mirror that night after your seizure, and I felt shame for ever thinking your illness was about me.  I told myself to shutup and just take care of you and love you, that my time for asking had passed, and honestly I can't help but think that time passed unnoticed.

Even now, I struggle to remind myself that your death was not about me.  I would be lying if I said I don't feel punished, but for what, I am unsure.  Is it so awful to long to be loved by you again?  And I know I am wanting and waiting for something that will never happen here on earth.  Still, it hurts so much.  And yet I am so thankful that you are not suffering, that your days after the seizure were numbered, that our children didn't witness the horror of the seizure, and that I did find the strength to let you go.

I wonder how different I will feel by next Valentine's Day.  Last year I was kind of numb, this year it hurts like hell.  It is likely I will have 40-50 more Valentine's Days to endure without you.  I sometimes think I am cried out, and yet the floodgates open.  You will always be my Valentine.  You showed me true love, selfless love, unconditional love, and I am trying to focus on that.  I wonder if it would have been easier to let you go if we would have had a crappy marriage, and I think maybe it would have.  I sure wouldn't be missing all the ways you showed me you loved me, that's for sure.  But that in turn makes it harder on me to get through the pain because there is so much there to miss.

And while your illness was not mine, and your death was not mine to die, my grief is my own, and has become a part of who I am.  I work everyday that it might not define me, and while sometimes I think it does, other times I think I see myself pushing through it.

I wanted to tell you Happy Valentine's Day, and thank you for loving me.  You are a wonderful man and I am so blessed to be your wife.  I miss you and long for the moment I will see you again.  For now though, I have a life to live, I have children who love and need me, and I have your love to keep me strong.