The Countdown to Nothing

Sundays have been particularly hard for me since football season is underway again. Sundays were our days to sleep in, eat terrible food, drink beer, love and laugh with one another all day long. It isn't a conscious move for me to cry on Sundays or let the pain sink in, it just happens. This past Sunday was Halloween, it also happened to be 10 months since my husband has been gone.

Yesterday, I was writing the date on the board of my classroom and I got a shooting pain like I had been stabbed in the back. The countdown begins, 2 months until Dan's "Angel Date."

What exactly am I going to accomplish by dreading this date for the next two months? On December 31st, there will be no reunion of our souls, no happy hugs, there will just be me....and the fact that one year ago my husband left this Earth.

The chill of this morning solidifies the reality that winter is fast approaching. Little varmints are choosing their places to hibernate and as I write, Marlo is prowling the perimeter trying to chase them away (or eat them).

I wonder if this winter will be as bad as the last? On Dan's birthday last year, the storm was so bad that the weather channel called it, "Thunder Snow". I had never heard that phrase before, and I thought, "Only on Dan's birthday would Maryland have Thunder Snow." I remember hanging out with my neighborhood family and laughing about the name. Inside I was thinking that it would be appropriate to call how my heart felt, a thunder storm, raging and wild, aching and pained.

My heart doesn't feel like that every day anymore. I am getting through this.

This past weekend, Billy and I ran the Seaside 10 miler in Ocean City. I decided to run without my music on this crisp Saturday morning. The breeze from the Atlantic was cold and the smell of salt was prominent in the air. As I listened to the waves crashing I talked to my angel-runner, I know he listened. When the race was over, to the beer truck I went. When the first few bars of "Don't Stop Believing" started to play from the DJ booth, I had to smile. I should have known he would be waiting there to congratulate me, right by the beer truck.

The next morning I walked with a good friend on the beach. Besides the fact that a seagull tried to steal our breakfast out of the bag, it couldn't have been a more beautiful walk. At the end of our walk, we looked back at the marks we had made in the sand. It reminded me that nothing in life lasts as long as we hope. As fast as our feet were making the impressions, the wind was coming to erase them.

Life is full of beautiful moments that you have to carry with you in your heart. Like footprints in the sand, moments fly by. Cherish each moment that you have and store those mental pictures in your mind's file. On a day of "Thunder Snow" you might need to pull out that warm walk on the beach.

I hate that I am "counting down" the days until the end of the year. I hate that the last day of the year will always be the day that my best friend left our marriage, our life, our world. I don't, anymore though, hate that I am still here. Even though there is dread, there is also the hope of more life and more love to come.