An open letter Sweetheart ...

Rick -- i love you. and i miss you like crazy. 
it's been 33 weeks today without you. 
i look at your pictures and you are so alive in them.
it feels like you have just gone off on the truck again. 
only you never come home now. 
you don't call me anymore. 
i wonder what did i do wrong? why did you leave me? 

oh i know, deep within me, i know that i did not do this to you.
it was not my choice that you die. i don't think it was your choice either.
i think it was just life. 
but life sucks! 

i'm making it.
not sure how.
sometimes i wonder why.
but i'm making it. 
one moment at a time. 
some of those moments are tear stained - some are just buckets full of tears. 
i don't feel one bit guilty over the tears. 
after 35+ years together, tears are to be expected. 

some of the moments are filled with smiles and even laughter.
i think those are even harder than the tears. 
the guilt comes in - wave on wave. threatening to overwhelm me.
to take me under. 
everyone says not to feel guilty when i laugh, or when i smile. 
everyone says that you would want me to go forward with my life. 
everyone says that you would want me to Live. 
on one hand, i think they are right. 
and on the other hand, i want to scream - what do you know? how do you know what my husband would want? 

you and i had hours upon hours of conversations in the last 3 years.
And even more the last year. 
i have no real doubt of what you would say to me now ... of what you would want for me. 
*it's all going to be ok, honey. 
*you are going to make it just fine.
*i'm just sitting here waiting on a woman. 
*live your life. and live it well.
*laugh. smile. 
*cry a little when you need to. 
*do what you want to for a change. you have raised our kids - and they are good kids, with good lives. you took care of me when i needed you.
now - do something for you. 

Oh Rick. i don't know how. 
i don't know how to keep on going thru all this.
this storm that just never lets up.
emotions that are all over the place.
thoughts that batter me from within.
sleepless nights.
days of nothing but memories. 
i don't know how to take care of me - not without you. 

But ... i'm trying.
and i'm learning. 
no one handed me an instruction manual about being your widow. 
so, there is a lot of trying and not doing -
probably more so than trying and getting it right. 

i didn't know that when you left, just about everyone else would leave me too.
not in death have they left.
but they have left just the same. 
perhaps it is because some of them are grieving, too. 
perhaps it is because they don't know what to say. afraid that they will upset me. (like i don't stay upset - but whatever)
perhaps it is just their lives going on while mine came to a screeching halt. 

i have met some new friends.
and they are quickly becoming family.
they are finding their ways into my heart and life.
 
i have lost about 60 pounds in these 33 weeks. i would so much rather be doing this with you.
but at least, i guess, i'm doing it. 
got my hair permed again. will probably keep a spiral perm - i like the way it makes me feel. 
trying to keep my nails did. 
done a few little things just for me. 
spending time with the kids and grandkids. 
bought a little car - a convertible. oh it needs some TLC - and hopefully i can either figure out how to do that, or find someone who knows what to do. 

slowly it feels like the woman in me is waking up. 
the music plays again - more quietly right now. 
i think i want to write that book that you and i talked about so much.
-a friend says that he thinks i can, that i should - has even promised to buy a copy of it. (you would like him. i can see in another world, a better time, that y'all would be friends.)-

i don't know where to go from here. 
i don't know how to go on from here, 
i know that life goes on. 
and i know that i want to Live it. 

i love you Sweetheart. 
always have. 
and i forever will. 

​your Meg