I think I’m doing a pretty good job of being strong.  I’m a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend and an employee.  I have to get through the days and I have been doing just that. I’ve wanted to write and post more about the loss of my best friend, Meg, but I didn’t want to taint the mission of my blog, which was to live life and ultimately achieve happiness. Certainly, my readers would be tired of the tears and as hard as it is to sometimes discuss, death is part of life.  A friend shared with me today, when I was discussing my concern over my post topics with her, said, “happiness isn’t static, there are always going to be ebbs and flows.” She encouraged me to continue with my post–and understood my need for sharing my feelings with a virtual community. “Maybe your post will help one person, maybe it will help two, maybe it will help hundreds but at the end of the day, writing and posting will certainly help you.”

–So grab a tissue, or two–

Written: January 21, 2018, Posted January 24, 2018

To Meg:

It’s been 37 days since I lost you. Since you left this earth for heaven. Is that where you are? Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you and as days do they have continued to go on.

Do you know what? The fear that I had, that fear that I wouldn’t know how to navigate life without you–it is still ever so present, except the fear is masked–the fear is hidden behind my smile, inside my head, inside the lie of “I’m doing okay,” which is what I tell others when they ask, “how I am?”  I thought for a moment that the fear was subsiding. That my grief of losing you was getting easier each day, it wasn’t getting easier it was just getting pushed down as life was creeping back in.  

The worst thing about death is just that, death. It’s final, there is no undoing. For the living, those that have loved and lost, we have to move forward. For us, the minutes and hours keep coming. They don’t stop just because we’re grieving.

I’ve had to move forward one minute, one hour, one day, one week at a time. Since as we know, even when someone dies, the moon rises and falls each day, the world still turns and rotates around the sun. We have to get up every day and cross things off our personal to-do lists. In my life, the past 37 days have been busy, I haven’t had time to fully process the loss of you. How do you do that when you have to be present in life?

Life continues, birthdays come, holidays come, the year ends, a new year begins, new jobs are started, school begins again, sports start again, carpools, playdates, work trips, personal trips, manicures, eyebrow waxing, grocery shopping, tv, date nights, target runs–the daily grind.

I tried to add in some happiness, a staycation in the city for NYE,  Tot Shabbat and Ice Skating with your family, date nights with hubby, and family game nights.  Caleb lost his third tooth and I majorly #momfailed the tooth fairy game. The joy of every day is slowing creeping its way in and I am welcoming it with open arms. But, as quickly as the good comes in, is as quickly as it went out. More death and sadness loomed for our family as hubby’s uncle passed away suddenly, as did my mother’s best friend. I was thrust back to the cemetery where we buried you just 35 days before, and to face head on that attending a funeral for a dear friend of my mother’s and our family, who also lost her battle to cancer, was just too soon.

In a few days, I’ll be celebrating my birthday. It will be the first one in at least ten + years that we won’t celebrate together.  That I won’t get a call from you.  That we won’t go out for a girls night. That you won’t post one of your photo collages on my Facebook Page.  

This, unfortunately, is life. This is the dirty, ugly side of life that people don’t talk about or post about on Facebook. This is real. This is the reality. So I write this message on the 37th day, saying the things that people don’t talk about. I promise I’m not sad all the time. Caleb and hubby need me, they need to see me healing and happy. I pray that 37 days from now, life will begin to feel a bit more balanced and maybe just maybe a bit more magical.

XOXO,

Amy