HAVING SOMETHING

The laundry is too easy now. It’s small. I have clothes enough to do it only every two weeks, and since my clothes are little, the basket doesn’t fill up. I don’t wish I had more laundry. I wish I had Jim's.

There is dust accumulating on his beard trimmer next to his sink. How do I clean off the dust without wiping away the gray whiskers still on the trimmer? I want his whiskers to stay.

Though I really try not to see it, even through the worst thing that I've ever experienced, there is too much good to ignore. I don’t have him, and while he is the only thing I want, I do have so many other things.

So say he had to go. I don’t know in what scheme of things, but say he had to die. If he had to go, we that are left behind are set up well to keep going. His company, Victory Woodworks, is stronger than ever. When I would travel with Jim for meetings or vacation, there would be days that he’d hold up his phone in the evening and say, “Not one time. They didn’t need to contact me once.” His guys—my guys—were running the business then like they are now. Jim worked to become unnecessary in Victory’s day-to-day operations. The team, they want him. They miss him. But to keep crushing it, they don’t need him.

He took care of many things around the house before he died. He swapped out the knobs on the cabinets in the laundry room so the old ones aren't there to irritate me. He fixed a part on the new garage door opener so that it doesn’t malfunction anymore. He hung a new TV. He replaced the light on the deck.

There are things in the house that aren’t so much undone as needing to get started. At 10 the night before I lost him we were in bed and I remembered we hadn’t yet decided on the new bathroom tile and I needed to return the samples to the flooring store the following day. I turned on the lights, brought him the swatch boards, and he picked which of my options he preferred. So when I get around to redoing the bathrooms upstairs like we planned I know what flooring my husband liked.

When Jim and I were talking about getting married I told my then-therapist that I figured we’d just pop into the courthouse and tie the knot real quick. She took issue with that. She was adamant that we have a wedding. It didn’t need to be big, but we needed to have something. “It’s important to engage in the ceremony,” she told me, “His kids* need to know that this is important.” I grumbled, but I made it happen. We flew in my friend Ash to come shoot it because if I was getting guilted into a wedding I was gonna have photos of the damn thing. So glad we did.

At night before my drugs kick in and mercifully knock me out I lay in bed and look at pictures of him. Every night I used to snuggle up next to my husband and tickle his back until he fell asleep. I don’t have him, but I have the photos. If we hadn’t had a wedding and hadn’t had a photographer I’d have half as many pictures of my sweetheart. If for no other reason than that, I’m glad I went to a shrink after my divorce.

And then there are the memories. I have so many great ones. I don’t have bad memories of Jim. We didn’t fight. And this should be said: that wasn’t always easy. It was a choice. The beauty of our relationship was on purpose. We’d both just come from divorces and indifferent marriages and so we were deliberate about doing a good job together. While we were crazy in love and certainly compatible in personality and desires, our relationship wasn’t without effort. A couple of my mom’s catchphrases from when I was growing up were a guide on my end (and natural on his, I swear): “You love those you serve,” and “You can say anything—it’s how you say it.” I’m sure at some point I’ll want to write more about how we did a good job being married, because we really did, but for now know that while it felt magical, it didn’t happen by way of magic. Our over-the-moon union happened by way of intention, follow-through, and abandon.

Don’t give a shit what anyone else might think of your relationship. If you want to sit next to your person in a restaurant booth, screw the naysayers and do it. If you want to lift the center console in the car, slide along the bench seat, and sit closer, do it. Give in to the sap. Kiss in public. Keep holding hands even when they start to sweat. Be a little uncomfortable to relish the comfort of closeness. Touch more.

There were times that I felt stupid and hesitant about blogging so much about Jim, about exposing my delirium and infatuation. But it was too big to keep to myself, and now I’m grateful for every word. I read my memories and can’t help but smile. I look at our pictures, listen to recordings of his voice, spray his cologne on his jacket and wrap it around me, and for a second—and maybe it’s only a single second before it all makes me cry again—I have him. Those pieces are all I have. But at least I have something.

* It may seem strange that I don’t write much about the kids. But their grief is personal. Their lives are their own. We hang out a lot and love being together, but any part of my story that’s closely intertwined with theirs belongs to them as much as me. I’m careful with that stuff. 

ONLY RIGHT NOW

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. Where’s that sixth stage of grieving, the one I’m in right now—Dead Inside & Productive. DIP. I’m in the dip.

I’m holding it together remarkably well. My mom tells me, “Sorry that you’re really good at this, but you’re really good at this.” Shit. Why? I want to be one of those people that can’t get out of bed and it’s okay because she just lost the best thing Planet Earth had to offer. The problem with that is that it’s not me.

I know who I am. I’ve always been proud of my strong sense of self. Jim loved that about me. I loved the same thing about him. I wasn’t just his wife; I was his match. I am capable, reasonably smart, determined, and episodically indefatigable. I was this person before Jim. Eventually, even after losing him, I’ll be back to being the person he loved, only sadder. At present I’m just resentfully able with a hole inside me that somehow has physical weight. How can empty be so heavy?

I find that I sigh a lot. Great sighs. Stops between big things like opening the estate bank account and small things like making toast. Where I am feels kind of like dread. Maybe dread for the future. My long, long future without him. It makes it hard to care about stuff. Like sunscreen—why put on sunscreen if maybe my leaving it off can give me cancer, and if I get cancer I might die sooner and then I’m spending less time living without him? I don’t know what I believe about what happens when we die, but I know for certain that this life is now without my person. So I’d prefer that it’s a lot shorter than is expected for a vegetarian, teetotaling, drug-free yoga teacher.

Lots of stuff that I might have enjoyed before seems worthless. Okay, so I take apart the guest bed and get rid of all the big pieces and get a new one and assemble it myself, who cares? I used to do things like that while Jim was at work and it delighted me that he would be impressed. Now who’s going to be proud of me and say “my wife’s a badass” when I’m a capable asset and not a burden? What's the point?

There’s good and bad to posting how I’m doing where everyone can read it. The good is that people know. The bad is that people know. It’s nice for me to be able to express stuff I’m feeling in pretty extensive detail without having to tell everyone individually how things are going. But people I see while out running errands as I pretend to live normally know that I chucked a remote across the room one night. (They don’t know though that a few days later I also chucked my phone and a metal stool. Aw eff, they do now.)

There’s also the fact that my feelings change so rapidly that whatever I posted a couple days ago could be worlds away from how I’m feeling now.

I’ll say this though, the writing and the posting helps. I don’t know why. I’m sure there’s some psychobabble to explain it all, but I don’t actually care about the why. I care how I feel, and if I feel solace of some sort by making the details of my inner workings available to anyone who can read, well okay then.

I think that act even further solidifies me as Jim’s complement, the throwing it all out there. When Jim’s ex-wife was having an affair he told anyone who would listen what was going on and that he was trying to save that marriage. He had no shame about being a cuckold; he needed help and keeping quiet and being secretive about what could potentially be embarrassing wasn’t going to help him and his kids. Should my children see a therapist? Where is the best divorce attorney? Is how I’m feeling normal? If you don’t toss out information you may not stumble onto the stuff that could end up most useful.

Unless we’re close, you and I, it’s my habit to be an intensely private person. Except in writing. When it’s just me and the computer screen nothing’s off limits. But when I’m posting my feelings real-time and seeing people who have read it all, it’s like we’ve had this long, really personal conversation and I wasn’t there when it happened. It’s equal parts awkward and easy.

As I go through all that needs to be done after your husband dies—will stuff, business stuff, figuring out how to hang a bike from the garage ceiling—I try to move quickly. Sometimes I feel like I’m running from what what I know and what that’s doing to me. If I move fast then the truth won’t catch up. But then I'm standing in the grocery store staring at rows of cans of chili, not sure how I got there because I don’t eat that stuff, and the weight of my new lonely and shattering reality returns.

He’s gone. Tomorrow marks four weeks since I’ve heard from my someone.

THE TIMELINE

Tuesday, August 30.

Jim kissed me goodbye at 3:45AM. I woke some but I can’t remember if he kissed my face or just my arm. I was in the middle of the bed, nestled more toward his side than my own.

Wheels up was a little after four. He'd arranged a private plane to make it a day trip. On weeks where we have the kids Jim avoids overnighters. He was aiming to be back in time to get Josie from volleyball. John, the pilot who was also Dustin’s first flight instructor, flew Jim and Luke, Victory’s V.P., to Vegas where they picked up another guy before heading to their meeting in Southern California.

I skipped class that evening. I ate ice cream instead. At 6:30 I’d just mowed down my second knockoff Drumstick when Jim’s mom, Gay, called me, “Have you heard from Jim?”

“Yeah,” I told her, “He’s on the ground by now. Well, I mean I haven’t talked to him, but we texted earlier. He’ll have landed. He’s getting the kids. I expect him any minute.”

“Megan, there was a small plane crash in Rock Park. I can’t get him on his phone.”

“Okay . . . Okay. I’ll Find-My-iPhone him and get back to you.”

I logged into his iCloud. All devices on his account were offline. All the iPads and iPhones, the computers. iCloud must be broken. I logged into my own account to make sure that all my devices were offline too. Nope. It located all my stuff. Refresh, refresh, refresh. All Jim’s gadgets were still offline. My calls went unanswered.

From my car seconds later I phoned Gay and told her I couldn’t get him so I would go down to that RV park. Why not? Then I called Dustin. He’s a pilot.

“I hope I’m calling you prematurely,” I said, “but I need you to try to call John.” I told him about Gay’s call, about how I couldn’t get his dad on the phone or find him. He listened to air traffic control. Nothing useful. He called me back after talking to John’s flight school. I had a hard time understanding through the new pitch in his voice. It was John’s tail number that went down. They’d seen black smoke.

I get calm right here. I think I detach.

Jim enjoyed reading aircraft accident reports. Weirdo. When he told me about the accidents, what errors pilots made or conditions that caused a crash, I always asked, “Did they live?” He’d scoff a little and tell me, “Of course not. No one ever lives in these things.”

I thought of that while I drove. “‘No one ever lives in these things.’ My husband is dead. I’m driving to where my husband is dead.”

Emergency people surrounding the park stopped me. Look fraught, say “my husband was in that plane,” and they let you through. I tried to read the cops’ faces. How much pity? How much did they know? I worked through the first layer of responders. Then the second. Once parked, the policemen steered me to the other side of a Suburban away from the media.

It starts to get fuzzy here. I don’t know how much time I spent sitting the back of a police car. Was it 20 minutes? An hour? Who said there were two fatalities? “But there were three people in the plane,” I told someone. Jim, the pilot, and Luke. All anyone knew was that there were two fatalities. How long before I thought to call Mike, Victory’s GM, to ask if he knew if they off-loaded Luke on their Las Vegas-stop coming back?

They did. Luke deplaned and flew back on Southwest later.

Two fatalities and only two on the plane. John. My Jim. But not really. Because he was just coming back from a meeting and he was going to pick up the kids. He was looking forward to seeing me.

The kids. At some point Katelynn called asked what was going on. Someone had told her to call. Gay sent Jim’s brother-in-law, John, and his son Rand to me. When I saw John I chucked myself at him harder than I’d ever done to anyone in my life. I can't imagine how he remained upright, but he held me.

When did I text Traci? Did I call her too? I must have. She came to the RV park.

Mike and Brandan, Victory’s COO, were suddenly there. It only occurs to me now that I don’t know how they got through the barricade. There must have still been a barricade. With them I started what would become my habit for the weeks to come, the consoling and recalling. I looked up at Mike, failed to hold it together, and told him, “I know there will be time for this—I’m sure I’ll say it again later—but Jim was so proud of you. He thought of you like a son.”

When did I call my parents? I know when I did it wasn’t twenty minutes before they were in the car on the nine-hour drive to me. I don’t think I spoke with Katelynn again. Maybe I talked to her husband Nathaniel? I know I talked to Dustin more because we discussed how to tell the little kids. What do I do about the little kids? Their dad was hours late to pick them up.

I took a call from a number I didn’t recognize. It was the kids’ mom. She’d heard rumors. I stopped her. “I’ll tell you what’s true. Your kids’ dad is dead.”

The next call was Josie. It was all the way dark by then. Her sobs triggered mine, and I remember crying with her while I sank back against Traci’s car and slid to the ground.

Rand drove my car and Traci drove me. When I got in her front seat I said, “I’m going to come off as cold as this gets started. I’m good at this. I’m good in crisis.” How did I know that? My husband has never died before. But I was right. I’m irritatingly capable with this shit.

By way of calls and text messages, we, Jim’s closest family—the wife, his kids, his sisters, his mom—we knew. The rest of his close people, his Victory Woodworks family, were next.

Like I threw myself at John the night before, when we got to Victory at six the next morning to meet with the employees I hurled myself into Luke’s arms. Luke was alive. By getting off the plane in Vegas and flying home commercial, Luke lived. I remember saying again and again, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you have to live with this.”

I’m so sorry we have to live with this. Here we are though. I’m grateful every day that Luke lived.

I spent a lot of today at Victory and told so many of the team, “We’re missing the most important piece, but we have all the other parts. We will make this work.” I’ll be damned if we don’t crush it, the work, the living. It’s been three weeks today. For however temporarily, I suppose it’s about time I got to this place.

RECOVERED

The TV remote that was already a mystery is glitchy now because I threw it across the room on Thursday night. My mom sat calm on the couch and didn't say anything. If throwing the remote is what was going to alleviate any kind of anything for her daughter, throw the remote already.

It didn’t help. I figured out nothing truly does. There are just the occasional unpredictable ups flecked through persistent ache.

I didn’t get to see him, his body. Not that I wanted to. I didn’t. But I think not having seen Jim's body leaves a gap I can’t bridge. I never saw proof beyond the two personal effects that the Medical Examiner gave me—his watch face and scarred ring. We didn’t get anything else, not his belt or his phone, his wallet, not even his damn socks.

A couple days after after he died the nicest one at the Medical Examiner’s office called me with a note of comfort—and maybe relief?—in her voice saying that they’d recovered his wedding ring.

Recovered.

I can’t get beyond that word. Recovered. They didn’t just slide the ring off his finger. They recovered it. He wasn’t him anymore.

The M.E.’s office called me again later—“Mr. Elliker has been scientifically identified by dental records." So we have verification, but the last time I saw him he was alive. I know I’m not supposed to think about the graphic details, everyone tells me not to, but I can’t help it. I think of the body that did such a good job loving me. They had to identify him by dental. They couldn’t just have someone do it by sight.

The pit in your stomach reading that? It’s my fixed parasite.

Just like I don’t know which scrap of life will serve as an up, I don’t know what will set me off. The other night it was seeing our dog Gus automatically settle into his bed. Around midnight I finally said we all could go to sleep. The dogs and I went upstairs and my mom tidied a little before heading to her room. She found me on my bedroom floor stuck in silent, exhausting sobs. Seeing Gus do what he always does when Jim is home was too much. Gus plops into his bed in the corner. Sophie hops into her basket. Jim gets in the shower. I take the decorative pillows off the bed, fold the big comforter in thirds, turn down Jim’s side, turn on my lamp, habit after habit now missing a part.

How horrible for a mother to sink to the floor to hold her sobbing adult daughter? But she did and cried too. My parents carried me through that dark space when my ex-husband had an affair and I got divorced. And then they lived elated when having and loving Jim made me better, healed in my heart and broader in life. And now. Now my mom is here to just be here because it’s too much by myself.

Don’t take the patterns for granted. I’m so glad I was never mad about tidying up the night’s detritus each morning. Toss Jim’s gum from the nightstand. Move his slippers. Rehang his face towel. For some things his habits dictated mine, and picking up the paper towel wads all over the kitchen when he’d been in there didn’t irritate me. A little bit of Jim here, a little there.

I tell the truth when people ask how I am holding up. Not great. I feel like I’m always hovering on the edge of of something, waiting to deal with the surprise of what I’ll feel next. I see a couple holding hands, happy, and leaning against each other and I smile. I’ve had that and it’s wonderful. I see a couple holding hands, happy, and leaning against each other and I cry. I’ve had that and it’s gone.

I have to get out of bed now. I get Ben and Josie today, and while they know that I’m basically destroyed, I need to not be a mess when they’re here. At the burial sitting in front of Jim’s casket, I was a disaster. I was crying hard and felt Ben’s hand slip around my arm to comfort me. He’s 10. Katelynn took my other hand. When it comes to feeling what Jim was, we are what we have now. What we had can't be recovered, but even if it’s only by way of being in the place their dad lived, maybe today those two get some sliver of peace.

DISCOMFORT IN COMFORT

Today I took donuts to the Victory Woodworks people. My team. I decided we’d celebrate a not-bad day.

I don’t understand what’s happening right now. I’m not bawling every minute. Yes, I’m low. I feel sludgy. There is that weight in the center of my chest that hampers good posture, but I’m not crying. And if I’m not sobbing every second, if I go for hours without tearing up, I feel like I’m being disloyal to Jim.

I have been trying to figure out why I am feeling a little better and how I could possibly not be this constant puddle on our closet floor. I’m coming up with two things: the heap of incredible memories I have of my darling husband and, well, you people. The mass of kindness and support I’m getting from friends, Jim's stalwart kids, yogis, my family, Jim’s employees, and people I don’t even know is overwhelming and is this thing I keep in my pocket next to the evidence bag the medical examiner gave me containing my husband’s wedding ring.

Bummer, I know. The ring came back to me misshapen and scorched. Seeing its condition rips me. I hate what it implies.

I'm feeling sorry for myself. Of course I am. But I cannot deny the spots where I’m fortunate. I’ve told person after person—usually with tears brimming and a tight throat—that I don’t have a single regret from when he was alive. There isn’t anything I wish I’d told him. He knew how I felt. I knew how he felt. We loved each other hard and squeezed every drop of juice from our life together.

Today when I was talking with one of Jim’s guys at Victory he commented that there is a last time for everything. Well, shit. An unfortunate but accurate point. Our lasts together reflected all the times that came before. On our last night together I tickled his back while he fell asleep mumbling, “This is my favorite thing. I love my wife. You’re my favorite. This is my favorite time. I love my wife . . . ” over and over. The last time I saw him he woke me up to kiss me goodbye. My last text said I loved him. His last text said he was looking forward to seeing me.

I’m lucky that I have a few recordings of his voice—a couple voicemails, the talk he gave at Brandon’s memorial, a recording of him snoring. In the snoring recording I ask him to roll over and as he does he tells me, “I find you irresistible.” I literally have a recording of my sweet, late love telling me he finds me irresistible. Who gets that? It’s like the life we had together—time and again I asked, “Who gets this? How can I be so lucky? How is all this happiness mine?” Its precious source is gone, yes, but, my, the remnants are so sweet.

Don’t count on my present positivity and gratitude as a persistent thread. I’m learning that this process is made of rapid slips and slides and stops and skips. This moment is one where I can’t overlook the good.

Being less despondent makes me suspect that I’m ready to try life by myself. I’m good at alone. No, I have to qualify that: I used to be good at alone. I will be again—it’s my nature—but right now my thinking is early and overconfident. I’m not ready for what’s next, not ready to be alone. So my mom is here with me and I’ve told her, “Sorry Sue, but you live here now.” She’s the best, so she said okay, ordered some t-shirts to be delivered here because she didn’t pack enough short sleeves, and told my dad back in Utah, “Love you. See you when I see you.” He's on board.

Some nights when Jim and I would go to bed he’d lay on his back and I’d smash myself up to his right side. He’d put his arm around me, pull me as close as he could and ask, “Why are you so far away?”

“Why” isn’t my question right now. It’s more “how?” How is this true? It’s more “really?” Really he’s never coming home? We never get to make another memory? All the photos we have of him are all we’ll ever have? I’ll never again run my hand along his beard? Really, never? I can’t decide if I’m more comfortable with the incredulity or if I’d rather get to settling into certainty.

Oh. Neither.

TRUTH OF GRIEF

I’m sick of being strong. I’m sick of being inspirational. Of holding it together. I’m just sad. This is shit.

I went to yoga yesterday morning. It made me realize that it's better to take class here. When I’m able to take class I want to be in my community. Yogis here are spreading the word that what I want for now is for everyone at the studio to give me a wide berth and that giving me that space is caring for me. If I go and take class where the teacher and students don’t know what I am dealing with I won’t get the earnest tenderness that I do with my people.

While I cried for about an hour of the 75-minute class, I was surprised that my body knew what to do. My balance wasn’t terrible. My bending was the same. While my mind can’t come close to making it onto my mat, my body did what it was told. I’ve told my students that the practice they build is theirs, that it will always be there for them. Turns out I wasn’t full of shit. Not all the parts are there all the time. But pieces remain.

Everyone asks what they can do for me. The only realistic answer I can come up with makes me mad. It’s this though: Go love the hell out of your people. Love them hard. Make your person feel as loved as Jim made me feel. I hate telling people that because I want it back. We were shockingly compatible. It was unreal the way he loved me. We said, “This is what everyone wishes they had. How lucky are we?” But it’s gone, and here I am—through now-predictable tears—telling everyone, whether they want to hear it or not, to go make their relationships more. A Do-it-for-Jim!-type of thing. And I am sincere. But yuck. It’s not just unfair. It’s cruel.

Evidently I have to go through a bunch of terrible stuff. And because I’m tough and because I’m strong and inspirational and all that effing garbage, I will get through it. But I don’t want to. It doesn’t matter how resilient I am or how brave, Jim isn’t the prize. The person I want to be proud of me isn’t here anymore. So what’s the point of being great?

My autonomic nervous system is as stuck as the rest of me. I forget to breathe. Lots throughout the day I have to consciously exhale.

I know many people find comfort in thinking of an afterlife and seeing their someone again. Not me. It’s not Now. Now is when I want him. Now is how he lived. I don’t care about later. I care about this minute right now. I want to curl up against him and cry. I want to smell his smell on him not just on his jacket that I wear around the house. That isn’t good enough. Even if I stumble through the worst of the grief and I’m able to actually laugh or get up from the couch or eat more than Swedish Fish and whatever salad my mom hands me when I confess that all I’ve eaten is some candy and a Drumstick, even if I can someday sit up straight in sukhasana instead of slump or stand in front of a room to teach—everything after this is incomplete.

People ache their whole lives for the bliss I enjoyed in the day-to-day with my sweet, sweet Jim. I had an honorable man who adored me and made sure I knew it and so did everyone else. I had a man who left notes on the counter telling me that my smile made him weak in the knees. Who would leave two dozen roses in my car just because he knew where I was parked. Who always did the dishes after dinner. Who loved my body so much I was almost convinced it doesn’t suck. Who made little content sighs when I would tickle his back and who would fall asleep with his head in my lap and his hand clutching my foot.

Upon linking up with Jim I became a terrible friend, daughter, and sister because he filled any void. We talked for hours and hours and would have to cut ourselves off to finally go to sleep. When an event came up and I asked if he wanted to go, his answer was always the same, “Will you be there?” I explained accompanying him on so many seemingly mundane business trips as simply, “I want to be where he is.” I still do.

There is a Jim-sized gap in my little soul. You don’t fill something like that with other things. What he was wasn’t plain. What we had wasn’t ordinary. What I lost wasn’t small. And it seems that all that’s left is waiting for the end.

THE DAYS AFTER

During the day I'm a little machine. The list of things you have to get done when your husband dies is long and grows by the day. Stupid stuff like changing the email address on the Hulu account and canceling the weekly milk order. Important stuff like dealing with the will and getting the death certificates. And stuff that falls somewhere in between there, like canceling his ticket to Copenhagen and repairing the watch he had on when he died so Dustin can wear it.

Yes, while I'm plowing though the massive list of to-dos, time sensitive and necessary by self-imposition, I crack. I cry. My voice breaks. I stop. But I put myself back together and get back to work, hopping from task to task, owning crisis management like my mom trained me, like a champ. 

I lose my shit over things around the house and things with the kids that Jim always took care of. A torn trampoline net. A confusing remote. A creaky cabinet door. How to get the lid on the Camelback to close because Ben wants to play with it. My people step in and calm me down and fix things. But they won't always be here. I'm going to need a new map for how to navigate the stuff that Jim did that I didn't even know about because he was quiet about that stuff. Because it wasn't a big deal. Because he knew how to do everything 

There are must-dos. But I try to remember that there are also things that I don't have to do. I have to do laundry, wash my hair, feed the dogs, and take out the trash. But I don't have to answer every text and message even though I'm grateful, go to the door, leave the house, answer personal emails, and clean out the yoga clothes in my bureau like I've been meaning to do for three months. 

There are things I wish I wanted to do because I used to enjoy them, like walk Gus, turn on Netflix, listen to music in the car, drive fast, laugh. That stuff doesn't make sense anymore. My person is gone. What else is there? We walked Gus together in the evenings. We watched shows together on the weekends. We were in the car together where constant conversation eliminated the need for music to fill silence. We drove fast in the best car ever. We laughed every single day. It was all We. Now it's only I. For always really. Because try to top what we had. You can't. What we had was annoying, only-in-the-movies, must-be-made-up perfection. If my sadness is going to be proportionate to my happiness, then I'll drown trying to find its bottom. 

Nights are the worst. It starts when I get on my computer to do one thing and end up instead clicking through photos and crying. That's when the crying isn't just a catch in my throat and sudden inability to speak. That's the crying that makes my insides seize and vibrate and breathing so difficult. I want to touch his perfectly shaped head and feel his hands where they're rough on the right knuckle and feel his arms wrapping me close. I want to have to scoot back to my side of the bed in the middle of the night because his body heat is making me sweaty. 

I keep my people up way past what's polite so I don't have to go to bed. Around 2am I get the dogs and we trudge upstairs. Here comes the hard part. But instead of crying myself to sleep anymore I lean on pharmaceutical intervention and pass out, not to get rest—Ambien doesn't leave you rested—but to pass the time unconscious. 

My body needs a yoga class. It hurts and I don't think I'm in a place to direct a self practice. But I can't go to class here and I don't want to drive far. Because the yoga community in Reno is tight, basically all the yogis know that the small, flexible girl with the substantial thighs is a widow now. And because the yoga community in Reno is kind, they want to offer whatever they've got and hold me. But I just want to slip into class as discretely as I can, set up in the back, try to move my body and not to cry, and slip out without accepting condolences. Even though I am bowled over by the kindness aimed at me, and I know that there's more than I'm aware of because people have been giving me space, being a distraction from what we do in those studios—self care—is so not what I need right now

Though—thanks to my extreme and potentially detrimental independence—the odds of me asking for help from anyone are about zero, I know that all the people who offer are serious. I believe that they want to—and they would—do whatever I ask. It overwhelms me. I hold the stacks of cards and the notes off of flowers and stall, just defeated. There are so many. How do I get started thanking them all? Don't tell me I don't have to. I'm not that guy. I do have to. It's how I function. Or used to, rather, when my heart wasn't underground in the most beautiful casket ever built.

MY JIM

There was no way my boy was gonna die small. A simple pass-in-his-sleep wouldn’t have been big enough for Jim. He lived huge. I see now that his death was never going to be ordinary.

As most of you know, we lost my love, my heart, the man who made me feel brilliant, beautiful, cared for, and valuable, in a plane crash last Tuesday evening. All I can seem to say to people is how sorry I am for their loss. He belonged to us—his family, his wife, his kids, his grandson—but it’s not just us who are hurting; my guy left a massive wake. His friends, his forum-mates, his Best Practice Group, his clients, and, most of all, his beloved employees at Victory have lost so profoundly too.

Here is a link to his obituary. It's the the most important tribute I've ever written and the only thing I’ve ever felt absolutely certain is beyond my skill. No words can adequately salute this man.

I am receiving message after message telling me how much Jim loved me. And I am so grateful to be able to say that I know it. One of his most charming—and, yes, irritating at times—traits was that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. About anything. He told me. He told me every day, time and again, and in so many ways that he was so incredibly in love with me. We were happy. I am the luckiest girl to have had any of his time.

It has been my great privilege to be in his kids’ lives. He has raised some of the most responsible, thoughtful, hilarious people you’ll ever know. It is going to be my honor to do everything in my not inconsiderable power to see that these kids never stop feeling and knowing that they were Jim’s world. His heart was happiest when we were all under one roof. We’re doing that now, but without our most important piece.

He smelled better than anyone. He had perfect legs. He knew he had a perfect nose. No one thought Jim was funnier than Jim did. He loved wrapping his arms all the way around me. He knew how to love me. I loved loving him.