Today is a hard day but it won’t be the last. Some days I just let the heartache bubble up like I am sitting in a hot tub of grief. Just soaking in the loss of my husband and sinking in a simmering brew of self pity and pain. These days used to scare me because I thought it meant I was “losing it” or would be stuck here in perpetuity. But a year into surviving my widowhood, I know I am just passing through this familiar place and I will leave only to return again another day. 

The first year without Erik was all about the firsts. Literally every day was a first without him. My first time at the coffee maker alone. My first time at the grocery store shopping for a smaller family. My first time to the doctor where I had to remove him as my emergency contact. My first birthday as a hollow shell of myself desperate not to leave my husband behind for a new decade. My first time buying a new car. My first time flying on an airplane without anyone to text “landed” at the gate. Of course the first holidays and anniversaries and even just the 3rd of every month felt brutal inside and out. 

I turned that one year mark in December and really thought I had made it! Only to realize, I had to do it all again but this time without the kind of grace for the “firsts” you get in the immediate aftermath of loss. This 2nd year feels more like a silent battle that is internal and cuts deeper into the soul. Now it is just me and my grief holding ourselves tightly interwoven. I walk through the world now with quiet suffering, while also experiencing new life and happiness at the same time. Many of my firsts are behind me now. 

But no one warns the widow how lonely the “lasts” will also feel in this new skin. I remember when my youngest, Anna, was walking into the grocery store with me when she was about 10 or 11. She reached automatically for my hand when we crossed the parking lot and I knew it would be the last time she would innately reach for me that way. I distinctly remember squeezing her hand and thinking to myself, “remember this last time.” So many “last times” aren’t given to us with that kind of premonition. 

When Erik died, I scanned my mind for the last kiss. Like I was almost wishing I could return to that moment and hold on a little longer like I did with Anna’s little hand. I didn’t know at the time that my husband was already preparing to leave the earth and that he probably knew that would be our last kiss. In my experience with loss by suicide, that sense of “the last time” is ever present inside your bottomless bowl of grief. I revisit the lasts of my marriage and family of 5 all the time hoping for a different ending to the story. 

I sent my high school senior off to her last prom yesterday. It will be my last prom too. Three kids and many colorful corsages later, there will be no more proms. I was so aware of the finality of this milestone while watching all the other fathers escorting their adorned gorgeous daughters across the lawn for 1000 photographs. I felt this last for both Anna and myself. I wanted to text Erik the photos or ask “do we know where this party bus is going?” And he would reassure me that Anna would be fine or he would hunt her date down if she wasn’t. 

People with a partner at home just know they can head home to someone who has their heart protected on days like this for moms. They will understand the gravity of these special moments, because it is special for them too. You can sit with your feels together and know you still have each other even when the nest is emptied. I don’t have that person anymore who loves the kids more than me and who cries when they get corsages and promposals. 

Spoiler alert: turns out “the lasts” are really hard to go through solo even when surrounded by a village of fierce friends and family. No one loved our kids like the two of us did together. And maybe that is the most special LAST of all for me. The last man who carried my heart in his heart is gone. Erik made these beautiful beings with me and it is just a fundamental truth now that I will have to love them for the both of us through all the firsts and lasts coming our way. I know today is not my last sad mom-moment. But for today, I am going to let myself just sit in this hot tub of grief and soak until I am ready to get out.