Precious and Painful.

Babes, You have another niece. I am sorry it took me this long to tell you about her, it was too much until now. The fact that you won't meet her yourself, to her you will be stories of a great man she never met. Her arrival so precious, but also painful.  She is the sweetest little girl, comparable only to your other precious niece who is playing hockey and skating like a champ now. 10 goals her last game! You would be skating with her at the downtown rink and cheering with me from the stands at her games. I haven't even taken my skates out, without you I don’t care to. I never really loved it, I just loved being with you and you loved it. I still have your skates and your snowshoes, I will never let anyone else use them but can’t get rid of them yet. Just like your bike and all your Synlawn shirts. I will never be OK with anyone I know using anything that was yours, it is still yours.

Anyway we have another niece. We were worried Heather would be in labor for the wedding. We joked about her not being able to be at the wedding because of it. Little did we know...

Heather didn’t go into labor for 15 days after what was to be the wedding, the last day before they would have induced her, exactly 6 weeks after the accident. Claire was born at 5:36, babes I actually don't know when exactly the accident was, but I think it would have been around than. It seems interesting to me that Claire was so particular about her entrance. She was way past her due date but then all of a sudden, labor was fast and she was here. It was a blood moon with lunar eclipse and Claire is a Libra, said to be a great match for Aquarius; her and I will be close… It’s written in the stars.

But as it was all happening all I could think was how excited you would have been. Your love for kids was genuine. You loved Tulia so much and you were stoked for the new baby. I felt completely unequipped to be a mom but always thought that it would be good because you would rock it, so together we would be good. As I held sweet baby Claire I was so sad, sad that I was sad at such a precious moment in time. Sad that you were not there, we would have went for dinner after to the Hooded Merganser and talked about how special the evening was. You would have talked about how we should just have a baby now, taking in the full moon I would have called you crazy.

I drove home with the moon in my view most of the way and my heart broke. I am sorry for you, that you don’t get to live all those things you were excited for. I am sorry for me, for the loss of all of our dreams, and the challenge it will be for me to ever have any parts of the life we were to have together.

I am finding anything that was ‘ours’ feels unmanageable . I can see why people move away after tragedy. It is confronting,  our habits bite at me. Weekends are hard, no matter how much I fill my schedule, my subconscious knows you are missing. Being around our friends cuts at me. Seeing your truck around town brings tears to my eyes. Going places we used to go together brings on a flood of memories,  it is like my mind is a movie reel of you. Constant flashbacks to all our times together.

I will never marry; you have that forever.

I was your forever, and you, you had the promise of my forever. I hope I was enough.

Rene, I long for all that we were creating. I am now taking on the task of finding out who I am. Who am I ? I know who I was, but in the moment I found out about the accident, I changed. I changed so profoundly I hardly recognize myself.  I will look to you for guidance. I send you love all the time.

Everything in me is missing you. ~with all my love.