I Miss You – by Nina Gervase

My dearest Steve –

Man do I miss you…

A friend of mine asked me to write a blog from the perspective of a young widow.  To be honest, she asked me to write this last year but it’s taken me quite a bit of time to have the courage to write it.  I sat down and typed many times, erasing everything that I wrote because it just didn’t feel right.  I feel like there are a million blogs out there that basically say the same things and I didn’t want to be just another voice on the internet.  So I decided to do things differently… I hope you don’t mind that I’m dragging you into it this way.  It’s just that a letter to you seems so much more natural and speaks more from the heart.  So here goes nothing…

I miss you.  Did I mention that?  Like I REALLY REALLY miss you.  No one can understand what it means to miss someone until a person has died and left us behind.  I’m sure you miss me and the kids as well.  I remember even up until your last breath how hard you fought to remain with us on this earth as long as possible… you hated having to die.  I remember the strain in your eyes as you looked at me in that hospice bed, begging me to help you, trying with all your might not to leave us.  That look will forever be burned in my mind… how I wish I could have changed the outcome.  You were too young, the kids were too young, we were so young as a couple… everything ahead of us and then nothing ahead of us all at once.  I guess I shouldn’t say nothing ahead of us… we had to discover a new way after you left us and it was so painful and still is.

Time plays tricks on a person.  It’s been eight years since you left us and yet there are moments when I feel like it was yesterday that we were all sitting together laughing.  On that note, I’m not sure I’m doing this single parenting thing properly when it comes to your voice, laughter and all that.  What I mean is that I know I have vivid memories of you… I can still hear the sound of your voice, your laughter, the tapping away on a calculator at all hours of the night when you couldn’t sleep… but the kids?  They really can’t remember it all very well if at all.  And see, I know that I have movies, small clips take by camera and sound bits that you recorded on the computer, but… Steve, it’s all too painful to listen to – for me and the kids.  It plays tricks on us… makes us miss you so much and want you here with us.  It makes it seem like you could still be here and should… and because of how painful it is, we just don’t watch the movies or listen to your recordings as much as I know we should.  I promise to get better at showing these to the kids and maybe over time it won’t be so painful to listen to… but here’s another crazy thing… I don’t want it to not be painful at the same time.  Like if it doesn’t make us so sad then maybe we aren’t missing you anymore. I know that sounds crazy, but missing a person this much can make you sound crazy sometimes.  I hope you can understand this dilemma… I will do better, I promise.

I’m better with photos of you and telling stories about you, but I promise that some stories will not come out until the kids are at least 23 years old and out of college!  And you know what I’m talking about!  But honestly, the kids love hearing stories about you.  They love when family and friends tell stories that I don’t know.  Even then we leave with a greater hole in our hearts than we started with because we didn’t hear the stories from you.  Once again, crazy… I know.  How can a person be so happy and so desperately sad at the same time…?

I miss you at every event for the kids.  I wish you were the sports parent and not me.  You were meant for this role, not me. I can’t give the kind of advice that I know you would and I’m definitely not as understanding or patient as you were.  I wish you were able to record every band concert because I know how much you would have enjoyed that.  I wish you were here to be goofy and embarrass them in front of their friends, because they seem to think that I’m the “extra” one and have no idea what you were like.  I wish you were here to help me with day to day parenting because, as I’ve already stated, you were definitely the more patient one.  And when I stop to realize that I’m so overwhelmed because I’m missing you, I just shut down and nothing gets accomplished.

So there you have it – I miss you.  And yet this letter doesn’t even touch the surface or explain the depth of my missing you.  I did a mediocre job at best between my tears.  There are a million more things that I can say, but I have to get in line for after-school carpool.

Tah-tah for now (as Grandma would say) and know that I love you with every fiber of my being.