Remembering Dan

• Buttons

  10May
  Categories: Remembering Dan Comments: 2

  I buttoned Benjamin’s (6) shirt today and totally phased out. I liked to play with Dan’s buttons. I can remember running my hands over his chest, heading for those buttons while he held me in his arms. Sometimes when we were cuddling on the couch or even surrounded by kids while we watched a movie from our bed, my hands would find those buttons. Dan would just smile and hug me a little tighter.  I miss those “Danny warmed buttons”.

• Mother’s Day

  10May
  Categories: Grieving Comments: 3

  Who would have thought that Mother’s Day would have hit me so hard.  Maybe because Dan is the reason I am a mother?  For the most part I have been able to stay upbeat and positive (like normal), but ever since the stuff from West Virginia arrived it feels like the emotions have been building until I feel like something has to let loose before I burst.

  Someone asked me today how long Dan and I were married.  The answer sounded so . . . unsatisfactory.  I wanted to say 30, 50, 120 years.  Anything! Rather than voice the reality of how little time I had with my Danny. 

  It will be 8 years this Tuesday.  For some of you I would imagine you are saying, “oh pfffff! She barely even knew him.  She’s so young, she will recover quickly.”  And my rational mind (the tiny part that’s not clouded with pain) says you are probably right, but that brings a new pain in and of itself.

  I watch couples who have been married for years and I find myself struggling with the tenth commandment and wondering if there is a make-up out there that will cover up the green that I am sure I must be displaying (green with envy).  This summer my sister-in-laws will have been married longer than I have (we all got married the same summer), and next year my Youngest! sister will pass me.  How do I attain the status of “mature married woman” this way?

  We heard a statistic shortly before we were married . . . something about most marriages (at that time) lasted an average of seven years.  We laughed, so sure we were going to be different, and said that when we hit seven years we would have to re-evaluate.  I wanted to be different!  I wanted to show the world it could be done and that we could be happy together forever.  Now I’m just another nameless, faceless, part of that statistic.