It’s those things you didn't get to say before you didn't have the chance anymore.  Of course you didn’t know you wouldn’t have the chance.  The human brain seems to think that things won’t change.  Although the evidence that is constant is, that change is the only thing constant.  

I still strive to create a stability of homeostasis where I feel safe and comfortable and in charge of the things and events and life around me.  For most of the time since you left, I’ve used anger to motivate me to move and stay moving. 

I haven’t looked at or talked through the incompleteness of us.  I didn’t want to because I still, despite all the evidence to the contrary, didn’t want to complete anything that would make the irreversible reality the reality.  It’s not what I wanted, so I fight it.  So here it goes… 

Grant, I wanted to talk to you about the laundry.  Thank you for helping us do it two days before you died.  I thought we’d all do laundry together as a family for the rest of our days.  I’m sad that it got dumped back on me the moment I saw you teaching the boys to do it.  

If you were still here, they’d be doing it too.   Rhys does now.  I didn’t teach him, but now I realize that we did and he just remembered.  I still don’t know the code for the safe.  It sits in the basement locked and I can’t open it because I don’t want to know what’s in there.  

What you locked away and the last secret for me to uncover.  When I do open it, it will tell me more of what you were thinking just days before you died.  I thought I knew the code, but the one I had was wrong or I put it in wrong. 

I tried to call you to ask what it was, but then I remembered you were dead and wouldn’t be answering the phone.  That’s when I thought that if we had divorced, at least I could still call you.  That was the first time I wished we had gotten divorced.  

I forgot how much you helped the boys.  I was reading the messages you and I had sent in the last month of your life and I realized how much I could depend on you.  These 3 years I forgot all that.  I’m sorry I took you for GRANTed… I always joked with you about that.

In the serenity prayer it starts like this… God grant me… I kept it by my bed and always thought of it this way- God, Grant, Me.  And that’s how I always wanted to love you.  God first then you and then me, because I always put you first.  

When I think of how you died… you always put you first too… and then I felt sad, and then I felt angry.  I didn’t want to remember because I didn’t want to feel how much you meant to me.  I remember someone said that if you didnt’ love, you wouldn’t hurt. 

I didn’t know I could hate anyone.  I’ve never hated anyone till you died, then I hated you.  I guess it’s because I love you.  I’m sorry that I felt like I hated you, I never did.  I was just hurt.  I ask the boys now,  if you’re hurt, is it ok to hit/kick/yell and call names to your brother?  No, it’s not ok, I say to them.  Just because you’re mad, doesn’t make it ok to be mean.  Ever.  

Then I do it in my head to you.   I’m just like them. I’m like a child, trying to learn and grow and getting mad in the process and losing my cool.  Then I say I’m sorry and do it again… I’ll never learn will I? I didn’t want to be with anyone but you. 

When you left, I felt like it was a sentence to be alone and do all the work alone and to be lonely.  I so wish I could tell you about my dates and talk with you about the things I see in this guy or that and how they’d be with the boys. 

None of them are you so I throw them out and don’t look back.  I would have done that with you, but we started together and I thought we’d end together.  Remember that time that you crashed the motorhome?  And I said one day when we’re old we’ll laugh about that one time… 

Now you won’t ever get old.  I’m sad that you said you’d laugh with me and you don’t anymore.  I feel like you lied to me.  Maybe you did.  I think you knew.  So you lived like you knew. You kept it a secret from me, telling me you could do anything and be anything and get through anything, because you were so capable… I believed you.  

Then you died.  That was really rude.  Who would want to date a woman with 4 boys that aren’t his kids?  Everyone tells me there are men out there, but I don’t believe them.  I think men are selfish and will try to take me away from the boys so that I can be with them.

I don’t want to choose between them and someone else.  With you, I didn't have to because they were yours and mine and I could have both.  You took that away from me and left me with a belief that other men won’t love because you didn’t.  That’s how I feel.  

I hate saying it, but there it is.  Remember all the things I used to love?  I don’t do any of them anymore.  I don’t make smoothies for the kids anymore, or cook dinner, or make cookies.  I made cookies for the first time in 3 years last week.  It was weird.  

It didn’t feel normal.  I still don’t feel normal, but have learned to live in not normal.  Not a new normal.  There is no new normal.  It’s just me fighting not normal and I’m tired of it.  I let the boys eat candy.  

Remember the chickens?  I still have those.  Well not the same ones, new ones.  They’re so great.  We even got a rooster.  Not on purpose, he was supposed to be a she but wasn’t.  And he, his name is Mr. Lavender made 3 baby chickens that hatched all on their own.  

It was miraculous.  The momma hen was the most amazing momma.  Jaymen cried when he saw the babies. The look on his face of happiness and excitement and love, it’s priceless.  I wish you could see it.  You’d love the baby chickens.  

I know you’d complain about having more chickens, but you’d be so proud of them and me and the boys.  You’d secretly love it, but try not to look too happy about it.  It’s funny how I wish you away, but know that you’re all around.  Even now.  It just is and I still wish you were here.