I woke up on the couch this morning beneath the fleece blanket that Kateri’s father had given us years ago. My head wedged in the corner padded by a pillow I stole from the guest bedroom as Xander nestled his 85 pounds into the crux of my knees. It was a much different way to for me to wake up than I did 13 years ago. Thirteen years ago, I woke up as a Husband. Today… just another day of Widowhood.
I’ve gotta be honest, for six and a half years I have tried to be super positive about… everything. I’ve overcompensated on trying to focus on the good things in life because the bad seemed to infiltrate every aspect of my day to day. Well, sometimes I have to just let the feelings do what they do and today it seems like I’m not gonna get too far past… blah.
My Wedding was absolutely wonderful… still the best day of my life. Nowadays, it’s more of an opportunity to reminisce about life, my life, what has filled it, and what has been taken away. Over the years since Kateri died, I have tried to give my Wedding Anniversary it’s time and space. I’ve tried to do things with purpose and with specific attachments to my previous life and in particular… my Wedding Day. This year… not so much. Not because I’ve “gotten past” certain aspects of my Widowhood or because I have any sorta sense of closure with this whole experience. No, this year I just happened to have this thing called Reality taking up a bunch of my time and I had to adapt to doing things I didn’t really wanna adapt to… or even have to deal with!… but like I said… that’s Life.
Although I had to incorporate The Present as I was coping with The Past, it was still a decent enough day spent in the woods around The Schoolhouse… with a chainsaw and a four-wheeler… as I thought about Kateri and our life together.
Widower Notes n Thoughts… on my Wedding Anniversary:
- Our Wedding was quite the party… it took three days..!
- I love that we smoked a whole pig at a vegetarian Summer Camp.
- We had a live band the night before the wedding…!
- We were young. Not like young-young, but young enough to let loose and not be too stoopid.
- I can’t believe we didn’t get eaten alive by ticks… didn’t even think of them.
- It was fun to hear about the shenanigans and gossip of who hooked up with who in the days and months following the celebration.
- Our Wedding was on a Wednesday. We were in the restaurant world… all our friends worked weekends…!
- I remember that feeling of pure love and joy when I made the commitment to Kateri. I think everyone should have the opportunity experience those feelings.
- Widowhood is a hard and complicated thing. Besides my sister and father, I’m not in regular communication with a single person who was at my wedding… that’s fucked up…!.. but it’s even harder to accept that a lot of the reason I have lost touch with so many peeps… is of my own doing.
- I like to think we’re all still friends that are simply consumed with our own lives… and I look forward to catching up.
- If you’re reading this and were at my wedding… Thank You, I hope you had a nice time, I miss you, and I hope you are able to look back on it with fond memories of the day… and of the Love Kateri brought into this world as she danced to the music and melody of her own soundtrack to Life.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning 