A new heart

I have not looked on this page for over a year. As I reread it I still feel the same way about those posts. My heart goes right back to when this was new and raw and all consuming. After I lost Joe, I never thought I would have a heart to love anyone else, ever. I would die an old widow, sitting on my porch in a rocking chair, hollering at the cars going by too fast and scaring the neighborhood kids. I still might scare the neighborhood kids, the little shits deserve it anyway. But I guess the plan for me was to indeed not die alone. Picture it Spring of 2017.

I have this friend, well Joe had this friend, who is country, likes to drink Captain and coke, wears shorts with cowboy boots, will go to the ends of the earth for the ones he loves, he is hairy, and can grow a nice beard, he can get loud. When I would look at this guy I could see his capacity for happy, but he just didn't have it. Now after I lost my heart I always lost my filter on holding back the truth I have to speak. I would tell this guy, "the time is now to choose your happy and speak the truth". I didn't really think that we would be the truth that needed to be told.

When he ended up on my cabin doorstep with my camera lens cover and a pair of gloves that I had left in his truck a few weeks before, I still didn't think about us, that there was ever going to be an "us". Well before the weather turned warm there was an "us". Texting and talking with him was exciting, we had fun, we went out and he made me laugh like I wasn't broken.  I think I felt myself growing a new heart where the last one had sat, the one I had loved my husband with.  Now this guy, who I had once called a hairy headache, was on my mind, on my couch late at night, we were going out, he was my boyfriend. Me the wild widow, with a boyfriend.

Now handsome was very close with Joe. They threw horseshoes together, our families camped and boated together, they drank together, went to beer oh bear camp and attended safety meeting together. When Joe was in the ICU the night before he passed away, Kevin was one of the friends that came to see him. They were close and our lives were already intertwined. but to go from that to us being together as a couple, that was a little weird for both of us, my girls, our friends and family. But in my life I always say you need to be all in. If you aren't all in then get the hell out. So he and I, we went all in.

one thought away

In the fall before I lost Joe one of the couples in our group had their marriage break up.This friend came to the hospital with me the night before I lost him, she brought a bottle of wine and we sat in the ICU room and after figuring out how to get the cork out without the proper tool, we drank it, we laughed and cried, and I laid in bed with Joe wishing that I would be able to drink wine with him again. These are the kinds of friends I love, they know just what I need. Not some bullshit card, not a prayer, not an empty "if you need anything call us" promise. The good stuff, the real stuff. wine and time. I saw my friend broken from her own marriage falling apart and I wondered what would be more miserable, to lose your husband on a good note, in love and looking forward to a future together, a team. Or to watch the man you love your team mate, find someone else that he thinks would suit him better, be happier with, maybe even start a family with. I have the misery of our time together ending too soon, my heart falling out of my body and shattering. But I also have the memories, the beautiful girls he gave me and the knowledge that I was all in and so was he. On the other hand, having your man go to greener pastures also opens the paddock door for you to possibly see your husband being happy with someone else, even if she is a snout face, has bad manners and no self respect. But would the love you had for him continue and you would hope nothing but happiness for him, no matter what his choice? I don't know if I would have that kind of response, I am really good at holding a grudge, wrong me and you just signed yourself up for life on the shit list. So pain is pain, the misery is yours to do with what you will. Most of the past year I have been one thought away from breaking down, the pain was so close to the surface that any second it would bubble up and spill out like a pot of water on the stove. A song, a smell, a picture I found in his toolbox or just a thought, one thought. Maybe this year I will work on getting two thoughts away from tears. I know five young women that have lost their husbands this year in my community. That is a lot of misery, pain, regrets, doubts. It will be a long road, uphill, probably in the winter, cold, lonely, but for me I have to take this walk, I need to lead my own girls on this path. Through all this pain because I need to show up for them. Everyone has some sort of misery in their life, college, money, boyfriends, addictions, divorces, the loss of a child, everyone of us has a path we need to walk, all we have to do is show up.

this plan is shitty

Someone asked us which year of marriage is the hardest a few years ago, Joe and I looked at each other and said in unison, the first. Not because we had to get used to living together, or combining our finances, or figuring out our new roles. It was because that is the year that my hubby got his diagnosis. I was seven months pregnant with our first baby girl when he came to me on a Tuesday of the Fair, the look on his face was nothing I had ever seen or ever will see again. He told me the mole he had removed recently had came back as melanoma. The very next day we were headed to the Hillman cancer center to see what there was to do next. It was a long seven year battle, almost our entire married life, trying to keep him with us.
From the day I met him, I was all in with him. I would fight for him, until I couldn't stand.  I thought if I could have fought hard enough I could have kept him with me, with our girls.  Until the last breathe he took, I thought I could have brought him home with me, loaded him in the jeep and head to Stoltz Road. Cancer is a real bitch, it stole my husband, my heart fell out of my body and smashed on the floor, our girls will spend the rest of their lives with just a memory of him. One year and one month out from losing him I don't know quite how I will get through this life without him. I have had more people than I care to remember tell me that Joe was in a better place, that this was in God's plan. I can not be on board with a plan where my husband, my girls' father dies at 35. That is one shitty plan. What good could possibly come with that plan.  I spent time at church, went to church camp, sang the songs, read the verses. But today I think, if God himself came down here and told me why this was a good plan for me, I still wouldn't believe him.

Who is the Wild Widow

Who is the wild widow? She lost the best thing she ever got to have at 35. She is pissed off at melanoma and the greater plan. She has two sassy spunky girls, that scare the shit out of her more with each passing day. She is staring down the barrel of her 37th birthday. She loves her free designer dog (a mutt really but that makes her feel bad). She is not a cat lady but she has two. She is about to acquire a free horse, which takes her back to her horse showing days, She loves LuLaRoe, hats, essential oils, wine, teal, ruffles, bleach and again for emphasis, wine.  She throws important papers away, doesn't meet deadlines and thinks that her financial planner is a total quack, and really doesn't listen to anything he says. She is me. Whoever that is anymore.