I Had to Run.

I had to run.

I had to leave that space, that house, that life.

I had reached a point where so much loss lived there that I couldn’t breathe.

Not in a suffocating way. Not in a this is all too much kind of way.

In a there is no air because so much of what matters is gone kind of way.

I lost my husband.

My kids lost their father.

Then I lost two of my kids. And one of my kids lost their two siblings.

Read that again.

Because losing Marc was devastating in a brutal, unimaginable way. But losing the kids on top of it?

That was salt in a wound few people will ever understand.

And then there were the things that were said.

The things I had to hear from other family and friends. Things their mother had said about me. After she promised everyone at Marc’s funeral that I was everything for those kids.

Everything.

The things that were said and done while I was trying to grieve my husband created a fire and fury in me that I found astonishing.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to rage. I wanted to fight.

And not acting on that fury was an exercise in self-control I’m still shocked I managed.

Because there is something uniquely cruel about having your grief interrupted by people who are actively creating more of it.

I wasn’t just mourning the man I loved.

I was watching the family I loved come apart.

And I couldn’t stop it.

I had to run.

I had to go.

I had to let it go.

Except I haven’t let it go. Not really.

I’m missing Marc so much.

In the same ways. In new ways. In old ways. In ways I didn’t know were possible.

There’s a void in my life that once held him and our kids and happiness and laughter and love.

And I never saw this coming.

I truly believed we had fifteen more years. At least.

I knew he was sick. Of course I knew. We’d lived with cancer for years. But I did not expect to lose him.

When he went to the hospital that last time, I fully anticipated him coming home.

On the 23rd.

The 24th.

The 25th.

The 26th.

The 27th.

The 28th.

The 29th.

The 30th.

Every single day, I thought he was coming home.

It wasn’t until he came back from being prepped for surgery on the evening of December 31st that I realized we were at the end.

I stood there looking at him.

My giant.

My love.

My everything.

And I realized he was slipping away, and there was nothing I could do.

Nothing.

After years of fighting and advocating and researching and questioning and pushing and doing every goddamn thing I could think of to keep him here, there was nothing left for me to do.

Except give him grace.

I told him it was okay.

I told him the kids were coming. That his parents were coming. That his sisters were coming.

I told him I understood.

I told him I knew he was tired.

I told him I loved him.

I told him he was the love of my life.

And then I had to let him go.

I’m so sad I didn’t get to hear his voice one last time.

I’m so sad I didn’t climb into that hospital bed with him and hold him until the very last second.

I was afraid I would hurt him.

Hurt him?

Physically?

Yep.

Scared to death.

Think about that for a minute.

I loved him so much that I held myself away from finding a way to comfort both of us because I was afraid I would hurt him.

And now I would give just about anything to have those moments back.

To climb into that bed.

To put my arms around him.

To feel him against me one more time.

But I can’t.

And I never will.

So you see, after all of that…

After watching the love of my life die.

After losing the future I thought we had.

After losing two of my kids.

After watching one of my kids lose two siblings.

After enduring hatred and hearing things that were said about me while I was trying to figure out how to survive the death of my husband.

After having all of that get in the way of my grief, my ability to love my kids, and my ability to help them through theirs.

After ten months of having to do all the living without him.

I am still angry.

I still want to scream and rage and punch and hit and fight.

I am angry about what happened to Marc.

I am angry about what happened to our family.

I am angry about the things that were said and done.

And I am angry that, somehow, after losing so much, there were people who found ways to take more.

I don’t know what people expect grief to look like.

Maybe quiet sadness. Maybe tears. Maybe a brave widow putting one foot in front of the other and telling everyone how grateful she is for the time she had.

And I am grateful.

God, I am grateful I got to love him.

But gratitude does not cancel out fury.

And I am fucking furious.

I was hurt.

Not just by his death.

By people.

By words.

By actions.

By the loss of relationships I thought were as permanent as the love that created them.

I.

Was.

Gutted.

And I had to run.

Because the alternative would not have helped anyone.

So I left.

I sold the house. I packed up our life. I took a new job. I moved across the country.

I did all the things.

All the enormous, terrifying, complicated things that people look at and call brave.

And maybe they were brave.

But they were also desperate.

I needed to get somewhere that didn’t hold the physical remains of everything I’d lost.

Somewhere I could walk into a room without seeing the life that used to happen there.

Somewhere I could breathe.

And so I’m here.

I’ve run, and I’ve landed.

I love my new house.

I love my work.

I love the things I’m creating here. I love the possibility of what this life could become.

And today, for the first time, I came home to my beautiful new house and thought:

I don’t know if this one fits either.

And that realization hurt in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

Because it isn’t the house.

It isn’t the job.

It isn’t Arizona.

It’s that Marc isn’t coming home.

Not to the old house.

Not to this one.

Not ever.

It’s like buying a beautiful pair of shoes and wishing they’ll feel good if you just wear them long enough.

You love the way they look. You love everything about them. You want so badly for them to fit.

And then you realize they never will.

Not the way the old ones did.

No matter how beautiful they are.

No matter how much you want them to.

That’s what this feels like.

I’m building a life I genuinely love, and I cannot make it fit the way my life with Marc did.

Because he’s not in it.

And I can’t fix that.

I can choose the furniture. I can paint the walls. I can hang the chandeliers and make this house absolutely spectacular.

I can love my job and throw myself into work that challenges and excites me.

I can build something new.

But I cannot bring him home.

And I cannot make my family whole again by sheer force of will.

Believe me.

I’ve tried.

So what constitutes reinvention?

A new house?

A new job?

A new state?

Accepting that I cannot have a say in the lives of two of my kids?

Learning to live with an empty space beside me that no amount of beautiful furniture or professional success will ever fill?

How does one know if a reinvention has worked?

If you’ve actually managed to set all of it down for a while?

If you’ve built something new, or just put enough miles between yourself and the wreckage that you can finally stand still without screaming?

I don’t know.

I don’t know if this is reinvention.

I don’t know if it’s healing.

I don’t know if it’s running away or running toward something.

I only know that I couldn’t stay.

And I need people to understand that.

Not the polished version. Not the inspirational version. Not the version where the widow gets a promotion, buys a beautiful house in Arizona, and everyone applauds her strength.

The version where she is broken.

Where she is pissed.

Where she is still trying to comprehend how the man she loved more than anything in the world is dead, and how so much of the family they built has disappeared along with him.

The version where she can be genuinely happy about something and still feel the crushing weight of everything that’s missing.

The version where she has accomplished all of these things and still sometimes wants to scream until there is nothing left inside her.

Because I didn’t just lose my husband.

And I didn’t just move.

I lost a life.

I lost a future.

I lost people I loved.

And some of those losses were not inevitable.

Some of them were inflicted.

And I am finally far enough away to say that out loud.

I had to run.

And so I did.

I ran until there was nothing left to pack, nothing left to sell, and no more miles to drive.

I ran until I found a beautiful new house and a beautiful new beginning.

And then I stopped.

And he was still dead.

My family was still fractured.

The things that were said were still said.

The things that were done were still done.

And I was still the person who had to live with all of it.

You see, I had to run.

I just didn’t consider how much of it would run right along with me.