Another Year.

Dear Bill,

Well, it's been another year.  I'm not going to write this letter on "the day" because I really don't think it's a good idea to recognize a date like that with too much attention.  First of all, if you do something more than twice it becomes a tradition of sorts and I don't want anything associated with this to become a tradition.  Second, I don't want the kids to feel this foreboding sense of dread that sneaks up on them as the date approaches.  Personally, I start feeling doomed near the end of November and it doesn't let up until baseball season begins.  No one needs to suffer along with me.

The past year was far worse than that first year without you.  I spent most of the first year in a state of shock and bewilderment.  And then slowly I started to "feel" again and along with the discovery of some nice, happy feelings I was also slammed with a confusion and emptiness that I did not expect.

In the last year I learned that people lie to each other.  So very easily and with little remorse.  And that people are selfish and self-serving.  I learned that people who you put your trust in can abandon you without even a glance backwards.  I learned that respect and commitment are just words that carry little meaning.  I also learned that people can just be plain cruel and then try to make you feel responsible and stupid.   I think you ruined me.  I trust too easily because I trusted you.  I don't lie because I had no reason to deceive you.  You were committed to me even when you probably didn't want to be.  You listened to me, you accepted me, and you respected me.  Always.  That's the only way I know and it is, unfortunately, not the way of the "real" world.  I was lucky and now I'm handicapped by my own experience.  You should not have left me to learn this lesson.

Ok, but on the other hand, I have learned about acceptance and friendship.  Yes, I've definitely learned about that!  I have baseball friends and school friends, football friends and neighbor friends, running friends, old friends, young friends, serious friends, goofy friends.  I have had some unlikely folks love me and the kids with no judgements or motives.  Just plain old love and acceptance.  That has been the bright part of the past year and I am so thankful for those people.  No one can take your place but it helps to know that there are a handful of good people who understand me enough and who are willing and able to walk beside me.  I have a hard to finding the right words to explain to you how amazing these people are, Bill.  You would love them though.  And you'd want to tell them how much you appreciate them loving the kids and I.

Parenting by myself is hard, Bill.  Really hard.  The big kids are getting older and more independent but their problems and obstacles are exponentially harder to parent.  It makes potty training look downright easy!  I'm trying--and failing, not doubt.  But I'm still showing up and trying to be that steady, consistent presence in their lives.  And the little kids are growing and changing every day I swear!  I just wish I had some help teaching them all the stuff that YOU were supposed to pass along.  Gosh, I try, really I do, and you would not believe some of the stuff I have had to do by myself!  But bottom line is you would be proud of them all and what they're accomplishing and who they're becoming.  They're good kids and I see glimpses of you in each of them every day.  You really would be proud of them.  And please know that I am trying my hardest.

Another thing I have learned in the past year is that you won't actually die from drinking Gatorade or eating Doritos.  I have found that the world will not stop spinning if the gutters don't get cleaned out or there is a sink full of dirty dishes left unwashed overnight.  No one will die if they cuss.  There is no shame in having cereal and scotch for dinner (no scotch for the kids--I have some scruples.)  Spending money on frivolous or unnecessary things does not make me a bad person either.  I have found that an unweeded garden can be just as productive as a perfectly tended one.  There's a lot of old, silly ideas that I have found to be untrue and unnecessary and letting them go feels so good.  Don't think that I'm forgetting my true values and ideas about life because I'm not.  I'm just learning that there is beauty in imperfection and that not fighting the changes that life presents me are both inevitable and to be appreciated.  It's all about the process and I'm trying to live it every darn day.  But still, the irony of eating $11/gallon raw milk on Captain Crunch is definitely not lost on me.

I sat at a basketball game the other night and despite being surrounded by hundreds of people I felt totally isolated and alone.  No one there, not one person, could understand me like you did, and the thought of that made me sad.  I don't want to turn into a cynical, untrusting person but I'm afraid that is the direction I'm headed right now.  That thought makes me sad too because that is so contrary to my personality.  The magic I once could so easily see in the world has disappeared almost completely and that makes me saddest of all.  I saw one of those sunrises this morning, all pink and orange and full of light, and the little bit of joy it gave me just seemed to slip away before I could grab on to it.  I think that's a good description of how I feel now.

I'm not going to list the details of everything I did last year.  I don't want to think about a lot of that stuff anymore.  I just want you to know that I miss you and hate trying to do this life stuff by myself.  It was always so much more fun with you--even the bad stuff we were able to make fun.  All I know is that you took care of me and made sure to protect me and now I have to face the ugliness with no shield or filter.  I pretty much think that I just want to hide for the next 40 years.  I wish I could ask you what I should do and I wish you could laugh at my stupidness and tease me about how I over think everything.  I would give anything to be able to have the one person who I could always trust hear what's really, truly in my heart and know that my words would be understood.

I suppose that now I'll just wear overalls and rubber boots and have a handful of cats--all with special
names.  I'll be oddly eccentric and smell like chocolate chip cookies and lavender.  I'll probably talk to myself in public and drink whiskey out of a mason jar every afternoon at 5:00.  Little kids will be warned to stay away from "that crazy Widow Pennick."  There will be no sparkle left in my eyes and that is why they'll think I'm crazy.