Sometimes I wonder if DJ gets upset that I have fallen in love so deeply with someone new.

Sometimes I feel guitly about that.

Sometimes I feel sad about it.

Sometimes I feel like I'm forgetting him.

And for that, I feel ashamed.

Ashamed that I love someone new. And ashamed that I love someone old.

Please know that I will always love you forever and ever and ever with all of my heart.

Both of you.

Labels: Guy #6, Widowness

I found a caterpillar on the door knob of my front door last night. And I was so overcome with fear that I literally ran back to my garage and got back into my car, to protect myself from the evil gaze of that monstrous caterpillar's satanic eyes.

I then proceeded to yell at DJ for the next 2 minutes for not pulling some strings up in heaven to get rid of all the bugs and creepy crawlies that may or may not be invading my house at any given moment. I mean, he left me alone in the world to fend for myself, the least he could do is shoo a few bugs away so that I don't have to pee my pants every time one comes near me. Right? RIGHT???

But alas, I knew that I had to tackle this on my own, so I did what any sane, smart, logical, soon-to-be-30-years-old woman would do. I called my Daddy.

"There's a caterpillar on my door knob. What do I do?"
"Flick it off."
"With my BARE hands?"
"If you want. Or you could get a paper towel."
"BUT HOW DO I GET A PAPER TOWEL WHEN I CAN'T GET INSIDE MY HOUSE??? THERE'S A CATERPILLAR ON MY DOOR KNOB!!! I'M TRAPPED OUTSIDE FOREVER!!!"
"Mija, calm down. You can't find a leaf or a stick or something else to use?"
"Are you kidding? It's dark out here. And I bet everything is covered in some sort of poisonous, neurotoxic caterpillar goop that will paralyze me with agonizing, excruciating pain the instant I touch it, causing me to have epileptic-like grand mal seizures and die! DIE I TELL YOU!!! So what do I do? WHAT DO I DO???"
"Mija, you're gonna have to calm down..."
"...Oh wait...The caterpillar is gone now. It must have crawled away while I was in my car. Never mind!"

And that, my friends, is the solution to all of life's problems. When you are in a time of crisis, and you don't know what to do, just wait 5 minutes...it might crawl away on it's own. And if that doesn't work, call the ultimate superhero - your daddy.

Labels: I'm all growed up now., Parental Units, Widowness

People don't realize this, but I drive by my husband's funeral home on a daily basis. That is to say, I drive by the funeral home that took care of my husband after he died. He's not buried there. He was cremated so that his ashes could be taken to another location. ("I don't want to spend eternity in Texas." were his words to me.) Regardless, everytime I drive by the funeral home, I can't help but to think of him. (Sidenote: I don't purposely drive by the funeral home. It just happens to be located in the same area as my home and job. But I digress.) Many times, I'll be riding with friends, in their cars, as we drive by the funeral home. They don't ever notice the funeral home, nor do they know my history with that particular funeral home. (Most of my friends, here in Texas, did not know me while he was still alive.) So they usually go on, blabbing or whining about some insignificant matter in life (like how their boyfriend refuses to use a coaster) while I reflect on the life and times of my husband and his fight with cancer.

I used to talk about my husband's life and death quite a bit. I think that it helped me get through some rough times. But everyone always focused on the death part, whereas I always wanted to focus on the life part. I always wanted people to learn what I learned from him and his fight. I wanted people to realize that life is too short to just watch it go by. I wanted people to reach for their goals, dreams, and aspirations rather than just wish for them. I wanted people to...well...stop whining about the lack of coaster use by their boyfriends. Are water rings on the coffee table really that tragic?

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. He would have been 28. Yesterday was also the day the my mother-in-law was released from the hospital. She just had a round of chemotherapy, as well as a stem cell transplant. Yes, folks, she has cancer. She's still too sick and too immunosupressed to take any visitors, so I had to settle for calling her, rather than seeing her in person. I wanted to let her know that I was thinking about her, thinking about him, thinking about life. She was too weak to talk for long. Not to mention that the chemo stripped away all of the skin on the inside of her mouth and throat, leaving it raw and painful. Yet she still managed to get on the phone to tell me that she was gonna bake us a cake (as soon as she got better) so that we could celebrate the fact that we can still eat cake. Can you believe that? She looks and feels like she just got ran over by a semi-truck (twice) but she hasn't forgotten what her son, my husband, taught us most of all: Cake is yummy. Eat it any chance that you get. Eat it first so that you'll always have room for it. Enjoy it.

So yeah, I'm a widow. My husband died and that sucked. But cake has never tasted as good as it does now.

Labels: Widowness

Before I got married, my husband and I went to Tiffany's to pick out wedding bands. I love the wedding band that we picked for me. It's simple, yet one of the most beautiful rings that I've ever seen. I kept wearing my ring after my husband died. I wore it for a year. One day someone asked me if I was ever going to start dating again. I answered yes. "So then why do you still wear your ring? Are you hiding behind it?" At first, I was offended. How dare she ask me why I was wearing my ring. Didn't she know that I loved my husband and would always love him and that this ring was a symbol of that love? But then, as I thought about it some more, I found validity in her question. Why was I wearing my ring? Was it to keep guys away? Was it because I was still holding on to my husband? Or was it because I just loved the ring? Well, I figured that it was probably a little of all 3. So the next week, I decided that in order to move on, I needed to stop wearing the ring...or at least switch it to my other hand. So I did. I wore my ring on my right hand. Then one day, I took it off for cooking purposes, and never really got around to putting it back on again.

Coincidentally, someone asked me out the day after I stopped wearing the ring all together.

It's now been about a year since I stopped wearing my ring, and about 2 years since my husband has died. I've "dated" a few people over the past year and have been, well... as my friend Laura puts it, "living the life of a cute, single, 20-something girl." Most people don't even believe me when I tell them that I'm a widow. "But you're so happy..." Well why wouldn't I be? Yeah, I loved my husband with my whole heart and soul and would do anything to have one more day with him, but if there's anything that I learned from his death, it's that life is short and I shouldn't spend my time dwelling on his death when there is a whole world out there for me to experience. So here I am...living life like the 20-something single girl that I am, but with the wisdom gained from watching your soul mate leave this world.

Which brings me back to my ring. I realized this past Friday, that even though I stopped wearing it, I never put it away. It sits on my bathroom counter, right next to my make-up. A reminder that I don't wear it, but that I once had great love. And I wondered to myself, why haven't I put this away? Why do I keep it out? Am I still holding on to my past?

So I put it on. Not on my wedding finger, but on my right hand. It's still one of the prettiest rings I've ever seen. I was dressing up that night, to go to a club downtown, so I thought that it sort of added some "bling" to my outfit. Anywho, to make a long story short, I ran into a guy that I've been, well...let's call it "getting close to" and well... we decided to "get close" that night. And in the morning, when I woke up, I noticed that I was wearing my ring. And I laughed. It was never the ring that was holding me back. It was just me.

Labels: Guy #6, Widowness