Update - to you.

May 25, 2025

Hi there Big Daddy.

It’s been over a year.   One year, 2 months, and 6 days to be exact.   That long since you left us.   In some days it seems like and eternity, and in some I am still waiting for you to walk through the door, or to sing to me when I get home from work.

It’s weird living in this world without you.   Quieter, and louder all at once.   There is a hole in my heart that just won’t fill in, and I suspect it never will.   It is the place where you used to live, and now I try to fill with memories of you.  It’s an empty feeling I am growing used to, but don’t think it will ever feel comfortable.

I feel guilty a lot lately.   Guilty because I can go more time without you crossing my mind.   I hope you know that it isn’t because my love has dimmed or my memories fade, but I think it is because my brain is slowly learning to function in this world without you.   It’s protecting me.   It’s teaching me how to live my life without you in it.   Don’t worry though, because I’m pretty sure my heart will never figure that out.   It holds you in it daily, and the thoughts of you that I carry there don’t hold so much pain anymore, but smiles, and quiet moments of longing for your presence to be felt.  

I’ve been forced to learn so much.   Remember how angry I would get when you talked about a world where you may no longer be in it?   Thank you for worrying about that.   Thank you for making sure that the kids and I were taken care of.  I don’t know if somewhere in your spirit you knew you’d be taken from us too soon, but I am so thankful for the care you took to make sure we would be okay. 

I have done the hard things I never wanted to.   I have paid the bills, made the plans for the future, I did the taxes for fucks sake.    THE TAXES!   I made sure the bills were paid on time, I made hard decisions.   I shopped for cheaper insurance, I called to get the furnace checked.   I bought a car.    BY MYSELF.    I do the things on the daily that I hated and that you just handled for me.    I’m sorry sometimes this is when I get mad and curse at you in my brain, but I wish so hard that you were still here handling all this.

I’m doing my best to make sure the kids are okay.   This is probably when I get the angriest at you.   When things are hard and I need to talk, and you aren’t here to help.   Being a mom without you is hard.   I’m trying honey.   So hard.

I took off my wedding rings on Easter.   It just felt like the time.   I hope you know that it isn’t because I’m moving on, but because it was just becoming painful to see them.  I wear my wedding band on a chain around my neck, right next to your fingerprint pendant.   I touch it all the time.  I hold it in my hand.   And just like you I wear the memory of it on my body in the form of one more thing that is missing, but has left a lifetime imprint on me.

I see you everywhere.   Especially in the birds.   Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I swear I get visited sometimes.   I don’t know if it really is you, or if it’s just my wishful thinking, but it gives me comfort nonetheless.  Keep coming.   Keep singing.   Keep pooping on my patio furniture. 

I get out of bed every day.   I put one foot in front of the other.   And in a different kind of way, I keep moving forward.    I miss you Jason.   So. Fucking. Much.   But life is continuing, and I know you would want me to live it.   So just know…..I’m trying.

I hope you are proud of me.   I’ve had to become a new version of me.   The version that now carries you quietly inside.   The version that tries to do things like you would want me to, but still throws in a little sass and pizzazz.  

I don’t cry as much and sometimes I realize I haven’t thought of you in a bit, and I feel guilty.   But know that you live in my heart.   You exsist in every decision I make.   We talk about you constantly and laugh at the jokes you made and the happiness you brought.

I hope you are proud of me.   I miss you so much.   I’d give every single thing I own to have you back.

I miss you.   And this world is still super sucky without you.  But I am doing it..

I love you Big Daddy.   I miss you so much

-Me