Andrea Remke lives in Northern Kentucky. She has a degree in communications and journalism from Saint Mary's College, South Bend, Ind. Her husband died in 2017 after a battle with aggressive tongue cancer that spread to his lungs. She is finding her way as a newly-widowed mother of an 12-year-old, twin 9-year-olds, and a 6-year-old. She is a freelance writer at kymomtotwinsandmore.com. Find her at 

Andrea Remke

I'm nearing two years without him. Fall used to be my favorite time of year—running with the leaves crunching under my shoes, the football games, my wedding anniversary. Now there's only an ominous feeling. Like waiting for a gut punch from someone lurking around the corner, ready to strike as soon the calendar flips to November. It was the Sunday morning before Thanksgiving when I became a widow. It feels like a blink but then it also feels like it's been a lifetime. I somehow got past the "year of firsts" where every calendar date was pure heartache to relive. The first Christmas without him. The first Father's Day without him. The first kindergarten graduation without him. The first birthday without him. It all sucked. I cried a lot behind the bathroom door. I faked a lot of smiles. I did a lot of self medicating with Baileys and Amazon Prime. 

The second year was just a lot of new normals instead. They still sting, but it's what we've grown used to, living every day without his presence, without his voice or laughter. The condolences are gone. Life has fully moved on around us, as I knew it would, despite my not wanting it to. There are pieces of him—of us&mdash;that seem to be getting lost amid what's here and now and I don't know how to feel about it.

I am trying not to forget his smell but it's fading. It's all but gone from the clothes I saved in the closet. That clean, soap-fresh smell. Even when he was working out, he always smelled good. I used to joke he was like some sort of lizard with no stinky sweat glands. I found myself in the deodorant section at the grocery store the other day for a really long time. I opened up and breathed in every men’s Right Guard stick on that shelf until I smelled the 

 one, the one he wore for years, and I held it close to my nose. I didn’t cry. I wanted to. But there was a guy behind me browsing gift cards and a lady looking at shake supplements next to me, and I figured they’d find it really odd to see a woman weeping at the smell of antiperspirant in aisle 11.

It's starting to get hard to remember specific things about him and that scares me. Like what kissing him felt like. That one sucks to think about. We hadn’t kissed in a really long time before he died. He was sick for a while and before then we had a rough patch where we fought so much and dealt with so much marital discord that the last thing he wanted to do was kiss me. He probably wished many nights to be away from me. That thought still hangs in the back of my head today because we never made everything right before cancer took him away. 

I hate that I’m starting to forget stupid little things. I couldn't remember if his favorite cereal was Honey Smacks or Fruity Pebbles. I know we had a cereal debate a while back and I'm kicking myself for not remembering how that one ended. I guess at the time, it didn't seem important. But now I'd give anything to go back just to know the answer. The kids asked me if daddy liked Rice Krispie treats and I can't f-ing remember. I know I used to eat an entire pan myself but I can't remember if he thought that was gross or if he wanted me to save him some. All these things seem insignificant to others but they aren't to me. They are huge pieces of a puzzle that was once whole but is now slowly being broken up and dismantled in order to be put back into some invisible box it seems. To be put away forever.

I am mad at myself for letting memories fade. I should have space in my brain to keep it all in. We were together for 20 years—half my life. I can remember the way my childhood bedroom smelled over 35 years ago, so why the hell can’t I remember his smell on the pillows, from just a few years ago?

He loved holding my hand. To pinch my fingers because they were cold. He first held my hand in 1998. A lifetime ago. I'm starting to forget the way his hand felt in mine now though. I stupidly wonder to myself if he could be mad at me for that. Because I've been holding a new hand lately.

I haven't told many people. I’ve been seeing someone who’s really great. He’s smart and funny and he's irreverent and unfiltered like me. We like the same things—Billy Joel and Seinfeld and binge watching comedy shows on Netflix. And he loves kids and I've got a shit ton of them. He makes me f-ing laugh and I've missed that. I think he genuinely likes me too&mdash;faults and temper and all. He doesn’t take any of my stubborn or bitchy bullcrap&mdash;all the stuff my husband either ignored or complied with just to please me all those years, but annoyed him to no end. He's the opposite. He doesn't let me brood or pout in disagreements, many of the things that stirred the pot and caused a lot of boil-over moments during my marriage. I'm learning to deal with myself and relationships differently. It's like I'm learning how to be an adult&mdash;then again, he and I have had entire text conversations with emojis that make me laugh and I feel like a silly teenager again. But I dig it. He's just who I need. Did Matthew have a hand in sending someone like that to me? I wonder.

I still feel overwhelming grief some days. And it sneaks up on me. Our son is almost 13 now. He's a hair taller than me according to his recent doctor checkup. Sometimes the grief I feel manifests itself as tears at the doctor's office due to the aching desire to have his daddy here to see something as simple as his son's height surpassing mine. 

If we really want to talk about some super grief-y stuff, I've got a doozy I keep behind this computer. Sometimes I listen to the recording they emailed me of the 911 call I made the morning I found him. I collapse in tears at this desk every time because the despair in my voice that morning is so tangible it physically hurts. Choking through tears, I sob, "He has cancer," as the operator keeps asking if I can do CPR. The memory of me trembling holding that phone, staring at him realizing he was already gone is still fresh in my mind. That is overwhelming grief right there. It's one memory that I don't think could ever fade. But maybe I don't want it to either.

Yes, two years may have blurred some of the memories. It has dulled the edge of the blade that used to expertly pierce my heart every morning I'd wake up realizing he was still gone. But two years has also shown me that I'm ok. The kids are ok. I've chosen to keep living and loving in this life —as hard and as awkward as that might be some days. I run parallel between loving him, holding dear the memories I still have of us, and with the idea that I can be in love with a new person who's willing to share the rest of this life with me making new memories. And there are days I fall more to one side and it scares me when it's the side without Matthew on it. 

I worry and feel guilt for still being here, breathing air, laughing and living life, especially starting to care for another man. Some people don’t like it either, I know this. Others have said, “it’s good to see you’re moving on.” I wish they wouldn't say that. Because I haven’t “moved on.” I’ll never "move on" from the one person I loved more than words, the man who gave me the life I'm living now, who gave me my children. I’ll never "get over" him. They don’t understand. No matter how much time keeps adding onto that calendar day when I last saw him, no matter two years or twenty, no matter what memories have faded—I will never "move on" from the love I had for Matthew. That is a truth that won't ever fade.

Articles

A friend of mine told me the other day how a new song on the radio makes her think of my late husband Matthew. I remember them, too, I said. But I didn't, however, tell her about all the memories of him that are starting to fade.

Grieving Memories

Last weekend I was traveling through an airport and saw a guy going through security who was pale, bony thin and sitting in a wheelchair. He had no weight to his face and in his eyes, I saw desperation. I knew with almost 100 percent certainty this young man was fighting cancer. I knew because in him I saw a shocking resemblance to my late husband, Matthew. He looked the same when we took that last trip to Florida to spend time with the kids at the beach. I know it was hell for Matthew to go, being that weak and sick, with medicines and feeding tubes and having to explain it all to airport security. He also looked that gaunt, that frail in those last several months. He, too, looked as if the life was being sucked from him by the minute. His eyes, once vibrant and beaming, also showed tired, frustrated despair. God, I remember that look. 

I stared at this man and couldn't look away as I held back tears. I wanted so badly to tell him anything or say anything to let him know I understood his sadness and appreciated his pain. I appreciated his suffering and even though he probably doesn't know it or feel it, that he is fighting a noble fight. 

I didn't say anything though. I chickened out. I wasn't brave enough to interject and meddle in this stranger's life. I couldn't because it was too close to what I knew and had become accustomed to for the last couple years. 

I wanted to say something to him because I never got to say the things I needed to my own husband when he was still alive. I never got to express to him my love for how bravely he endured his fight. I got caught up in all the "doing" during that time. I was too busy worrying about the kids' schedules and logistics —practices and games, homework and dinner. I ran around here and there, errands and grocery or the pharmacy, hurrying through bath and bedtime routines each night so I could flop in bed at night and zone out or fall asleep to Mad Men episodes on Netflix. I didn't go to as many chemo appointments as I should have with him &mdash;and the ones I went to&mdash;I often changed the subject from sickness to something I saw in a magazine or I tried to make jokes with him rather than focus on our reality. I wanted to push aside that sad atmosphere and avoid talking about the grim fate that awaits people who sit in that room. I was such a coward. 

I thought I had more time. I was apparently terrible at reading the faces of all those doctors who always seemed to project a small sliver of hope that he'd beat the odds. Matthew had had numerous health scares over the course of time that were a direct result of his 1995 kidney transplant or related to the medicines he took over the years. But he always got better. Cancer was a different beast. But I kept telling myself he'd beat that too. 

I never wanted to accept that I'd run out of time. That we'd run out of time. But I did. We did.

Matthew was always the strong, sensible one. He always knew what to do in every situation or how to handle things when they went awry. In 20 years, we had a shit-ton of awry. But I don't ever remember a time where I doubted his ability to take care of it —whether it be when our boat broke down in the middle of the Ohio River with me and the kids stranded in it; or the time his family business was in such financial distress that he chose not to take a paycheck in order to save some of his employees. He was strong in every single thing he did

That didn't change after he got sick. Yes, he was scared. I will never forget diagnosis day when he fell to his knees in our bedroom as if being sucker punched with a fate we never imagined. I was never the strong one, never the one with any idea on what to do or where to turn. I didn't know what to say. I didn't have an answer and couldn't come up with anything positive to say or a silver lining. My heart went dark that day. I could only cry with him, there at my feet, realizing I was going to lose him.

I didn't know yet, when I woke up on that Sunday before Thanksgiving of 2017 and walked downstairs that morning, that I was already a widow. I didn't know the time had expired on my window to let him know how much he was loved and how brilliantly he handled being so sick for almost two years. How, despite being so scared to leave us, he magnificently endured as the life was being ripped from his body each day. 

I've realized, too late, how steadfast and brave he was in the face of death. He tried every day, knowing he'd never see them to their next birthdays, to show our four children even the weakest smile. He even tried to smirk for the nurses when they took his vitals or drew blood for the umpteenth time. He nodded appreciatively to friends and strangers who said they were pulling for him. After he lost the use of his speech, he still managed to send his friends an upbeat text or message me a "love you" following his request for more morphine.  

He clenched my hand so tightly before I went upstairs to bed the last night I saw him alive. I didn't say anything. I didn't know about the time constraint I was under at that very moment, but maybe he did. He shed no tears and he said no words. He only used quiet bravery that last night, to endure a little bit more. Which is what I will always remember. I see now—in the culmination of months and months of his suffering and misery&mdash;he showed me what being brave really was.

I am still learning to live free of cowardice— to live bravely for as long as I have left. I'm going to hopefully show my kids, too. If only all of us on this side could be so brave in living as he was in dying, we'd all be pretty ok.

My husband's last trip with my kids to the beach, when he was weak and frail— but not enough to keep him from holding our 'baby'. 

After the loss of my husband to cancer, I am still learning to live free of cowardice&mdash; to live bravely for as long as I have left.

Still Learning to be Brave

I had a good dream last night. I'm surprised I even remember it because I never seem to sleep well enough to even dream most nights anymore.

I found my husband there in the dream. He was alive. He was healthy. He could talk again. We were in some sort of warehouse or empty place. He was on a dock surrounded by water and he was talking to me, but I don't know about what. I was only listening to the sound of his voice and the expressions on his face. He was smiling.

I hadn't seen that smile in so long. I was hugging him, and I wouldn't let go. I felt his strong arms around me again and I know I was breathless — silly, I know, because it was a dream, but it felt possible. Cancer wasn't here this night. Cancer hadn't touched him. It hadn't taken anything yet, his speech, his smile, his body and strength. I was yelling, “hello!” and asking if he was OK, was everything OK? I can't remember if he answered me, I only remember the hellos and the hugging.

This is one of those dreams that you absolutely don't want to wake up from. That kind that when you do open your eyes, reality slaps you across the face and leaves you defeated to start another day. My husband and I left so many things unsaid when he passed away nearly five months ago. There were so many feelings unexpressed, words unspoken and countless sorrys that never made it out of our mouths. There was never a proper goodbye.

I flounder around most days getting the kids where they need to be, acting like I have it all together, trying to smile and joke with friends or elicit a laugh from my son before he goes to bed. But between it all, I'm only looking for him. I stare at cardinals in the trees way too long, stupidly wondering if it's him chirping a message at me. I study the sun rays and clouds to make sure nothing meaningful is spelled out in them. I went to his office a couple weeks back. It was cleaned out and empty because new ownership is downsizing and soon the building will close. Sitting behind a desk where a once powerful, vibrant, healthy husband and father spent his days for the past 15 years — I sobbed. I grabbed all the leftover pencils in his drawer, if only to have something concrete he once touched. I took a Kleenex box from his window sill, knowing it was something he probably stared at from this desk not so long ago. 

None of this will bring him back, though. None of it brings any closure. None of this is a goodbye. I clutch a rosary in bed at night—probably one of the many that came to this house while he was sick over the past two years. But not really to pray it. I guess I'm just hoping there's some magical way that out of all the billions of people out there, that some spirit or some force will descend here and get my message to him. To get him to me. To bring him to me again.

I never got a goodbye. I didn't say things I should have. I never apologized for so many things and I didn't offer forgiveness or ask for any either. I never got a goodbye. 

I suppose this is why I look for him in my dreams. It's why I keep my eyes shut a little longer every morning. So, I don't have to do the goodbye. I can just have that hug again. I can see the smile again. So I can just endure here with only those hellos again.

I found my husband there in the dream. He was alive. He was healthy. He could talk again.

See You in My Dreams

I recently put sheets on my bed. Well, it was really just putting sheets on a mattress. A mattress that hasn't had a set of sheets or a comforter on it for nearly three months.

It's been 90 days since the day he left. It's been 90 days since the blood-stained carpet was ripped up and thrown out. It's been 90 days since the sheets and comforter were washed and donated to Goodwill. Not too many days after that, all the bedroom furniture was sold, and the walls were painted, too. It's been 90 days that I've been in a carpetless, empty room (save his favorite ugly chair) laying on a mattress with only a throw blanket to cover up with at night. I want to erase my memory of a day that will forever be a nightmare that plays over and over. I wish I could undo the grief my children and I have felt since that day.

Many an Internet stranger have left comments on my blog posts that I have written over the past couple months. There are people out there who have never dealt with a devastating loss, yet apparently are experts when it comes to losing a spouse. One guy commented, in a roundabout way, that I needed to "deal with my grief" instead of projecting my feelings of hurt and loss on everyone else in writing my stories. One woman berated and judged me for, "taking off my wedding ring too soon." One woman told me, "blah, blah your stories are boring and sad." (Strangely I feel like this bitchy, mean lady and I could've been friends maybe in an alternate life).

But I'm not going to be mad at discouraging comments people write me. I know there are life lessons one can take from Internet trolls who criticize you when you are down. The troll serves a purpose here, too. So, I will address the grief question. I am going to humor that know-it-all who has never known the reality that is walking into a room to find their spouse and best friend dead on the floor. I wonder if having to see, hear and remember daily the screams of their spouses' parents and siblings at the knowledge of that death would be part of the process of "dealing with grief." How about questioning what you could have done differently that morning 90 days ago, and if anything you did differently could have changed the fates that day. Is that "dealing with grief"? Does the everyday recollection of your son's tears the morning his father died hold any weight in the "dealing with grief" category? I want to know if pulling out every shirt, every pair of pants, every hat from the closet, and holding it close to breathe in the smell of them one more time before you donate it, if that is "dealing with grief." I wonder if it's normal to live in your husband's ratty, old college sweatshirt... morning to night. And is it OK to keep his deodorant in the vanity drawer, just so you can hang onto one last olfactory link to the person you slept next to for almost 20 years? Are those indicators of "dealing with grief"?

I wonder if the woman who questioned me about my rings would care that I take my wedding rings out of the wall safe every couple of days to look at, hold and remember the days those diamonds were on my left-hand ring finger. Could that be classified as "dealing with grief," too? I wonder if choking back tears when your daughters tell you they want their daddy is "dealing with grief." Because I do that almost every day, too.

I would argue that any person who just lost a spouse - no matter how long they were together - will agree that "dealing with the grief" is probably more painful than having a limb chopped off, and probably just as messy. The tears from "dealing with grief" can come on as fierce as a hurricane and harder to stop - but you still try to hide them with assurances of being "fine." Dealing with the grief means sometimes you have to put on a happy face for your children, your coworkers, your neighbors - because if they knew the profound sadness of your heart, their heart just might break, too.

I've connected with quite a few young widows the past 90 days. Some of them were blindsided by the death of their spouse, others had time to prepare for getting their hearts obliterated. Our stories seem to vary widely; some of their husbands died of cancer, like mine. Some died from suicide. Others died from heart attacks or aneurysms. But if you really look at all of us, our stories are the same. We face an unimaginable grief every day. We try and relate the unexplainable feelings of loss to friends around us. We try to explain any and all of it to children who can't even tie their shoes yet. We see the people who tiptoe around us not to offend, or we deal with those who tell us to "just move on," or "get over it." (Note to friends of grieving widows: Telling someone whose heart was ripped and shattered to pieces to "move on" is a huge no-no).

We are "dealing with grief" every. day. we. wake. up.

What it looks like will be varied. It can present as empty smiles. It can be tear-stained cheeks. It can be a laugh one minute and wailing the next. It is asking, "why God?" alone at night or busying herself with her children's' extracurriculars. It can be pajamas at 2 p.m. and it can be ratty sweatshirts as a daily uniform. Yes, there are countless books about coping with grief, but to be honest, there are zero rules to follow. There is no timeline for how long it will last. There are absolutely no guidelines for "dealing with grief." We can't undo it. There is no getting over it. There may or may not be a way to move on from it.

Grief is now a torturous life experience sewn into our hearts. How we move forward, carry on and exist from here out is every widow's choice. She will know, and she will decide how "dealing with grief" will look in her life. And sometimes it may be just as simple as her putting sheets on a bed.

There are people out there who have never dealt with a devastating loss, yet apparently are experts when it comes to losing a spouse.

Andrea Remke

Grieving Memories

Still Learning to be Brave

See You in My Dreams

Please Don't Tell a Widow to 'Get Over It'

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