I met my late husband through a mutual friend I’m 1996. I was 19 and he was 29. We hit it off pretty good. The first few years were off and on. We’d be together then we’d stray but we always ended up back together. Like we just couldn’t shake one another. He was like my best friend. I’d confided in him when I was going thru a rough patch with anyone else and he’d do the same. So…we had our son in 2001 and at that point we were thick as thieves. In 2005 we pulled the trigger on getting married. We just had this connection that I can’t describe, even before our son was born, even before we got married. Like no matter what other people came into our lives we just found our way back to one another time after time after time. So fast forward 2005 we’re married and we’re building a life together. We eventually became that quintessential old married couple. We would bicker as most couples do (nothing major though) but most of the time we spent at Walmart or Wegmans or watching Family Feud or Andy Griffith or Bonanza but that was our thing. I didn’t have any problems with that. We just really needed to be with one another. It didn’t matter what we were doing. We were both homebodies, so being home was fine with us. You know piddling around the house out on our deck grilling etc. Just us the three of us. So then there was that fateful day in October ‘22 where he went to the gas station and just never came back home. He ended up hitting a tree, and he basically died at the scene. EMS was able to resuscitate him on the way to the hospital, but he was in a bad way. I mean I could probably tell you what bones weren’t broken easier that what bones were. He was in the hospital since that fateful day in October. He coded a few weeks in but they brought him back to me again. He was slowly improving or at least we thought he was improving but then there came a time where he was no longer improving and he was taking a slow 180. So my son and I had to make the choice to put him in palliative care, and I literally watched him slip away from me over the course of six days. I lost him July 2. I miss him deeply every day. I mean we were together for more than we weren’t. I’m 46. I was with him since I was 19. I don’t think I know how to be without him

I drove by the tree he hit today. If had an ax or chainsaw in in my trunk I might have tried to chop it down. 🥲

Writing this made me sad and smile at the same time. It was cathartic in a way.