11 Months...

Well, I'm in the 11th month. It's here...and I can't avoid the hardest days of my life coming up even though I wish I could get on a plane and come back May 1st.

This is just so hard...I'm only 32, it isn't fair that I lost Richie after only 19 months of marriage. It's not fair that I have to be strong and have a house, a dog, a cat, bills, taxes, and all kinds of responsibilities alone. Richie and I were creating a life together...he was supposed to be here with me to help do all this! It's too much sometimes and it's overwhelming.

It has been a year filled with people watching me with worried looks, my family and I not getting along because no one knows what to say or do half the time and I don't seem to know how to communicate anything I am feeling to them. It has been the hardest year of my life and I am just tired of it all. I want to feel better ALL the time, not just half the time. I am doing all the right things- I go to counseling, I have a grief group at a local church where we pray and talk with each other, and I talk every day with my online widow support group. I mean, I am doing everything they say to do.

I know that it all takes time but I am tired of being like this and I feel myself going backwards again now that I am approaching the month of April. I will always hate that month now for the rest of my life. It's just like the day of the week- Tuesday- the worst day of the week for me. That's the night I never can sleep, that's the night that when I pull in the garage I hate getting out of the car, that is the night that these last few weeks when its been warm, I have gotten out and walked in the front door because I want my "routine" to be different from that night. My counselor says this is normal- just like I haven't driven home up 400 since the day he died. I take an entirely different route home and I have since that day.

I went to Kennestone a few weeks ago to see Sarah Beth. I even went inside. When I did I looked down the hall and saw the bathroom that Stacy Whitfield took me in to clean my face and my knees off. I remember asking her what I was going to do now and she just shook her head. No one knew what I was going to do....and even today, I'm not sure what I am going to do.

God, please help me these next few weeks. I have to face so much- his 35th birthday, Easter, the one year and then the night we award the scholarship. That night is proof he is never coming home to me again.

Richie, the memories of our last month together are so precious to me and even though remembering is hard, I am so thankful I have those memories to keep me close to you.