An Anniversary Date to Remember

   I can't let this weekend go by without acknowledging the anniversary date that has just passed.  It was three years ago yesterday that I lost my husband Ron to his glioblastoma brain cancer.  There, I said it.  And it has taken three years to get to this point.  It took a year to stop looking at the clock each day at 5 expecting him to walk through the door.  It took the second year to pretend we were doing better because that's what everyone expected from us.  It also took that year to submit my line to quilt market, get published in a magazine, learn to work a shopping cart website and write this blog every week.  In other words, to chose my new path, one without my love or his support.  And this third year has been acceptance.  Yes, I am alone, yes, he is really not coming back, yes, I miss him with every fiber of my being and these dates put a big, giant period on those facts, I accept that now.
   This anniversary I took a journey back in time, and was able to look through the photo albums and smile through my tears.  We made a good life, two beautiful children and shared a love some people go a life time without experiencing.  I was so lucky, I would never have said that two years ago.  I'm better.

Road Trip 1988

We were married at city hall in shorts.  So for my 50th birthday we remarried with all of our friends and family from as far away as Austrailia.  He was so sick that night, so sick, but he would do anything to make me happy and he knew I would need these memories to get me through what was coming.  Three months after this photo was taken he was gone.

When I saw this quilt at the Glendale show it took my breath away, it was him.

Wearing his red Honda ball cap and reaching to pick up our daughter.   Of course it wasn't really him but it gives me comfort to think he knows what I've done to keep things together and he's proud of me.