Remembering Ken

Last week I flipped the calendar to September.  On the 19th it will be nine months since Ken died.  And I realized this September 19th would have been our 25th wedding anniversary.   That thought has prompted tears, crying, sobs, and feelings of being cheated like something was taken from me. 

That realization opened a new and dangerous path up to my view.  Since Ken’s death I have seen, and maybe even stared down two paths I quickly abandoned: “what if…” and “I wish I had…”  This new path was “it could have been.” 

After a few days of feeling despondent I mentioned this to a friend who lost her infant child.  She told me something that made me realize that child is a shadow at each marker of what would have been his life – first day of school for example.  That is a REAL could have been…

This snapped me awake to realize how I had been given time with Ken, and I simply wanted more.  And I understood that like the paths of what if and I wish I had, this new path of it could have been was not a place where I want to live – not even “a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

So, instead I am focused on how I met Ken in 1990, moved to live with him in 1992, married him in 1993, and lived with him until December 2017.  That is almost 30 of my 62 years.  Yes, it is sad he is gone.  But wasn’t I, weren’t we all, lucky to know him?