It wasn’t easy talking with our financial advisor, making decisions about the money.  It’s our money, it’s your money.  It isn’t easy to make decisions and think about the future without talking with you, planning with you.  

It isn’t easy going to the store.  The list is so short, and the things that sound good are things you made for us and they sound so good because the memory is laced with visions of you standing in the kitchen preparing dinner, talking about our days.  The memories are also tainted with how difficult enjoying food became for you; the struggle to find something that wouldn’t cause you discomfort, the heartbreak at seeing a many who loved good food not able to enjoy any of it anymore.

It isn’t easy to be alone in this house.  I try to stay as busy as I can, but by evening, when the sun sets and the TV comes on, everything feels dark and empty.  Trudy goes outside and lays on her perch for hours.  “Yellowstone” might be the worst choice, but there isn’t a show on that doesn’t remind me of you.  

It isn’t easy to go to bed.  Another day spent without you, another night without you there.  I want to sleep, but I don’t want to wake as the mornings are so hard, the reality of your absence is tangible.

It hasn’t even been easy to be with friends.  They are our friends, afterall, and being with them punctuates your absence.  You were always there with me.  I miss seeing you across the table, or sitting next to me.  I miss when our house was filled with friends and you were there at the heart of it all.  They weren’t my friends, they weren’t yours, they were all ours. 

I miss our conversations. It isn’t easy to be all alone.   I am surrounded by friends and family and yet I’ve never felt so lonely.  I sat out on the porch today, on this beautiful, sunny winter day, with temps high above normal and thought of the hundreds of hours you and I have sat side by side in those chairs just talking.  There’s no one to talk with like that.  There’s no one to sit and dream with, to sit and reminisce with, to sit and savor the moments on the farm with.  

It isn’t easy to go to school and write plans knowing that I’ll return to work next month.  It isn’t easy to even picture trying to teach, trying to focus on the lessons and the kids and all that they need from me.  It isn’t easy to get in the car and come home to an empty house.  The realization that you aren’t just down at the barn or running to the hardware store hits hard every time I come up the drive.

And today, it sure isn’t easy to know that a dozen years ago I met you.  The night before the Super Bowl, you sat down beside me and changed my life forever.  I am, without a doubt, better for the time we spent together, but my god how I want more years.  

It isn’t easy to remain in this life, to live in the midst of our dream, to look out over our farm, from our porch and to know that it will never be what we had dreamt it to be anymore.  It isn’t easy to let that go, to accept that reality, to find any peace about it at all.  

I just want you to come back.  I want you to be here, with me.  I want our life back.  I want you back.  I don’t need it to be easy, I just need it to be together.