Even if I am young and widowed and we didn’t have much time together, I should remember how we celebrated Thanksgiving. But I don’t.
I wasn’t blessed with five or ten years of holiday traditions with my husband. We celebrated only one Thanksgiving and now I am cursing myself – I can’t remember what we did.
It’s not like the memory is blurry, I have blurry, fuzzy memories of us together. No, this is different. I simply can’t recall. I can’t picture a turkey or who carved it. I can’t image where we where, if we went somewhere, and whether we watched football with family and friends. I don’t remember him yelling at the television when the Redskins missed an interception. Surely I made and ate my mother’s famous sweet potatoes?
Widowed, I find myself reliving holidays – easy markers of a time and place when my husband was still alive. Of course I have no clue what he and I did on a random Wednesday in October, but name a holiday and I’ll remember the details down to what I wore.
Valentine’s Day: dress pants and heels; I met him for the first time at the copy machine. My birthday: I kissed him in polar bear pajamas. His birthday: I wore a hat to shade my face from the sun in Catalina, celebrating his remission. Christmas: in Mexico, tangled in sheets. New Year’s: jeans and a t-shirt.
I admit, I am careless in the few memories I have with him. I started composing settings all my own, creating scenarios of untruths. Like the time we traveled to Bali for our anniversary. Developing my mind’s snapshot of us sunning our summer skin on an Indonesian beach. We never went to Bali.
Maybe I lost our Thanksgiving to my desire of wanting him here. I have so few memories to hold on to, no traditions. I barely have a year. I’m afraid a single memory might slip through my fingers. No matter how tight I squeeze these memories, I’m afraid I might lose them. If I forget the memories, like Thanksgiving, will I lose him to?
Funny, I remember now… I cooked mom’s famous sweet potatoes and we ate them for dessert. I think that will be my new tradition, a photograph of sweet potatoes.
Chasity Turnquist 2010
Tags: Depression, signs and connections
God is good in it all, I lost my Husband after a good year of living together and celebrating the birth of our lovely daughter. It is not easy but be strong and always thank God for the gift of life. If you are a believer remember Heaven is just around the coner.
i lost my husband right before thanksgiving on november 22nd 2010
i lost my husband on 18 November 2010 so sudden i miss him so much
Chasity, I can relate to many aspects of what you have written. I lost my fiance 2 months before our wedding day, in a tragic car accident in the early morning hours on March 9, 2010.
As I have been through the “first holidays”, all I could remember was what we did last year or how we had planned to spend this holiday together this year. But I ended up not doing much on any of the holidays aside from seeing him.
What really touched me about what you wrote, is that I’ve always been afraid that I’ll forget something. No matter how hard I try to hang onto every detail, eventually details gradually slip away. What’s going to happen when I don’t remember all these things down the road?
Like you perfectly stated, I can’t recall what we did on a random day of the year, but on significant days and holidays I can tell you all the details down to what he was wearing too!
You’re not alone in your thoughts dear one, just wanted you to know. And thank you for writing this. Now I know I’m not alone in them as well. 🙂