Everyday I wake up hours before the alarm goes off and I lay there in the bed we shared for 12 years. Alone again. 52 days of being alone. Then the panic starts to settle into the hole where my heart used to be. It starts to spread through my body and I wonder if I am having a heart attack. Do I finally get to die? Can I just be still and let it come over me? I can't breath - gulping for air. All the things I have to do today - all the phone calls I have to make -decisions that I don't know how to make. I used to be smart - smart enough to get around in the world. Not now - now I have lost my mind.

Didn't think I could miss someone this much. I knew that I loved him but never knew just how much. How much I made him my world. Yes, I have kids and they are everything to me. But this man - this man that loved me, hurt me, helped me grow, gave me purpose - this man that filled me with dreams and allowed me to be more than I had hoped. This man. He was the first man I had ever been with. Sure there were guys along the way and that young man that I married once upon a time. But this man - he was a man. Never thought I was worthy of him. Always wondered what he saw in me. Still not sure. Not sure about a lot of thngs.

Did I tell him enough that I loved him? Probably not. Defense mechanism from past hurts. I let too much junk get in the way and doubted him. The last time I saw him alive I asked him, "have you been happy with me?" Little did I know that was our last face to face conversation. I thought he was coming home the next day. He said, "yes, I have been very happy with you." All I ever wanted to do was to give him all that he gave me and more. To make him happy and be the partner that I knew he wanted and dreamed of. We had a life here - it wasn't perfect but there was shining moments that are eternal.