A letter to my husband on his 50th birthday

Dear Jon,

Last night when I couldn't sleep I started thinking about writing to you.  Tomorrow will be your 50th birthday and of all the 'anniversaries' since your death, this one seems particularly hard. 

You were always better at writing the soppy stuff than me.  Even though your handwriting and spelling was terrible, you always used to write the loveliest messages to me in birthday and anniversary cards.  I write the occasional blog, but you were always so much better at expressing your love for me and the children in writing.  I wish I had trusted that love more. When I read those cards back now, I can see that your love was constant and uncomplicated.  You were proud to be my husband and proud to be a father.   I wish I had seen that and just enjoyed it.  I was wrapped up in the everyday and I was insecure.  I questioned our relationship.  I didn't need to.   You loved me the way that I am, you chose me, you liked me knowing that I could be a prick sometimes.  I know no-one will ever love me like that again.  The loss of that love is unbearable.

I wish I had been able to do more when you were ill.  But I know I did what I could manage at the time. It was such a shock and even now I can’t grasp the full horror of what we went through.  What you went through.  I have flashbacks to treatments and conversations with doctors and know that I was sleep walking through it all.  Lurching from one thing to another until our time was finally up.  I wonder now if I could have done more.  Would that second opinion that we didn't get around to, have made a difference?  I did what I could but it wasn't enough.  I wasn't able to fight hard enough.  I couldn't save you and that makes me so sad.

I miss you every single day but today it all feels more unjust. You should be 50. You should be celebrating. You should be growing more handsome everyday, like older men do. You were once compared to Cary Grant, maybe you would look even more like him now?  You wanted to go to a desert for your 50th,  we should be there now looking at whatever it was you wanted to see, experiencing whatever you wanted to experience. I am so angry because of what happened to you.  I want you to be here; it's unfair that you’re not.

I am also angry at you.   Angry that you left me behind.  Everyday I feel like I can’t do it without you but here I am getting up each morning and carrying on. I think the truth is that I don’t want to do it without you. I just don’t want to do anything without you.  I know you would want me to keep trying though, so I do.  My phone is filling up with photos taken after your death, proving that our lives continue. But every photo I take, takes me further from you.  You enabled me.  You gave me so much and without you my life is smaller. 

I sometimes see you in dreams.  I can't control my mind during sleep.  I can't distract myself from grief.  Sometimes we are happy, dancing, having fun.  Other times I just need to do one more thing and I can have you back but I'm never able to work out what that thing is.  I have found my way to your side of the bed. I often wake up there these days. You never liked sleeping without me when I was away on school trips and training days. You always said it just felt wrong having the bed to yourself.  I would laugh and go on about the luxury of having the whole bed. Now I’ve got it all to myself permanently and it turns out you were right.  You were right about many things.

I miss you so much Jon.  Especially today.  I wish you were 50 today.