Mark would have turned 50 this coming Saturday. My bank wished me a happy birthday month today because of it. I had to go into the bank to get that fixed. Apparently our birthdays had gotten mixed up.
I don't love the reminder. I was with Mark for a long time. He should still be here, sputtering and angry.
I am a member of the Dead Husbands Club. We met, a few of us, on Sunday to talk and laugh and compare notes. How are all the kids doing? How is your love life? What are the pain points?
There are too many of us in the club. We always wish it was smaller. But when me met in late 2015, it was being thrown a lifesaver. They are the only people in the world I don't have to explain myself to. We met in a grief group. We all had kids and our husbands (or exes) had all died by suicide. One woman was several years out. Most of us were fresh. Some of us had been divorced, but not all. Even those of us who were divorced talked about how close we still were with our exes. Many of us had anticipated the suicides, at least one of us was taken completely by surprise. We had ups and downs as a group, but often I felt like we were best friends when sitting in that room.
We have stayed in touch. Seeing people last Sunday was a breath of air. It felt good to talk about the trouble our kids were having or not having. It felt good to know that at least one of us had gotten married again. We discussed dating apps and whether or not to list ourselves as divorced or widowed.
We have always laughed too much maybe for a grief group, but it feels right. We are facing so much every day. The exhaustion of solo parenting cannot be explained easily. There is no us. There is only me.
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