Something Resembling Lemonade

19 years! Happy (almost) 19 years! We dated for 6 years so we were together almost 25 years! How do you celebrate that when they’re no longer here?

My anniversary fell the day after Father’s Day this year so we were already out of town. (see Father’s Day post). We drove down to the beach to spend the day. Little Man has always wanted to go. He was so young when we went that he doesn’t remember. Now, Tim didn’t love the beach so it may seem like a strange place to go. He didn’t love being in it, but he loved looking at it and hearing it. Once we were there, I remembered that a lot of our youth retreats were during Father’s Day week so it was kind of fitting being there. I would usually have to take his gifts and then I would buy him ice cream and root beer so he could drink a root beer float.

The kids and I went to the public beach area and enjoyed the ocean. M was in the ocean with N and got some seaweed on her arm. There was apparently a jellyfish tentacle in it and it stung her. Needless to say, her day was ruined. She sat in the chair the rest of the time there. L could’ve stayed all day. He loved it.

We changed clothes and then had an early dinner. I took them to Doc’s Seafood. Tim and I had eaten there many times when we were there for retreats and took our youth kids. It was delicious as always. Then we headed back to our hotel and went swimming.

While swimming I met a couple there and we started talking. She understood grief. She had lost a son to cancer. I know losing a child and losing a spouse are different but loss of a loved one is a loss. Her name was Amanda. It was good to talk to her and she was encouraging.

It didn’t feel right to let the day go by without acknowledging it so I made a FB post. I sat in the pool lounge chair and just cried. It hurts to think about but it hurts to not think about it. My sister called and we talked and cried. She wasn’t sure how to go about it. You don’t want to ignore it but it feels wrong saying Happy Anniversary because there’s nothing really happy about it, right?

When I got home, there were cards from my sisters. I also had a gift from one of them. It was a “Wear the Ring” bracelet. I have never heard of it but it was a great way to wear his ring. It was a sweet, thoughtful gift.

So not everything went so smoothly this day but we still had a good time and made some new memories. My daughter thanked me multiple times for our weekend. It definitely beat sitting around the house all weekend, doing nothing and being sad.

Like I said in my last post, you can run from grief and we weren’t trying to. We were just trying to find a way to survive it. We were trying to make something resembling lemonade.