As the sixth anniversary of Rick’s death approaches, I realize I’ve had many shifts in my attitude about how I view my life here alone. For about the first two years, my whole identity was that of a widow. I was still part of a couple, one of us just wasn’t living. I continued to participate with most of the habits and activities we used to do together, like Sunday mornings in our booth at the diner, sitting under the gazebo in the evenings, working on home improvement projects, but life was a lot quieter doing those things alone. I think I wanted to preserve the feeling that he was still here. Making too many changes would negate the life we created.
But after a couple of years, I gave up. There was no bringing him back, and as I started to feel more single, and no longer half of a couple, I changed as a person…
Once I began to start dating, I missed him all over again. There is just no one like him. And that’s normal, I guess. I picked him as the person I wanted to spend my life with, so we must’ve been pretty compatible, more so than I would be with some new man. But Rick and his own unique personality, sense of humor, vast scope of knowledge and intelligence, creativity, spunk, and kookiness, all rolled into one.. how would I ever find someone like that again?
