Notes from my journal before Rick died 1/1/2017

I never finished writing this journal entry, but it was interesting coming across it several months after Rick died. I didn’t have much time to write, but I’m glad I had this one short entry because it reminds me of how early on the reality of his impending death really started to sink in.

January 1, 2017

It’s hitting me today. Rick is sleeping again, and I’m going through old pictures of our trip to England. Suddenly, I just started sobbing. I don’t know exactly why, but I don’t want this to end. I want to take more trips with him. He really isn’t going to be here to retire together and have adventures, is he?

I looked at all these scenes where he drove me everywhere to look at cemeteries and towns and old inns. He listened to me tell him all this history and genealogy that doesn’t interest him very much at all, but he took me anyway. He’s taken me to Maine and Indiana and all the other places my ancestors are buried just because he loves me. I don’t take any of that for granted….

 

About the author

Katherine Billings Palmer is a technical writer, poet, and essayist from Garden City, Michigan. She’s won several academic writing awards, including first place in the University of Michigan Dearborn Critical Essay Contest for her work about poet John Donne: “‘The Sun Rising’: A Lover’s Boast.”

In 2017, Katherine’s husband, Rick, died of complications from small cell lung cancer. She wrote a series of poems and essays about her struggles to cope with her grief. I Wanted to Grow Old With You is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

Her latest book, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year was published in January 2019 and is also available on Amazon.com.

Katherine is a guest blogger for the Hope for Widows Foundation and writes about her grief journey at www.TheWritingWidow.com.

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