4 birthdays, 51 Years, and Thousands of Miles

Maggie: He's dead and I'm alive.

Jim: That's what I'd keep in mind.

- "Election Night, Part 2" - The Newsroom


Steve's first birthday after his death, I went to Venice, Italy. It was the last vacation Steve and I had planned, with hotel and plane tickets already booked and bought. His birthday was a mere two months after his death. Terrified if I stayed home I would harm myself, knowing Steve would want me to enjoy life and move forward, believing I needed to at least try and move forward even if I was still widow-fogged most days - I changed his ticket over to a friend and away we went anyway.

That trip I can only see in my memory as snapshots through a haze. I know I was hysterical. Not always in the funny sense but in the "unmanageable emotional excess" sense. Everything was, emotionally, to the extreme. I laughed inappropriately, I cried unstoppably, I fell down stairs, I forgot things, I couldn't figure out how to get into buildings. I sat in quiet moments trying to imagine what we'd have been doing at that moment in that place then I tried to go do all those things. I failed. It wasn't the success or failure that was important, and I knew it. It was the trying that mattered. But I didn't do it alone and we muddled through, hysterical laughter and all. In the end, going to Venice was the best decision I could have made. I'm proud of myself for having braved moving forward through my pain.

The following year I wanted to leave the country again. It felt right in my soul, to travel back to Italy. And, honestly, I couldn't think of anywhere else to spend the time. So I asked my remaining friends if they'd like to go but the time away and expense made it impossible. My father had died that summer and as Steve's birthday approached, I felt trapped in a pressure cooker. Only in a total panic, a month before Steve's birthday, was I able to make the commando decision to travel alone when I booked my trip to Florence, Italy.

I had never gone on vacation alone before, let alone in a foreign country. But I gave myself over to the experience and enjoyed my travels in ways I could never have imagined. I walked the city streets from 8 am to well after midnight. I explored museums, estates, and gardens the like that are only available in Europe. I drank copious amounts of red wine, ate miles of fresh pasta, learned to drink cappuccino only in the mornings and espresso only after dinner. In Florence, I found my strength again. And, being Florence, I found beauty again. The pure joy of finding strength and beauty refreshed my soul.

The third time his birthday rolled around Steve would have been fifty, a landmark year. A month later would have been our tenth wedding anniversary. I chose to move my annual Steve's-dead-travel-to-Italy-trip back a month, and booked myself to visit Rome. This time I was able to book months ahead and, though would have enjoyed traveling with a companion, didn't flinch at the idea of traveling alone.

But a complication arose between booking the trip and leaving. I met the Piper. And though I was constantly battling feelings that I was a adulteress whore for "cheating" on my dead husband, it was becoming clear to me I was in love. My trip was marked by visiting Roman ruins, and running back to the hotel to Skype. Visiting the Vatican, and running back to the hotel to Skype. Drinking from the aqueducts, eating gelato, visiting museums,  resisting the urge to jump into Trevi Fountain, and running back to the hotel to Skype.

I went to dinner the night of my wedding anniversary, looking over Rome's city lights, and came to peace with removing my wedding band from my hand. And when I returned home from my trip, I had someone special waiting for me. I was ready.

This is the fourth birthday of Steve's since his death. I'm not in Italy. I'm not going to Italy next month. I'm not traveling again until my honeymoon in May, when I'll be traveling with the Piper. We'll be traveling to Spain when we go.

But last night, because the night before an event is when I'm at my weakest, my Piper did something beautiful. After we tucked the girls in bed, he turned down the lights and presented me with a cupcake lit with a birthday candle. He suggested I make a wish for Steve, blow, and then share a special Steve memory. One of my favorites. And that's what we did. Together. I spoke of Steve, our life and love. And my piper sat with a smile absorbing every word.

I'm not in Italy this year. And instead of eating alone at a fancy restaurant, I'll be running kids to swim practice and fitting meals in between trips. I'll be checking homework and reminding everyone to do their chores. I will be yelling at dogs to quit chewing each other's faces off and trying to fold laundry. It will be pure mayhem. And I will love very minute of it.

Today my husband would have been fifty-one. Today I am thirty-nine. Today is so completely different than yesterday.

Happy birthday, my love.