57

It's Christmas Eve, 2018.
My husband has been dead for 57 days...57 ... his favorite number - 57 Chevy Belair - his favorite car... 57.

The picture above is our daughter. Our Joy - our everything. She can crack my heart wide open with that smile of hers. She doesn't know how beautiful she really is, she is caught in the world of 14 year old girls who don't know their real value and worth, only see their imperfections and straining to bust into the "real world" sooner than it is quickly coming to them anyway.

This is actually the second picture I took of her tonight. We were at a friend's home, surrounded by laughter and fun happening all around us, and I looked up and saw her from across the room. Tall, thin, wild hair, beautiful smile, she just took my breath away. I picked up my phone (some of y'all might can guess what happened) to take a picture and my first thought was to send it to her dad. Not unusual for us to be separated at parties like this, during the holidays due to his work schedule, so it was just a natural reflex to want to take a picture and send him that image of his girl... and then it hit me. I couldn't do it. He wouldn't get it. His phone is uncharged and in the closet. It was the loose chink in the armor I had built around my heart for this night and for tomorrow.  I crumbled.

That's what my life is like now, moments of strength followed by moments of senility, followed by rational thoughts and finally a flood of tears. I know it will get better, but tonight, in the stillness of my house, alone with my aching heart, I am having trouble sensing the peace I so loudly proclaim as my gift from God through this mess.

Pray for me tonight, pray for me tomorrow. I don't want to wallow and I want to move past..it's just so hard, so hard, so hard.

57 days.