Last thing I needed first thing this morning.

It’s been exactly three months since my Joe left this world. September 22nd at 1:07am. Twelve weeks missing half of my heart. Ninety days without my soulmate. 2,160 hours lost in grief. 129,600 minutes of loneliness. Sometimes it feels like moments ago, and sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago.

It was over seven million seconds ago.

I listen to his voicemails just to hear his voice. I’m surrounded by his pictures everywhere, talk to him as if he were here with me. This pain is so deep within me that saying “my heart is broken” doesn’t do it justice. Letting him go was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I’ll never forget leaving the hospital in the early morning hours after he passed away. There must have been a dozen family members with me. None of us wanting to walk out for the last time. But as we stepped into the damp dawn air there was a spectacular lightening show happening across the Tulsa sky.

I thought for a moment “Joe just arrived in heaven. He’s already got the party started.”

I will swim as hard as I can today, trying not to drown without him. I’m not sure how long I can hold my breath under water, but if I hit the bottom, I know I need to push myself back up to the surface. And I will.

I leave you with one of our favorite Chris Stapleton songs. It’s about a relationship that ended and the fallout that ensued. Seems perfect for this milestone day. It truly was the last thing I needed the first thing that morning, to have him “walk out” on me.

I know he would have stayed if he could have.