I fell down the big black hole of grief today. Deep into the hole. It’s been a while.

It started with my mammogram screening. As I sat in that little room waiting to be called back, all I could think about was “what if something’s wrong” and “how would I go through that alone”.

Next came the search I was doing on Facebook. I was looking for content for our Pikestrong page, the page I keep up to remind everyone to get screened for colon cancer. It was near and dear to Joe’s heart so it’s my mission to continue his. Anyway, the search somehow brought up the live feed from Joe’s funeral last September. For an instant I didn’t recall any of it. I couldn’t bring a single image to mind about that day.

So I watched it. And I think cried even harder than I did that day. I’m not sorry I watched the video. I appreciated being reminded about what a truly remarkable man my Joe was, and I know I was the luckiest girl in the world to call him mine.

But sometimes all that love isn’t strong enough to carry all this grief.

In true Joe fashion, he sent a beautiful red cardinal to land on the feeder just in eye shot of me blubbering like an idiot in the living room. The moment I saw him I wiped my tears away. I also laughed because I could hear Joe saying

“enough already Kell, just imagine me grabbing your boob”

My husband could always snap me out of it by making me laugh. And grabbing a boob was a signature “Joe move”, especially on the day they smashed them like pancakes.

So this evening, I’m left with most likely a perfectly normal mammogram, and even if it isn’t I know I wouldn’t walk that journey alone. I’m also left with all the wonderful memories of my beautiful man, a massive headache from crying so hard, and an empty bird feeder because apparently that cardinal was quite hungry.