Building a new relationship after my wife's death.

Last week was not as difficult as I feared but perhaps was more thoughtful. It was good that we all went to the grave together. I think Scott was the most affected and the one who experienced the most sadness. His reaction was obvious while we were there but even that seemed pass fairly soon after we left. We had lunch at a cheese steak restaurant that the kids like so that helped us all get past the experience.

More to the point for, me is a different phenomenon that I set myself up for. I somehow anticipated that the one-year anniversary would be the date when things changed. It isn’t. Nor is it rational to expect that anything would change on that day either more or less than any other day. In fact, I seem to be thinking about Jo more often than I did earlier. Perhaps because of the focus on the anniversary, and because of the publicity associated with the Terry Schiavo feeding tube issue. No matter the cause, it is still true that the loneliness, and my lack of understanding are often foremost in my thoughts. I have thoughts often that it is so strange that I would be alone without Jo Lynn. I just never ever thought that this would be the case. Even though she was in grave danger from the cancer and we knew from the beginning that the survival rate from esophageal cancer is only 15% to 25%. We talked about her death but I never thought (or understood) that I would be unprepared for the day-to-day consequences of living alone and of missing her all the time.
It seems like I should have more to say but for now nothing seems to come to me.