You can run but you can’t hide. I tried to keep busy the entire first year. I thought I was just distracting myself but in reality I was running. How do I know this? Because right around Christmas and for the following 2 months it hit me hard. The depression was fierce but there was nothing I could do to stop it nor would I have tried. At that point I realized I needed to go through the depression and deal with it. I’m coming out of it now but the pain of missing him was just so real. To look around this house that he never lived in and never saw with his own eyes and realize that he never would was difficult. To watch the kids playing in the big back yard we always wanted them to have and know that he would never be here to throw a ball around with the kids or wrestle in the grass with them was difficult. To watch the pool getting maintenance done and know that soon it would be swim season and he wouldn’t be here laughing and goofing off with us was difficult.

I remember when he was home on leave we went to my aunt and uncle’s for dinner. Two of my cousins were spending a few weeks with them and I wanted some of my family to finally meet Paul. We all went swimming in their pool and I had just pushed Edwin in the water and was laughing about it when the next thing I knew Paul flew up out of the water. I would of swore he had a batman cape on. And before I knew it I was pushed into the pool myself! He’s the only person to have ever done that to me and it was fun to banter with him about it. That time is gone and now it’s just a memory.

Another favorite “in the pool” memory was also when he was home on leave. He and Devlin were playing in the pool at our former apartment complex and he had Devlin on his shoulders and they were playing. Paul would go under water taking Devlin with him and then they’d both come back up laughing. Well at one point a bee landed on Devlin’s head. We’re all screaming, “A bee! A bee! Go under water!” And he’s just standing there with a dumb founded look on his face and going, “What”? And we’re all still telling him to go under water. Finally he went under water and the bee flew off. Paul got out of the pool and chased it to killed it with a flip flop. I have this one on video that I’ll eventually post here. But it’s one of the last memories Devlin will have of his daddy and he’s already forgetting it as his memories get filled with more recent adventures.

He’s come to me a lot lately telling me he misses Daddy. Every time it breaks my heart. I try to just hug him and tell him I miss him too and that’s ok to miss Daddy. I tell him that missing Daddy means he loves him. But it’s just so difficult and painful. It hurts my heart to know that Devlin will be growing up without his Daddy. There are so many things that Daddy’s are supposed to teach their little boys. So many things they are supposed to do together and Devlin won’t get to experience that. He has no Daddy to take him to Cub Scouts. He has no Daddy to teach him how to throw a baseball or hit a ball. He has no Daddy to finish teaching him how to ride a 2 wheel bike. There will be no father-son fishing and camping trips. There will be no learning to work on a car together days or playing fix-it man around the house.

All of it just hurts. And there is nobody that can take this pain away. There is nobody who can make it all better. There is nobody that can help. Sure we have friends and family but it is impossible for any of them to fill that hole that’s been left in our family. In six days it will be 18 months since Paul was killed. Some days it still feels like yesterday that they knocked on my door. The only reminder that it wasn’t is that I wake up in a different house. I miss him. I miss his companionship, his friendship, his love and affection and his support. I rejoined in Weight Watchers last week and this time around is so much harder. I never really realized how much of a support he was to me even from Iraq. He used to make sure he would log on some time Friday night just to find out how my weigh-in went. And he’d “woo hoo” and cheer through the computer. He’d tell me how proud he was of me and he knew I could do it.

I miss him. I’m lonely and yet I’m always surrounded by my kids. I hate this.

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