1,000 Days Older Than Gary

What Time Taught Me About Grief

1,000 days, 22 hours, 43 minutes.

Not since he died. Since I have been older than he ever got to be.

This weekend, I became one thousand days older than Gary was when he took his last breath.

One thousand days.

I have been gifted one thousand more days than his wonderful life.

I am sitting with that this morning, and I want to tell you what time has been to me, because I think it might help.

You should know that I have been a day counter my whole life. When my babies were little, I counted every day. I counted weeks. I counted milestones. Time has always mattered to me.

So when Gary took his last breath, you can guess what my brain did.

I started counting.

I would wake up every single morning and know how many days it had been since November 27, 2021. I knew the count without looking. I knew it on day 47. I knew it on day 102. I knew it deep into the 500s and the 600s without ever needing to check my phone. There is still a hidden window on my phone with the search, "How many days since November 27, 2021." I do not look at it anymore. But it is there. Just in case.

For a long time, I used those numbers to bully myself.

You should be further along.

You should be doing better.

You should not still be crying at day 600.

It has been a year. Why are you not stronger by now?

Every number became a measuring stick I held up against my own grief. Every milestone became a reason to feel like I was failing. The math kept getting bigger, and my progress kept feeling smaller, and somewhere along the way, time stopped being a comfort and started being a critic.

Here is what I want to tell you.

Anything about time is a bully.

It does not matter if the words are coming from someone else. It does not matter if they are coming from your own mind. The moment time becomes the measuring stick, you have stopped being kind to yourself.

"You should be over it by now."

"It has been a year. Maybe you should start dating."

"Why am I still crying in the shower at four years out?"

"It is supposed to be getting easier."

All of those sentences are bullies. They look like progress checks. They are not. They are little knives.

We said our love was eternal. We said our love was forever. We said our love would transcend everything. So why in the world would we use time to hurt ourselves about it?

Grief does not move in days or months or years. It does not check the calendar. It does not care that you have had more anniversaries pass than you can count. The love is forever, and that means the missing is forever too. It changes shape. It softens. It surprises you. But it does not follow a timeline, and neither should you.

I will tell you what finally helped me stop counting up from his last breath.

I figured out exactly how many days old Gary was when he died. How many hours. About how many minutes. He was just under two years older than me, and at some point, I realized I would eventually pass him. I would become older than my older husband ever got to be.

So I bought a device. It is called Time Since Launch. It is a ridiculous amount of money for what it is. It was also the best investment I ever made for myself, because once I started it, I did not have to count anymore. The machine counts up. I do not.

And what it counts is not the days since he died.

It counts the days I have been gifted.

This weekend, the counter passed one thousand. One thousand days that Gary did not get to have. One thousand days that I am still here to live. One thousand days of waking up and drinking coffee and missing him and laughing with the grandkids and crying when a song comes on and feeling him near me anyway.

One thousand days of being the keeper of our love.

I am almost fifty-nine. I will probably have another thousand days. And another thousand after that. I do not know how many more thousands of days I have, but I know that Gary is still with me. The love is still here. I am still here. And I get to live, and experience all of it, and bring him with me.

Here is what I want you to hear if you are reading this and the math feels heavy.

When you are in grief, especially in the early years, it can feel like you are not making progress at all. It feels stagnant. It feels like walking through marshmallow. Every step takes everything you have, and looking back, you cannot even tell that you have moved.

But you have moved.

You really have.

This morning, as I was sitting with the one thousand days, I read a poem by Morgan Harper Nichols.
It is from her book All Along You Were Blooming. And it said exactly what I needed to hear, so I want to give it to you too.

There will be times
when the last thing
you want to do
is hear
that you have
to keep going.
The last thing
you want to do
is feel
you have to keep pushing.

Let the breaths
leaving your body,
second by second,
remind you
how seconds soon
turn into minutes,
and these minutes
soon turn into hours,
and hours
then turn into days
and even though you once thought
you were stagnant,
you have made it
a miraculously long way through the darkness.

A miraculously long way through the darkness.

That is what you are doing. Right now. As you are reading this. As you are wondering if you are doing any of it right.

Our season of grief is darker than we could have imagined. It is darker than anyone watching from the outside can understand. And you are making it through. One breath. One second. One day at a time.

Please stop measuring yourself against the calendar.

Please stop letting time be the bully.

You are still here. That matters. That is the thing that matters.

Allow yourself a little gratitude. Take some pride in the steps you have made, even the ones where you were crumbled on the floor. You are here, and that means there is hope. You are here, and that means there is light, and life, and love.

And you, my friend, are doing it.

You are doing it.

If the math has been bullying you, and you would like a quiet space to talk about what time has been doing to your heart, I would be glad to sit with you. You can schedule a free Holding the Ember conversation any time. There is no rush. There never has to be.