Tag Archives: wife

1,700 Days: The Architecture of an Unwritten Future

Today marks 1,700 days since Laurie suffered a sudden brain aneurysm and left our world.

Seventeen hundred days. In math, it is just a number. In time, it is four years and eight months—an entire epoch. It is a staggering collection of seconds, mornings waking up to an empty side of the bed, quiet dinners, and milestones quietly passing in the margins of grief.

Lately, though, the weight of those 1,700 days has felt heavier, pressing in with a sharper edge. Standing on the precipice of some upcoming changes in my work life balance, the absence has roared back to the foreground.

When your life shifts, you instinctively look for the person who used to help you anchor it. And when she isn’t there, the transition doesn’t just feel like a new chapter; it feels like navigating an unfamiliar country without a map.

The Unseen Eras

Grief doesn’t move in a straight line, but time does. And across these 1,700 days, an entire world has moved forward without her—a world filled with moments, big and small, that she should have been here to witness, critique, celebrate, or simply share a quiet glance over.

The Quiet Milestones: The everyday shifts that happen when no one is watching. The house projects finished, the appliances broken and replaced, the routines rewritten out of absolute necessity.

The Professional Turns: The career pivots, the professional growth, and the heavy decisions made in empty rooms where there is no one to debrief with at the end of a long day.

The World She Left Behind: A culture, a society, and a community that kept spinning, unaware that for us, the axis had tilted permanently.

When a major shift in work and life balance looms ahead, the instinct is to prepare—to map out the hours, organize the schedule, and brace for the new rhythm. But for those carrying profound loss, preparation always carries a phantom ache. I find myself wondering: How would she have advised me to handle this? How would she have celebrated the wins? What would she have laughed at?

The Geography of Absence

People often talk about grief as a stage you pass through, but for me, it has become more like an architecture. You learn to live within its walls. You find where the light comes in, and you learn which floorboards creak under the weight of memory. Today, those floorboards are creaking loudly.

Work life balance is a buzzword for many, a puzzle to be optimized with better time management or boundaries. But when you are a widower, balance isn’t just about dividing hours between a desk and a home; it’s about managing the invisible labor of missing someone while trying to build a functional life. It’s about walking into a restructured routine and realizing that the person you most wanted to share the peace with is only present in spirit.

Honoring the 1,700th Day

Seventeen hundred days of learning how to hold two opposing truths at the exact same time: that life goes on, demanding your attention, energy, and adaptation; and that a vital piece of your heart checked out nearly five years ago.

If you are walking a similar road, navigating the strange geometry of milestones and transitions while carrying an invisible grief, you know how isolating it can feel when the rest of the world just sees an ordinary Monday.

Today, I am not trying to rush past the heaviness or force a silver lining. I am just sitting with the math. 1,700 days of missing Laurie. And as I step forward into these new changes, I carry her with me—not just as a memory, but as the quiet standard by which I measure everything that comes next.

Never Take A Day For Granted 2023

Mom – died April 7, 2015
Laurie – died November 22, 2021
Laurie’s Mom – died February 6, 2023

My annual post on this day. Admittedly not for everyone, so feel free to scroll on by if you don’t want this reminder.

8 years. How is that possible? It feels like it was just yesterday that our world was shattered. I’m still trying to pick up the pieces. 8 years and hearing the ER doc say the words “terminal brain cancer, there’s nothing we can do” still takes my breath away the same way it did then. It feels like a sucker punch in the gut; one that doubles you over and makes you fall to your knees. One you feel like you’ll never recover from. Our lives would forever be changed that day. I had no idea when I answered moms call that morning that our world was about to be upended in ways we could never imagine.

My annual post on this day….

I made a promise to myself the first year that no matter how much it hurt, I’d make this post on this day every year until I’m no longer able. A reminder to myself, my friends and my family that everyday is a gift and should be treated that way. And now I have the sudden loss of Laurie and the sudden loss of Carol to reinforce that reminder; as if it needs reinforcing.

8 years ago today, it was Thursday morning February 26, 2015. We were on the way to St. Peter’s Hospital with mom for what we thought was another stroke. Within hours, the doctor would tell us it was terminal brain cancer and that there was nothing they could do. Our lives have never been the same since. I’ll never forget what it felt like to have to tell my father and our entire family the news. I’ll never forget the look on my mothers face as she looked at me and said “what did he say, what does that mean?” and to have to explain it to her again so she could begin to understand the gravity of those words. I’ll never forget what it felt like to stand before my mother, the woman who gave me life, and tell her she’s going to die. And then she asked me if she’d live to see summer; her favorite time of the year. I told her we’d try to do everything we could to make that happen. I thought at the time, nothing else in my life would ever be that hard. On the morning of April 5th 2015 when I got to moms house, I knew our situation was bad. I asked her the usual questions you ask someone with a brain injury. Do you know what day it is? Do you know who the President is? Do you know what year it is? My mother couldn’t answer any of them. I placed the 9-1-1 call. As I knelt in front of my mother, waiting for the rescue squad, she had a grand mal seizure. She never regained consciousness. She coded 2x in the ambulance. We signed the papers in the ER for no heroic measures. She died 48 hours later in St. Peter’s Hospice Inn. She didn’t live to see summer. She died April 7, 2015. Just 41 days from the date of the devastating news.

Fast forward to November 21, 2021. Laurie woke up with a bad headache at around 8am. She wanted me to help her get to the bathroom. She collapsed into my arms and onto the bathroom floor. I laid on the floor with her as I frantically called 9-1-1. By the end of the day, I’d learn she was brain dead. Gone in an instant. No chance to even say a single word to her ever again. She’d be declared the next day at 12:21pm.

Fast forward to February 6, 2023. Just 3 weeks ago. My phone rang at work. It was news that Laurie’s mom was gone. I had texted with her 2 days earlier. She said she couldn’t talk and that she’d talk to me later. That never happened.

When people tell you to never take a day for granted and that your life can change in the blink of an eye, they are right. I know it. I FELT IT ALL 3 OF THOSE TIMES. I knew in that instant my life would never be the same. That EVERYTHING would change. Please, please live each day to the fullest. You never know what tomorrow may bring. Have that ice cream. Make that phone call. Buy that dress. Take that vacation. Buy your dream car. Tell someone you love them. Give that hug. Take that drive. You may never get that chance again.

3 of the most important women in my life. Gone in an instant. What I wouldn’t give for one more day, one more hour, one more minute to tell them what they meant to me.