A Place I Used to Know

There’s something cruel about wedding anniversaries after your partner dies.

People still call it your anniversary, but it isn’t really.

Not anymore.

It’s a should have been.

Fuck, I hate that.

This year would have been 46 years. But it’s not.

It’s been four anniversaries without him. Four years of trying to figure out what this day even is now.

At first, the anniversaries felt sharp and panicked. I remember sitting on the deck waiting for a sign from him because he promised me he’d meet me at sunset.

It felt romantic when he said it.

I wanted so badly to believe him.

I remember running from the front of the house to the back in a panic, terrified I’d miss whatever sign was supposed to come.

I searched the sky.

I searched the light.

I searched the silence.

Nothing came.

Or maybe nothing came the way I needed it to.

So I cried.

And I felt devastatingly alone.

That’s the thing about grief. Sometimes we are not only grieving the person. We are grieving the hope that love could somehow outrun death.

Every anniversary since has carried its own ache.

This year brought a different one:

What is this day now?

Is it still an anniversary?

A memorial?

A memory?

Or is it simply the echo of a life I loved deeply?

I found myself thinking about our second anniversary after we got married. He was away at camp and went AWOL just long enough to get me flowers. He could have gotten in real trouble for it.

That was him though. Romantic in the most determined ways.

Over 42 anniversaries together, there were trips, dinners, gifts, concerts, quiet moments, and years where life was messy, exhausting, no extras but there was always something meaningful in the day. One anniversary he bought me a bag of stale jellybeans from the gas station and I will never forget it. He gave me a card that said how much he loved me and one day he would get me the moon if I wanted it. I had everything I wanted.

Some anniversaries he was away, but somehow he always found a way to let me know I was loved. And maybe that’s what I miss most.

Not the presents.

Not the plans.

Not even the traditions.

I miss being loved by him while he was alive.

I miss the certainty of it.

The tangible expression of it.

The way he reached for me. The way he loved me.

Now anniversaries feel like sitting beside a place I used to know.

And maybe that’s what grieving a partner really is: carrying a lifetime of love after the person who held it with you is gone. Some years the grief screams. Some years it sits silently beside you. Some years you search sunsets hoping promises still hold. And some years you simply sit with the ache of loving someone who isn’t coming home.

But even now… after all these anniversaries without him… I still long for a sign he loves me.

What do anniversaries feel for you now? What are you longing for? Please share in the comments.

Love from,

Kath ❤️‍🩹