Zibby Mag

By Melissa Gould

It’s been eight years since he died, and his birthday hit me especially hard this year.

We celebrated my husband’s fifty-eighth birthday recently, although he never turned older than fifty. That’s how old he was when he died: fifty years and almost three months. I have shared extensively about Joel and losing him to MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and the West Nile virus. There have been so many essays, so many readings, and of course, Widowish, my memoir, which is centered around our life and love and what life was like the first year after his death.

I lost my husband; our daughter lost her father. Our friends lost their friend, Joel’s parents lost their son, and his sister lost her brother. Same person, multifaceted life. So many people who loved him, lost him, and still miss him.

It’s been eight years. There are no new pictures of him. No new shoes. No car keys to find or meals to eat or books to read. No TV shows or movies seen. No new music or concerts. No new experiences. Even our daughter said, “I’m a kid in every picture with daddy. I had braces. I don’t look like that anymore.”

I told her, “Those memories, those photos give the feeling of daddy. That is everything.”

For his birthday we went to a Dodgers game, had bagels, and ate Mexican food — all things that Joel loved. It’s what we would have done with him if he were still here. It’s so nice that we have these real, tangible things that help keep him close.

The things I love are so different: coffee, being at home, not traveling, not doing new things, or going to events with crowds or lines. I know what I like, but the list of things I don’t like seems to be bigger. Maybe that’s what our daughter will have to do when I’m not here anymore — have coffee and chocolate and dairy-free Ben & Jerry’s and maybe watch some reality TV.

I don’t know that grief ends. I hate all of the clichéd phrases like “Grief has no timeline.” But I keep thinking that I — the writer of grief — will be done grieving at some point. That I will have written and spoken everything there is to write and say about losing my husband, my love, my friend. That I will be over it someday.

But there really is no getting over it. Even with my full life, my friends, and my new love (who isn’t so new anymore), I carry Joel — and my grief — with me as I move forward in life.

It’s hard to imagine what Joel would be like now. Kind, funny, and supportive, as always. But I wonder: Would he have all of his hair? Wrinkles on his handsome face? Would he be using a cane to help steady his walk? But perhaps all of the banalities of everyday life and marriage and parenting that seemed to do me in at various times during our sixteen-plus years together would have taken a toll.

I was constantly overwhelmed with the many tasks to cross off the list: work and school and vacations and date nights and doctor appointments. Joel’s MS was hard on both of us. It was robbing Joel of the things that made him him. It was harder to communicate and discuss what was going on in his body. He wanted his independence. He didn’t want me to be his nurse. I didn’t know if I could be. I knew that things were getting worse, that they were likely going to stay worse, but I’ll never have the luxury of knowing how we might have managed.

As I said to our daughter, I carry the feeling of Joel. Memories of us happy together and liking each other’s company, of unconditional love. But his birthday hit me hard this year. Eight years and I miss him. I miss the things he has missed for him, and I miss them for our daughter. I miss that there are no new pictures. So I took this one, imagining that I’m raising a glass with him. Cheers to the years, hun. I love you.

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Melissa Gould’s essays have been published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Hollywood Reporter, Buzzfeed, and more. Her memoir, Widowish, debuted at #1 on Amazon in several categories including grief, memoir, and biographies. It is an Amazon Editors Pick, a Goodreads Top 48 Book of 2021, and named one of 100 Best Grief Books of All Time. Widowish is available wherever books are sold. Find Melissa at www.widowish.com and on Instagram at MelissaGould_Author.