Dear Aimee, Happy Anniversary. I'm getting married again.

Dear Aimee,
Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart. Today would have been our eighth, and I have no doubt that the last two and a half years would have been as wonderful as the first five and half were.

If only we could have had the chance to find out.

Rowan is amazing, by the way. I mean, wow. The kid just turned SIX. Can you believe that? But what blows me away is how smart, funny, compassionate, and sweet she is. You know, just like you were. If I was going to have to be a single dad of a child, you could not possibly have left me with a better one. :)

But I guess I'm stalling here. Let me get to the real reason I wrote this letter to you.

I'm getting remarried.

I suppose if you really can see us down here from the glorious heaven above (and I hope for all of our sake that you can't), you already knew that. Sarah and I have been engaged for more than six months now, and the wedding planning began almost as long ago. But with the wedding being now less than two months away, and with today being your and my anniversary, I thought it fitting to tell you now.

I know this is what you wanted. I remember you and I talking about this once, and you making it clear you would want me to get remarried. Maybe you knew Rowan would really want a mom (she does). Maybe you you were aware of how much more work it is to run a household and raise a child on your own. Or maybe you were realistic about how long I'd really be able to last on my own as a single parent. :)  Either way, I recall you being very firm in your belief that if anything ever happened to you, that you wanted me to remarry.

Well, now that time is upon us. And Aimee, I really hope you would have approved of her, especially as she is going to have a huge influence on your daughter.

I think I've done well, choosing Sarah to join our family. First and foremost, she really loves both Rowan and me. And she has in common with you a strong faith in God, a deep desire to care for those she loves, and a healthy dose of patience (which anyone around me needs). Also like you, she is a strong woman, not easily bowled over by life's trials or my Type A episodes.

I'd like to think that the two of you would have truly liked each other, had you had the chance to know each other in this life. And so it is my sincere hope that if you are watching, if you can see us, that you know that Rowan and I both simultaneously miss you every day, but are also happy. And I hope that we would have your blessing on the upcoming marriage and life together. Because since the day you died, I have lived a great deal of my life by the standard of wanting you to be proud of what I've done and the decisions I've made, especially the ones that affect Rowan.

May this decision fall among the ones you would have approved of.

With deepest love and affection on our anniversary,
-Patrick

Fine, then a wave of fury

Sunday was my and Aimee's sixth wedding anniversary (or would have been). Donna took Rowan the day before and kept her through Monday morning, taking her to school for me. It was a really nice gesture on her part, and before I get to my experience of the day, I just need to say what an incredible help she's been despite her own tremendous grief.

My beautiful girls

So Sunday morning I woke up and decided to spend the day just enjoying a quiet introspective day in Seattle. I visited the Fremont Market. I went to lunch and a couple of other parks. Then I came home, got the dog and took her to the park, then went out to dinner. It was really a nice day, devoid of any overly strong emotions. I even called my mom, who I knew was concerned for me, and told her that I was doing pretty well, all things considered.

About 8pm I started writing another post for this blog (which has since been deleted), when I suddenly just snapped. I don't know exactly what triggered it, but all of the sudden a rush of fury hit me so hard I felt blinded and started to lift my laptop in the air and smash it into the ground before I realized what I was about to do and set it down instead. Then I just started screaming, at one point yelling "WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME???" I don't know if I was talking to God or what, but I suddenly felt betrayed and furious and hurt and alone and scared. Then I started sobbing uncontrollably (I say uncontrollably because up to this point, I was always able to get myself under control pretty quickly when I'd cry - I HATE crying). I eventually calmed down, but found myself in the most morose depression I'd felt since the first few weeks after Aimee's death. And it hasn't really gone away, although spending time with Rowan Monday evening offered some respite. (I note with irony that it was just a few days ago in another post I said something about having not really been very angry since Aimee's death. Ha.)

I am big about justice. What is wrong must somehow be made right. That's why I work for nonprofits - I try to be a part of solutions for those who have somehow been wronged in life. But there's no making this right, not in this life. No matter what may or may not happen from a legal standpoint, there's no fixing this loss. No scenario where Rowan gets her mommy back or I get my lovely wife. No circumstances through which Donna gets her daughter, Justin his sister, or Aimee's many other friends, clients, etc get back what they've all lost. No matter what else happens in life, we have to go through this pain and loss.

And that makes me very, very angry.


PS. I saw my therapist on Monday afternoon, and one of the things we talked about is this blog, and why I write it. I'll share with you what I shared with her. It helps me immensely. I need this outlet, through writing, to help me through this. And the public nature of it helps me feel like I'm less alone in my pain. Additionally, I have heard from others how helpful this is to THEM, and that has become part of what drives me to share things that are VERY hard for me to share (like this post). Sharing things like that I was screaming and crying is exactly opposite my typical nature, but I believe that honest vulnerability is the only thing that will help me or anyone else reading it. No matter how hard it is sometimes.

Wedding anniversary reflections

It's October 25, 2003. It's early in the morning on a gorgeous fall Saturday morning. I pull into a park-n-ride to meet a group of people I don't know to go on a hike on Mt. Pilchuk. As I pull into a parking space, I spy a very cute girl getting stuff from the trunk of her car. I think to myself that I hope she's going on this hike. She is. Her name turns out to be Aimee Richmond.

A quick kiss before the
wedding starts

We ride in the same car on the carpool ride to the trailhead (I arranged that intentionally). We chat. I like her. She seems more or less indifferent to me.

We begin the hike. Although her legs are MUCH shorter than mine and so she hikes a lot slower, I use the excuse of a healing sprained ankle to hike at her pace. We talk a lot, stop at the same places to take photos, and have a nice time. I ignore every other person in our group. At the top, she realizes that although I'm carrying a decent sized day pack, it's mostly full of camera gear and a bit short on food. She laughs at me and offers some of hers, but since hers is all healthy (I recall a bag of sliced bell peppers), I politely decline. She teases me some more, and soon we begin the hike back.

It's October 31, 2003. Halloween. We've agreed to meet at a singles party (cruise on Lake Union here in Seattle). I arrived to see quite a few girls dressed in various slinky and revealing costumes. I eventually find Aimee. She's dressed as a hockey player, complete with bulky pads, facemask, black eye and blacked out teeth. Clearly she's not operating on the idea that she needs to show a lot of sex appeal to meet guys. Go figure, she also has 4-5 guys surrounding her, chatting her up. Slightly daunted by my competition, I nonetheless approach her and say hi, hoping she remembers that we agreed to meet up here (though we did not go together, so it's not a date). She does remember, and I join the group.

"So, we did it. We're
married now."

It takes me more than half of the three hour cruise, but I eventually get rid of (outlast) the rest of the guys, and have Aimee to myself. We talk a lot. We have a few drinks. We even dance a little. After the party, we go grab a late-night breakfast at a nearby restaurant and I ask her if she'd like to join me on a drive to Leavenworth two days later. She agrees, and we have our first date.

It's March 17, 2004. We've just come back to my apartment after hanging out with some people for St. Patrick's Day. At one point I stop, look her right in the eyes and softly say, "Aimee, I love you." She smiles so sweetly, nods a little and says, "I love you, too." It is the first time we exchange those words.

It's April 2005. We're in San Diego on a long weekend trip. The last day we're there, we're sitting at an IHOP eating breakfast, and Aimee starts to cry (happily). I ask her if everything's alright, and she smiles and says yes, but offers no details. I let it go. A few days later, while having dinner with her, she tells me that she'd had an epiphany. She feels that God spoke to her that morning at IHOP and told her I would be the guy she'd marry. She hadn't felt that way about me before that point, but she knew it now.

I was caught off guard, and had received no such message from the Almighty. I had also passed the 'window' in which I'd wanted to get married and start a family. I had decided to stay single. But, I DID love her. I needed time.

She gave it to me, until she got tired of waiting and left me.

About four months later.

Two months after that, I reached a point of crisis and asked God for a sign, and I'll be damned, He gave it to me. The next day I told Aimee that if she still wanted me, I was ready. She did.

"She's Got a Way", by Billy Joel,
was our first dance

It's Thanksgiving Day, 2005. I called her father and asked his permission to marry Aimee. I tell him I will take great care of her, protect her, and provide for whatever she needed. I tell him I love her.

He gave me his blessing.

It's December 23, 2005. I officially proposed to her as we opened Christmas presents at my apartment (she was leaving for her parent's home in Indiana the next day). Although I was sure of her answer, I was still nervous. I needn't have been. She said yes.

It's April 29, 2006. I get dressed up in a tuxedo. Aimee gets dressed up in a pretty white dress. We meet at a gorgeoous stone church in Tacoma, WA (St. Luke's Episcopal Church). Aimee Richmond became Aimee Rhoads, and I became the luckiest S.O.B. alive.

***
Since that time, April 29 has come and gone five times. Each one was better than the one before it. Aimee gave 100% of herself to our marriage, and taught me how to do the same.

"Til death do us part." Wow, when you say that to someone, and you're in your 30's, you assume that will be SO far away, so long from where you are right now. You envison a long life together, raising children, building a life filled with happy memories (and some sad ones too - life isn't perfect for any of us). You imagine years of family vacations, date nights, soccer games, dance recitals, and other milestones.

We were so happy, and it only got better

You do not envision 'til death do us part' coming five and half years later.

You do not imagine having to sit your three year old daughter down and tell her mommy is dead.

And you do not imagine her telling you four months later that she wishes she'd died when mommy did so she could be in heaven with her.

There have been five great April 29th's since Aimee and I got married. On none of them did I ever think that April 29 would ever be such a sad, sad day.