Breathing

School is finally over. My last final was complete by 8:30 yesterday morning. For better or for worse, I am done with school for the year. I'm nervous about the grades--I think I could have done better in two of my classes, and might only have earned a 'B' for my efforts. I probably also earned a 'B' in Chemistry, but in that class I did as well as I could. I don't feel bad about that one.

I have so been looking forward to taking a break once school let out for the summer, and so far--that hasn't happened. I've continued to go about a million miles an hour, and don't see any signs of stopping any time soon. My Mom gets into town this afternoon for an extended weekend visit, so the next few days are jam packed with activities. Among them, tomorrow morning I will participate in my first 5K. My goals for this first race are simple: don't pass out, and don't puke. Oh, and complete the race, of course.

As an aside, I received an incredible gift the other night that I need to share. On Tuesday night our church group hosted it's quarterly activity for the women in the church. It's called Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment--or Enrichment for short. For this quarter's activity, it was decided to have a progressive dinner. At the house where we ate the main course, I ended up sitting next to a woman who recently moved into our area and is new to our ward. We chatted throughout the meal, sharing snippets of our life history, our families, and our beliefs. Inevitably, the question turned to our husbands.

"So what does your husband do?" She asked me.
I choked a bit at the pain of the stab to my heart, and let the pause between exchanges stretch out much longer than it should have been. "Um, he worked in computers." Short pause. "He died a little over a year ago."

I braced myself for The Look. The Look is full of sad pity, and generally accompanies a head cocked to one side. As expected, The Look was present--but not the degree that I have come to expect.

Now, in my experience as an extremely young widow, the question that ALWAYS comes next--no matter how kindly and respectfully it's phrased--is 'How did it happen?'. I understand the natural curiosity. I understand the human tendency to want to categorize things, make sense of something that seems so unnatural. After the 'What does your husband do' question, this is the question I dread the most.

This woman unknowingly gave me a gift that was so precious, I didn't realize until later how desperately I needed it. First, she let the uncomfortable conversation drop. She didn't pry, she didn't go on and on about how difficult it must be for us, and she didn't offer platitudes. Later, when we were walking to the next house, she walked next to me, and in the relative privacy I braced myself anew for the next question.

"So......how did you meet your husband?" She asked me.

My heart surged, and I immediately launched into a spirited description of our early friendship and courtship. I laughed, I shared anecdotes, and she giggled at the absurdity of our journey from mere acquaintances to husband and wife. It felt so GOOD to share that story. It's a question that is asked fairly frequently to a young wife, but one that has completely left my life since Ammon died. Instead, it has been replaced with questions about my finances, questions about who takes care of the children while I'm in school, questions about my current relationship status, and questions about how he died. In this one question, this woman gave me permission to tell the beginning of the story, instead of the end.

I doubt she'll ever know what that meant to me. I called her the next day to express to her my gratitude, but I'm sure she just thinks I'm a crazy widow who is overly emotional. Or maybe she doesn't. I don't know. All I know is how grateful I am to be able to talk about my husband as the intelligent, passionate, funny, and gentle man that he was, instead of the ghost that he has become.