A Must-Make No Cook Tomato Sauce

Caprese Spaghetti

Originally published July 2018

It's been 2,548 days.

I feel like I'm going through the motions, waking up, going to work, taking care of the girls, all the while accepting the reality that next week will be seven years, 2557 days, since he's been gone.

I wondered the other night, had we known this time in 2011 that he had just nine days left alive, would we have done anything differently. Would he have done anything differently. Would he have thrown all caution to the wind, gotten on a plane, and gone somewhere with us.

The suddenness of it all still haunts me, and dictates my everyday life. I struggle with the insecurity of not having enough time to do what I want most, and be with the people I love. I get easily frustrated and withdrawn when people don't seem to go the extra mile, thinking to myself "this could be the last chance we have to...(insert what you like here)".

That's the extra layer of the grief I carry.

For our girls, they still cling to worry when I leave if I'll come home safely, alive. I don't know how, or if that ever goes away. My hope has always been that as they gather more positive life experiences maybe one day they'll overshadow their great loss, or at least give them confidence and security in life itself.

I don't remember the last meal I cooked for him that Sunday morning. How can I not remember something so important? Then I remind myself it was just supposed to be another Sunday, not the last Sunday ever.

But I do remember the last dinner we had. It was hot that Saturday evening, and he'd not been feeling well. We thought it was just a summer cold. Fatigue had hit him out of nowhere. I came home from the Grand Army Plaza farmers' market to find him curled up with the girls on the sofa in his white Hane's t-shirt, and black sweatpants.

We spent the rest of the day snuggled together, the four of us, watching television. Isabella was deep into her Marx Brothers phase, and as luck would have it the I Love Lucy episode with Harpo Marx aired that day.