Life.

I went to a movie with my movie-friend, Nicole...  Yes, I saw the new Twilight movie.  Why?  I'm not sure.  But it was good.  (Though I closed my eyes a little... I still do that even though I'm old and supposedly desensitized.)

The theatre was packed when we arrived so that we couldn't sit together.  I ended up beside two lovely mothers, discussing the trauma of leaving their babies at home for the first time.  (Nicole ended up beside people who balled through the whole movie... Apparently, hard core fans.)

In the middle of an innocent chit chat about motherhood with two strangers before the movie, I end up in the inevitable situation, though this time it took me more off guard.  So, do people ask you all the time when you're going to have your third??  (meaning third child, of course)  Momentarily at a loss for words, I wondered if I should answer... Well, no.  My husband died, so no one is really asking me that anymore... Than I remembered that Roya is still asking for a baby brother, quite regularly, and in front of innocent stand-byers, inevitably leading to awkward situations... A little.  I responded.

It didn't seem appropriate in that instance to drop the bomb of, Oh, I'm not just an innocent young wife and mother complaining about her lack of sleep anymore... My husband died.  I've tasted death.  My children lost their father...

Later in the movie (without giving anything away), a young girl asked a question about death.  The whole room seemed to erupt in Ahhhh... like Isn't that so sad, a young girl asking about death.  What a shame!!   I thought to myself.  I have two young girls who ask about death all the time... It's common casual conversation in our home...  Both of them used to ask me regularly if they could die.  They wanted to die so they could go be with Daddy.

The cannon ball I have grown quite accustomed to rested again in the pit of my stomach, releasing heavy pressure in my gut and a tightening of the chest...

At the end of the movie, there was that word again... forever.  Yesterday, I read the card Lynn gave me on our wedding day.... To my bride, it said... Forever he said.

Forever feels very different as a widow.  But I also feel blessed... Blessed to have known a love that is forever, and not one made up in a movie of vampires.  :)