Another Birthday, at The Cross and Many More

Another September 16th without Jon.

The third September and birthday without him here.

The third time, we hold space for his birthday in his absence. It is hard to celebrate a birthday in grief.

He celebrated 54 birthdays. I wish there were many more.

Yet we remember the gift his life was to us, even as we remember he is no longer here. I pray he is rejoicing in Heaven’s glory.

Yesterday I opened a journal from last year, written on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. The words on the page ached with truth. Sorrow still sits close. And it makes sense. The days leading up to anniversaries and birthdays always carry a heavier ache. The world itself has been so full of sorrow lately, and Jon was always my anchor when the weight pressed down.

It feels like no accident—maybe a grace—that the Lord placed this feast between the Exaltation of the Cross and Jon’s birthday—sorrow and glory, loss and love, death and life, all held together. That is the hope and the pain of the Cross: it does not erase suffering, but it redeems it.

Saint Carlo Acutis once said it well: “Do not be afraid, because with the Incarnation of Jesus, death becomes life.“

In that journal entry of last year (the day before Jon’s birthday) with great lament, I had written about how people often seemed surprised that grief still clung to me. Words like “better yet” or “moving on” floated around me like shadows that didn’t fit. I remembered one moment clearly: someone, with bright excitement that didn’t match the weight of my grief, asked how I was doing.

I answered them honestly that it had been a hard year. The response was a bit uncomfortable, with a broad smile and a single sing-song word, “Why?” knocked the air from my lungs. My kids, standing beside me, looked over at me. They felt deflated, too. How could one ask why?

My heart was shattered.

Tears welled for days after that exchange.

It’s not that I expect the world to keep track of every step of our loss. Most widows don’t, but we do long to be seen and understood.

Our Lady of Sorrows

But when someone who knew Jon and our long journey with brain cancer, stroke, broken relationships, and death seemed painfully unaware of why life would feel so heavy for the kids and me, it pierced a very tender place. Like Mary’s pierced heart.

“Let us bind ourselves tightly to the Sorrowful Heart of our Heavenly Mother and reflect on its boundless grief and how precious is our soul.”-St Padre Pio

It’s been a year since that exchange, and a few others, that have still left me wondering what alternate reality I must live in, where my husband is no longer here, and others who once seemed to care are no longer “here” either. Both come with an enormous weight of grief. Thank God forgiveness abounds.

It has been two and half years now since I lost Jon. The world expects sorrow to have thinned, to have faded into the background. Truthfully, we wish that were the case: my children and I long for the weight to be lighter. We long to go back to when life still included our husband and father.

But we cannot. So we move forward as best we can, and it’s not always a party.

Hidden Grief, Soil, Roots

Grief is not a patch of earth you can cover with fresh soil. It is more like roots that remain underground—hidden, but alive, shaping everything that grows above.

Grief is not a patch of earth you can cover with fresh soil. It is more like roots that remain underground—hidden, but alive, shaping everything that grows above.

heather Lebano

Even so, joy has not abandoned us. It comes in laughter, in milestones, in moments of celebration. But joy always arrives carrying grief beside it. Every birthday, every holiday, every new step in our children’s lives is stitched with both gratitude and ache. We live forward, but we carry him with us.

Sometimes the world reminds us again of all we have lost—like the image of a young widow kneeling beside her husband’s casket in the public square, taken far too soon and far too traumatically. Her pain is ours, because we know it. We know the ache a new widow and fatherless children will now carry.

It stirs the memory of the moment my children and I watched Jon take his final breath, and then when we said our final goodbyes as we covered him with a sprinkling of earth.

We simply cannot outrun some memories, especially the painful ones. But we are grateful the beautiful and happy ones sustain us.

Grief is not a season to pass through; it’s a companion we carry for life. And along the way, we learn to live with the absence and the presence—absence of the one we love, the presence of those unexpected souls who show up with astonishing generosity. Their kindness, even now, is a gift.

And through it all, Jesus has never felt so close. United to the Cross in sorrow, we have found consolation, and at times it has eased our pain.

The Cross shows us that suffering is not meaningless. When united with Christ, our suffering can be offered in love, for redemption, and the good of others. It teaches us to see pain not as wasted, but as a participation in Christ’s saving work.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”-John 3:16

Today, Jon would be 57.  

As I looked over pictures from our last several September 16ths together, I am grateful that we always celebrated life in a big way.

I imagine the huge smile he has splashed across his face as we sing to him. And every time at the end of our singing “Happy Birthday,” he would sing very off-key, “And many more.”

I wish there were many more.

I wish he were here to celebrate, to blow out those candles, to cheer on our children as they grow, to keep shaping them into the people we prayed they would become. One of the kids recently said they wished more people would reach out and share stories about their dad—not just on his birthday, but in the ordinary days too. Those connections and memories mean more than words can say. I wish there were more.

I am grateful for the memories we made and shared.

Both Belong

I am keenly aware, it’s been 2-½ years now. There are moments where I feel the weight of words, “shouldn’t I be moving on…” I am moving forward, and the kids and I have a very healthy and realistic understanding of grief and loss. We are living life to the fullest as best we can.

The world may expect grief to fade “by now.” But we know there is no timeline. The weight shifts; it does not disappear. Some days the sorrow rises, other days the joy does more.

Both sorrow and joy belong.

Both tell the story of love.

The kids and I remind one another often, there is no timeline for grief.

We do long for the day we feel “better.” We know the immense weight of grief feels different now than it did last year.

Not better, but different since grief still shows up unannounced. I have to admit I cried a lot last week, probably more than I have cried in quite some time. I know I am not alone in that, given several widows who have reached out sharing the same sentiment about last week. It’s been a heavy time. Some days stung more than others.

Yet we honor that grief and we move forward, with grace, clinging to hope that joy will return.

We have had plenty of extremely joyful moments. And sometimes in those joyful moments, we are also met with the reality that grief lingers, because we keep on living while the one we loved is gone, and we celebrate their birthday when they were born into a life on the other side of the veil. We can’t forget they are not here.

We are doing well considering all of this and moving along in the life we have been given while we cling to hope and the cross. And by the grace of God, we are each given another day to love and honor all that was and all that is to come, “and many more” to come.

Happy birthday, my love. I have loved you for a thousand years.

You are loved beyond measure, missed beyond words.

28 months and two weeks too long.

One day closer.

Joy always arrives carrying grief beside it. Every birthday, every holiday, every new step in our children’s lives is stitched with both gratitude and ache.

heather lebano