40 Months Too Long—I Wish You Could Know Me Now

40 whole months since I last saw Jon.

That feels so strange to say. I don’t even know how to comprehend that.

Or maybe I just don’t have words big enough to capture the magnitude of 40 months passing without seeing the person I shared my life with. 

So much life has happened in those 40 months. Another launch and another school year beginning. New jobs, new stories. New seeds planted. 

So much he should have been here for.

I have been thinking today about how we honor the people we love who are no longer here. Today in particular I am thinking of my husband, Jon.

It’s the 28th. He died 40 months ago, today, on April 28th.

I don’t know that I have an answer.

I think sometimes people look at those of us who have continued to live after tremendous loss and see strength.

I don’t feel strong at all. My grief is not measured by the strength it takes to carry it. I actually feel a bit weary, but I am working on that.

My grief is not measured by the strength it takes to carry it.

Heather lebano

The world doesn’t see, nor does it get to see, all of the hard parts of the grief we carry. Not everyone can hold the feelings of grief with the tenderness and understanding they deserve. Not everyone gets those sacred parts.

I notice often that when I attempt to explain some of those wonky parts of grief, they are misunderstood, minimized or bypassed into what someone else wants my answer to be. Something more comfortable for them to hear or believe.

But grief doesn’t always give us comfortable answers.

Sometimes, “I’m doing the best I can” really does mean exactly that.

The hidden tears. The moments when grief still feels suffocating. Or when it blindsides on a particularly great moment. And then sucks the air and joy out of the moment.

What it feels like to drop your two youngest kiddos off at college knowing their dad should be there, too. As other dads are.

To watch each of your children struggle in their own way and try to find their way forward, understanding that losing their dad has affected so much of their lives, and each of them differently. Understanding that losing a spouse literally feels like it tears you in half. 

Grief doesn’t just look like sadness. It’s confusion. It’s exhaustion. It’s feeling like you are not enough. It’s feeling too much. It’s feeling numb. It’s loneliness and isolation in a crowded room. And so much more. I could write a textbook for all the ways grief plays out and all the ways it keeps unexpectedly showing up.

To want desperately to help them, my kids, navigate something you cannot fix for them.

To make decisions alone that were always supposed to be my husband’s and mine.

To experience something beautiful and instinctively want to turn toward the person who isn’t there to share it.

I’ve been thinking about this since Father’s Day, when I heard so many people sharing thoughts about the fathers of their children and saying some version of, I can’t imagine doing this life without him.

I understand that. I couldn’t imagine it either. Until I had to live it.

Maybe that is one of the things that can be so difficult to explain about grief. I am not simply grieving that Jon died. I am living a life that was fundamentally changed because he died.

I am raising (and letting go of) our children without their dad. Walking into milestones without him. Making decisions that were supposed to be ours. Carrying responsibilities we once shared. Becoming someone I never expected to have to become.

So when someone suggests that perhaps it is time to “move on” from my grief, I wonder what exactly they imagine I am supposed to move on from. It’s very nuanced and complex.

Because this isn’t something that happened and ended. His absence is woven into the life we are living now. The essence of him lives on in each of our kids. His love is woven through all of us.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t joy. There is so much joy. Do you know how much I love to laugh?

It’s one of the things I miss most about Jon…the way we made each other laugh.

It doesn’t mean I am stuck.

It means I loved someone who mattered deeply to me, who mattered deeply to our children, who I built a life with and his absence continues to matter, too. And it continues to be felt.

There are also losses that came because of the loss.

Relationships that changed. Friends and family who disappeared at a time when we needed them most. People who demanded I give them (or others) grace for saying or doing the wrong thing when I needed grace, too, as I did my best to survive the early days and these past few years of loss.

There are things I still don’t understand and perhaps never will.

I know many grievers and widows who share this experience. Sadly, we live in a grief-illiterate world. Dare I say, we live in grief-afraid world. As if one would catch the disease. 

Sometimes it’s easier to turn away than to walk with someone who is suffering. Then, when the person grieving seems “okay” again, it’s easier to show back up expecting them to be the same person you remember.

But grief changes us.

So does the experience of discovering who was able to walk alongside us when life was at its hardest and ugliest.

Those parts don’t always make it into photographs or what we share.

They don’t need to, but they are part of this life, too.

So are the laughter and the joy and the beautiful moments.

So is watching these kids we raised become who they are becoming, even with the hiccups and hurtful words.

So is learning who I am becoming, too. Something I am learning as a widow in a season when the kids are spreading their wings..and both of those seasons cause us to pause and grieve.

Maybe that’s something I hadn’t fully understood before.

Widowhood isn’t only a story about who you lost. It’s also a story about who you are becoming.

Because loss and grief change you.

I wish Jon could see me and know me now. I wish those who walked away could, too. Like really know me.

But maybe I don’t need them to.

Maybe the Refiner is doing something within me through all of this, revealing the gold beneath all that has been broken and burned away as I keep my eyes fixed on Him.

Maybe I don’t need everyone to understand who I am becoming.

The One who created me does.

I wonder sometimes what Jon would think of who I am becoming. I feel deeply I already know.

During our marriage prep, when we were asked to share one thing we loved about each other, one of the things he said about me was that I always put others first.

I have thought about that a lot.

Because I think he would be proud that I am finally learning to put myself first sometimes, too.

That I am doing uncomfortable things. Brave things. Things I never imagined I would have to do without him. That I am dancing in the rain. And less afraid of the dark. Taking more risks. Saying no a lot and sometimes yes. 

That I am learning to trust myself again. To listen to what I need. To protect the parts of me that have been hurt. To make decisions I once would have turned to him to help me sort out and make. To let go of what is no longer serving our family. The way he would have done so effortlessly. 

Maybe he would recognize the woman he loved in who I am becoming.

And maybe he would love the parts of me that are new, too.

Maybe honoring Jon isn’t about remaining in the place where he left us.

Maybe it is carrying his love into all the places he should have been able to go with us.

Into college move-in days. Graduations and weddings.

Hard conversations, big decisions and scary things. Ordinary meals around the kitchen island.

Birthdays and holidays, trips, time by the sea and all of the things still to come.

Maybe it is allowing ourselves to say, This is really hard and I wish you were here, I can do hard things, while also allowing ourselves to say, This is beautiful and I am so grateful to be here for it.

Both can be true.

I don’t think moving forward means leaving someone behind.

We just learn to carry them differently.

Their love helped form us. So did the life we shared and built.

And for me, the four beautiful people Jon and I brought into this world and raised together carry pieces of him into places he never got to see.

There is something both heartbreaking and beautiful about that.

Maybe love is what remains at the center of all of this.

Love for the person who isn’t here.

For the life we had.

For the people who are still here and have continually walked through fire with us and for us.

Love for a life that continues to ask us to show up even when part of our heart wishes everything could be as it was. Wishing that person was still here. Even when it is hard and hurts.

And love for a good and faithful Father who I continue to trust is holding the parts I cannot because I do not have the strength.

I am not strong every day. Or most days.

I don’t need to be.

I am exhausted most days trying to hold this life together. Trying to make all the ends meet and all the shattered parts fit and make sense of the confusing and scary things. 

I just keep showing up…in the weeds, in the floods…mess and all.

I just keep trying to love the people God has given me, to remain open to joy, to carry Jon with us, and to keep becoming who God is asking me to be in a life we never planned or imagined I would be living without him.

I wish he could see who we are becoming.

I wish he could see who I am becoming.

But maybe part of honoring him is allowing us to become anyway.

To keep living. To keep loving.

To receive the joy when it comes and make room for the sorrow when it comes, too.

To make room for whatever and wherever God is calling us.

To carry his love with us into all the places he should still be.

Maybe that is how I honor him.

It’s not by pretending this isn’t hard or by leaving grief behind or moving on. 

It’s not by pretending this isn’t hard or by leaving grief behind or moving on. 

Heather lebano

It’s certainly not by feeling shame for answering that wonky question, “How are you?” with the only honest answer I sometimes have:

I am doing the best I can.

But by continuing to love.

Him.

Them.

Me.

This life we built.

And the life I still get to live.

40 months too long, 1 day closer.

I wish you could know me now.