We arrived home late last night, after a week long vacation in South Dakota.

My mom’s family has a yearly get together.  We haven’t gone for a few years.  You were never that great at vacationing.

This year I went.  My grandparents had been unable to come to your funeral, and were thrilled that I could come to see them.  All of my mom’s brothers and sisters were there.  Only one of my cousins attended, which you would have predicted.

It was the first time the kids rode a plane.

You weren’t here.

So many ‘firsts’ you will miss, and this is the first of them.

The kids did great.  It’s funny the things you take for granted.  H opened up the tray on the seat in front of him and said, “Hey!  Look at this!”  K attentively listened to the safety instructions, locating the nearest exits and reviewing the informational card when instructed.  Mainly they played on their Nintendos.  You would have been frustrated that they were so engrossed in their electronics.  Then you would have fallen asleep.

At my grandmother’s house, I must admit it was incredibly normal for you to not be there.  You and I were there together two or three times, but my entire life before we married I was there every summer and some Christmases.  It was so natural to be there again without you.  It was almost like going back in time, except the kids were there.

They had a blast at the lake.  They rode my uncle’s tugboat and K helped drive, sitting on his lap the way he used to sit on yours to “drive” our boat.  That was perhaps the most difficult moment of the trip for me.

On the flight home I watched the new Beauty and the Beast.  You were going to take me to see that.  I remember I had mentioned to you that I knew you would never go to that movie.  You responded, “Are you kidding?  The animated one was one of our first dates.  Of course I plan to take you to the new one.”

But then you died, you asshole, so I watched it on a tiny screen in the headrest of the seat in front of me, earbuds digging into my popping ears and stopping every few minutes to get the kids something or listen to a pilot announcement.

It was good.  I would have loved seeing it with you.  I think you would have pretended to like it as well.

Last night the kids slept in their own beds (hallelujah!) until close to morning.  I got some much-needed stretch out starfish sleep in the wake of a week on my grandparent’s pull out sofa bed.  Our bed has new sheets — cotton.  Not the sateen kind you liked.  I also replaced that fuzzy zebra striped comforter with one more my style.

I am claiming the bedroom as my space.  I am not erasing you from it, but it is not our room anymore.  You don’t live there.  It is my room and I am modifying it to be the way I need it to be.  I need my own space now more than ever.

I picked up the dog from ‘camp.’  She is so excited to be home, but appears to be perplexed all over again that you are gone.  It hurts me to see her confusion.  It mirrors some part of me that refuses to understand.

Tonight I’m putting off going to bed.  Last night I was so exhausted, but tonight I feel your absence so hard.  I have been shot back into the present day, am no longer in the past, but you are not here.

How are you not here?

Earlier today I was mad at you again.  I was mad that you left us to deal with crap alone.  Now I am just lonely and sad.

I don’t know how to do this.