I completely lost it at the 24 hour mark last night. I was looking through our wedding album and Olivia's baby book, which has pictures of him holding her on the day she was born. He was so happy and so healthy and so handsome and it breaks my heart to remember the way he looked for the last week, and how much cancer aged him.

  I said I was ready for it. I thought I was beyond this kind of grief at this point. I thought I'd done my grieving before he even died, over the past six months since the real decline started. I was stupid. There is no being "ready" for this, no matter how sick he was or how long he'd been sick. It doesn't matter that he was really just a shell of the man I married, it still hurts like someone poured cement into my stomach. I can't eat and I can't think and I don't want to see anyone or do anything.

 But even with all of this, there is also relief. My life no longer revloves around him, and though I feel empty without something to orbit, I also feel less pressure, less stress, and less desperation.

I know this feeling will pass and life will move forward, and I'll feel better. My heart will heal, and things will be okay. My kids and I will find normal and our lives can finally go on, after two years of them revolving around cancer. I'm excited for this, even while I grieve.