RemysWife

I guess it depends on what it is you want to do and how comfortable you are with being alone. I don't have kids, so I didn't face the empty nest... My nest was already empty. I like to travel, so that's where I started. My first few trips were just around the country to visit friends. But it's a big world out there and I knew I wanted to see it. I found a women's travel group and went to Germany. It was scary and overwhelming, but I am so glad I went. the next year I went to Costa Rica. A first step would be to find something that interests you and join a group. Take a class - fitness or something that interests you like art. Go out for dinner and don't care that you're sitting by yourself. Get active in a cause you believe in. You have so many options, and you can start as big or as small as you want. Even though you didn't plan for this life, it doesn't mean you can't have a really happy, exciting life. Good luck finding something that interests you!

Today I said goodbye to Mark's little brother. He was still in college when Mark died, so I never really spent a lot of time with him. But he meant the world to Mark. Since there was such a big age difference, Mark was very protective of him. He was so proud of his accomplishments and so angry when he messed up. He talked about playing "Thomas the Tank Engine" with him as a kid. He went to his hockey games. We had his Senior picture framed in our living room. Mark wasn't one to show his emotions. But when his cancer came back, I remember him telling me that his brother texted him from college to say that he knew Mark was going to get better. And that broke Mark's heart. I've struggled with finding a place in Mark's family now that he's gone. I spend a lot of time with his cousins and older brother, but his little brother never came out with us. So I only saw him at the occasional birthday party or whatever. One of the last times I saw him, he gave me a hug goodbye and his aunt and mom commented that he never hugged anyone. He was 26 years old. He was a good kid, and I wish I had known him better. Rest in peace Chris. You will be missed.

I didn't really feel that there was a place for me at YWBB anymore. There were a lot of cliques, and as someone who didn't post much, I did not feel like I belonged there. But with this new board, I feel like there has been an effort made to be open to everyone. I see a completely new tone to the board, and it is appreciated. And it is great to see so many names I recognize too.

Traveling is my passion! And in the beginning, having a trip to look forward to was probably the only thing that kept me going. Mark died Thanksgiving weekend, and he was supposed to be in his cousin's wedding on New Year's Eve. There was no way I could go to that wedding without him. My friend flew me out to Louisiana to spend the holiday with them. Escaping didn't make it better, but it certainly made it more bearable. I took a few more weekend trips to see friends and then decided that I wanted to go on a big trip by myself. I found a women's travel group and went to Europe for a river cruise. I was the youngest person on the boat (aside from a teenager with his parents!) but I had a fabulous time. I remember walking along the river in Holland - a place I had never really given any thought to visiting before - and thinking, "Wow, you would have really liked it here." And in that moment, I could feel Mark with me. The next year, I went to Costa Rica with the same travel group. Aside from seeing new parts of the world, I was really proud of myself for taking off and having fun with a bunch of strangers. Since then, I've decided that blowing all of my savings on fancy trips is probably not the best plan, and I've toned it back down to more reasonable trips. I went to Nashville in February for a crazy weekend of fun with my friends. (And at 41, I was still able to keep up with my 30-something friends!) I'm going to New York this summer to see U2 and spending a couple of days in the city with Mark's cousins. Then later in the summer I am going to a conference in San Diego and extending the trip two days so I can see some friends out there.

Remy is the rat in the movie Ratatouille. If you've never seen it, it's about a rat who dreams of being a chef in Paris. Our first trip together was to Paris, and Mark loved to cook. When he would start picking out fancy recipes, I'd call him Remy. I have an email from him where he said, "I hope you don't mind if we have the pork chops for dinner tomorrow night instead. I found an Alton Brown recipe I want to try, and it needs to marinate. ~ Remy" It still cracks me up. We went to see it in the movie theater and didn't care that we were the only adults there without kids. (Same goes for Toy Story, Wall-E, and Cars...) There's even a scene where they show the window of a book store, and you're supposed to focus on the book called "Anyone Can Cook"... but next to it was a book by "Chef Mark". When we went to Disney World, we looked all over for a Remy souvenir. (Apparently, not everyone loves Remy as much as we did.) He finally found a Remy stuffed animal and he now sits on the top of my kitchen cabinet. My old YWBB profile picture was from that trip to Disney World. We went to Chefs de France, and Remy came out to serve us our dinner. My new picture is from the Philadelphia Flower show. If you look closely, Remy is under the chef's hat. Writing this brought back a lot of really nice memories. This is why this community is so important to me - sometimes you just need to retell your stories.

This was his favorite photo of us. It was taken on our Honeymoon in Solvang, California, 2010.

His name was Mark, and I miss him every day. We met three weeks before he deployed to Iraq. Our first kiss was in the snow, and when I went back to work (it was Presidents' Day weekend, and we had three dates in two days) I told my friend, "I really like this guy." We emailed while he was in Iraq and picked up where we left off when he got home. We were together for 5 years when we found out he had cancer. Five years after that first date, on another winter day, I stood on a snow covered boardwalk in Atlantic City and kissed him for our wedding photos. He was a Marine. He ate right and exercised daily. He played on an adult hockey league. He was HEALTHY. Even now it is hard to wrap my head around everything that happened. He fought cancer with everything he had. For awhile, we even thought he beat it. But then the cancer came back and it was even more aggressive. Pancreatic Cancer has an incredibly low survival rate. Almost two years to the day from when we got his diagnosis, he lost his battle. And I lost everything. We didn't have a storybook romance, and it has been hard to come to terms with that. In a lot of ways we were oil and water. In a lot of other ways we completed each other. Before he died, I told him, "I think we made each other better people." We really did. I guess the rest of it doesn't really matter, because I loved him and he loved me. I found YWBB right away. I googled "young widow support group" and found the site. I think I was looking for a step by step guide on how to get through this, but quickly learned that it didn't work that way. I met some of the nicest people who have become close friends. Others I only know virtually, but as I see their lives moving in a positive direction, I am rooting for them. And I know that they're rooting for me too. It's been over three years since I lost him, and even now I occasionally find myself here. There are somethings that only other widows understand.