Dear Vanessa,

I visited your grave almost every Sunday for about two years. Before you get impressed, you were on the way home from your parents’ house. I’d like to tell you it was devotion. It was mostly a right turn.

At first Luciana sat in my lap because she couldn’t walk yet. I’d hold her on the grass and give you the weekly report. She’d chew on her fingers and stare into space, contemplating all the suck.

Then she learned to walk, and your daughter doesn’t have the existential dread required to sit still longer than 5 minutes. Don’t worry, I’m working on that.

Thirty minutes of daddy moping at a rock did not make her list of approved activities. She wanted to run between the headstones. I wanted to be sad. I’d put her in Daddy Jail by holding her. We compromised by both being miserable.

Then I missed a week. Weekend in Florida with my parents. I left Luciana with yours, which people gave me crap for since I’m supposed to take Luciana everywhere even in mourning. I’m not saying which people gave me grief. You can guess.

You the reader can’t.

But come on, I wasn’t capable of feeding myself that year, let alone her. I’ve already complained enough about vacations in other letters, here and in the book.

That Sunday rolled over while I was in a pool chair. 85 degrees and my hands went cold. Chest tight, breath short, a grown man having a full panic attack in a lounge chair because I was convinced, actually convinced, my dead wife was going to come back to life and smack me. Not haunt me. Not be disappointed in me. Smack me.

I went twice the week we got back. Like you were taking attendance. Like there was a make up session for a dead mommy class.

I know my count. Somewhere between 70 and 80 visits. Normal people don’t know their count.

Actually, that’s a really presumptuous thing to say. Maybe all widowers know their count.

After Florida, missing got easier. Skip a week, flinch. Skip two, barely notice.

Then I moved. I’m ten minutes from you now. The closest I’ve lived to you since you died.

I haven’t visited in two months.

When seeing you took a whole Sunday production with a squirming toddler, I never missed. Now you’re a ten minute drive and I can’t seem to make it. What was I trying to prove? And to who?

I wanted to make the you can smack me joke here, but I think I already did a version of that. Just like your life, this blog probably has a shelf life too.

Besitos,

Michael