When I'm...35

As I sit here on the eve of my birthday with the kids tucked in and their very first downtown fireworks under their belt, I think about the year that has passed and all that has happened. Birthdays always seem to have that affect on me, as I’m sure they do for most people, it’s a day to take stock and step back. I try to rewind my life to when I was young and think back to what I thought I’d be doing when I was this age. Where did I think I would be way back then? And, have any of those ideas ever come to be as I hit these milestones in life?

One thing is certain, I never ever thought I’d be a widowed single mother of two small children starting over at the age of 35. I can’t really say what I had in mind years and years ago when I pictured my future, but this most certainly was not it.

This year, this birthday has been on my mind since I realized the dates a few months ago. As I enter this new year in my life, I will have caught up to Mark in age. By the end of this month I will be older than him and this just makes no sense at all. A minor detail to most anyone else but it’s a bit of a stumbling block for my brain. It’s as though the rules have been changed on me without any warning.

When I think about Mark and the fact that he died so young, I can’t help but wonder about his last year of life. If he had known that 35 was going to be it, I wonder if he would have done anything different? Would he have made different choices? Would be have taken more risks or less? Would he have been more impatient or just the opposite? When our days are numbered why do we behave differently?

I remember asking Mark one day in January if he knew he had seven days left, what would he do? Little did we know at the time, he had less than thirty. We sat for a long time and to my surprise, he didn’t have a “bucket list” type answer like I thought he might. At first he said nothing, he said he couldn’t think of anything that he wanted to do. I think by then the disease had taken a lot of his energy and drive away. But then he said simply, he’d kiss our kids, read them a story and then watch me fall asleep so he could remember us… I cried.

So now I sit here in my 35th year thinking about that conversation. Wondering how to pull it together in spite of everything and gain that sense of appreciation that comes with a time line…

Maybe when I wake up tomorrow, one day older and one day wiser it will come more easily to me.