Larry Williams

We were always holding hands, even when we were driving somewhere we held hands on the way to our destination. On planes, trains, our trucks, no matter where we held onto each other so that we could touch.

That first year, you’re mostly numb. You’re just doing what you’re supposed to—making it through holidays, paperwork, phone calls, trying to sleep, trying to eat. You move through it like a checklist, one hard day at a time. You think if you could just get through all the firsts, maybe it’ll start to hurt less. Then the second-year hits, and the shock starts to fade. You’re no longer running on adrenaline. The finality of it starts to sink in. You realize this isn’t just a bad dream you’ll wake up from. This is your life now. But by now people have moved on. They think you have too. They don’t realize this is when you start to really feel it. The support fades, the check-ins stop, and you start to understand how alone grief can make you feel. After a while, it’s clear life keeps moving without you. People are planning, laughing, living—and you’re still trying to figure out where you fit in now. Nothing feels the same, no matter how much you try to make it. And in this moment, you stop waiting to feel like yourself again. You just start learning how to live as who you are now. This is the after the after.

I never cried like I cry now. The tears just flow freely and sometimes I have no idea how to stop it. I cry all the time now. I had only ever seen Larry cry once in our 30 years together. I was devastated to see him cry, because it made me cry, and all I wanted to do was help him stop crying. I started crying when we got the news about my grandfather only having 6 weeks left and I cried every day until he died. Larry was with me when we stayed a month to care for him. That was an eye awaking moment for me. That was when I realized Larry was my best friend and had always been my best friend. I have no idea why it took me so long to figure it out and I told him and thanked him in that moment during that time for all he had done for my grandfather and our family. From that moment on I told him he was my best friend, and we would never be apart, and we were not apart physically until the day he died. Covid happened shortly after my grandfather passed and although it was devastating and scary for a lot of people who lost their loved ones, Larry and I continued to thrive and become even closer during that time. We prayed together, did our daily bible study together, cooked, ate, slept and worked very closely together. It was a scary but wonderful time for us because we connected on an even deeper level, than I ever thought was possible. I am very thankful and grateful for that time we had to reconnect with one another.

I absolutely had no clue what grief was or how different grief is with different losses. When I lost my Papa - I had Larry there to help me through it, and I grieved his loss very deeply. But when Larry died it totally broke me, there are so many ranges of emotions you go through when someone your entire whole existence and soul has connected too dies suddenly. It is a different kind of devastation to your nervous system, brain and body system. When my grandmother died, that loss was yet a different kind of grief. I felt a relief for her because she got to go be with my grandfather again. I miss her but she changed so I felt like the person she was when I was a lot younger had already died. She had been gone a long time even before Papa passed. She stopped being her happy go lucky self-prior to Papa dying. I suspect I know what changed her, but I won't mention it here. Larry and I had discussed it many years ago.

Larry, I will always be grateful for being able to be with you up until the end of your life. I will always be grateful for the life we had together. I would do all of it over again even knowing what the ending looks like for us. Your wife in life and death.