If you haven’t seen the movie “The Best Man Holiday”, you’ll need to stop reading now because this post contains spoilers.  Big ones.  And if you haven’t seen it, why not????  You should fix that ASAP!  If you’re not familiar with this film or part 1, “The Best Man”, click here to read a plot synopsis with spoilers.   For a review of the film without an spoilers, check out what Luvvie wrote here.

I had a hard time putting my thoughts to words regarding the movie but a photo search for a LittleTDJ school project helped.   As my thoughts came together, I was struck with the underlying thought that I’m an anomaly.   Something different, abnormal, peculiar, or not easily classified.   Such an anomaly that even my closest friends have trouble understanding me.  Allow me to come back to that point, but I need to share a few memories and observations first.

I have a pretty big head.  Its ok, you can chuckle.  It runs on DaddyTDJ’s side of the family and I surely have one.  I’m ok to admit it.  MrTDJ had a large head too, so together we truly blessed LittleTDJ with a super dome.  It’s a random tidbit of info about me, but it is essential to you understanding my relationship with hats.  Back in my high school and college days, it wasn’t unusual at all to find me rocking a baseball hat.  I had shoulder length hair and I loved putting it in a pony tail that popped out the back of the hat.  Yeah, I had to buy larger hats, but I didn’t think too much of it at the time.  I wasn’t a full on tomboy, but I certainly wasn’t as ladylike as the women around me.  In my 20’s and 30’s, my girlfriends wore lots of gorgeous fedoras, berets, floppy hats in the summer, and perfectly cute hats in the winter, yet I did not.  I had enough sense to know that my college look needed to be upgraded, so I simply stopped wearing caps.  My husband loved for me to wear hats.  One of his favorite photos of me is the photo on my UVA ID card.  He actually requested that I report it lost, so that he could have one to keep in his wallet.  Seemed like a pretty average picture to me, but he adored it.

I have no idea where my other ID is, but I found the one above still in his wallet after his death.   In the days immediately following his passing, I was determined to wear a hat to his funeral service.   That choice was not deeply rooted in my own desire to wear a hat, but as a way to honor MrTDJ.  Many photos were taken that day, but I think that the one below speaks to the moment.  I’ve had sad eyes since the moment I knew he was gone and a smile that doesn’t quite ring true.  I try to put on a happy face as often as I can, but that takes major work.  I think it equates to having a split personality or maybe living a double life.  Not really as medically or psychologically exact as that, but that’s the best way I can describe it.  A smile on the outside that’s covering heartbreak and pain on the inside.  Even at moments when I can “enjoy” the laughter of friends and family, part of my brain in always detached and expending energy into “memories”.  Always.   Yes, always.  That is my constant state of being.  I try my best to keep my distraction from being obvious to the people around me but I know that those closest to me can sense when I’m not really in the moment with them.

The sad eyes in this photo is how I feel every single day, yet I have perfected a better smile that doesn’t make people quite so uncomfortable in my presence.  I share here because this is my space and it is cathartic for me to write.  I’m amazed that so many read and make an effort to empathize.  I’ve been “lucky” enough to connect with a few other widows and widowers who have thanked me for voicing some of their thoughts and feelings, and sharing them with the world.

I was naïve enough to think that the 2^nd year without my husband would get a little easier.  NEGATIVE!  It has changed, but the essence of it has gotten harder.  He’s gone!  Not gone on a long trip, not the break from one another most married people like to enjoy every now and then, not a separation until issues are worked out.  Nope.  He’s truly gone.  Being on auto-pilot and coping so “well” the first year has made the 2^nd year take on a tone that is more intense, a bit rawer and certainly lonelier.  I got through all the celebrations that marked the firsts “without him” moments.  As the second round of “without him” moments roll on, they become harder to get through. As 2014 starts to beckon on the horizon, I had hoped that I’d be a better, saner, happier, less emotional MrsTDJ.  In many ways, I am different.  And I have embraced new things in order to find a different kind of happy.  It seems that many in the world expected me to return to “normal” without realizing that it isn’t possible.

As I’ve settled into new routines and patterns, nothing about them feels normal.  Some things should kinda grow on you after a year, but when they do, there is a sour taste and a sharp edge.  The image of a prickly pear cactus instantly comes to mind.  Each new thorn is a reminder that life has changed dramatically.  Wearing an “S” on your chest symbolizes Superman and shows the world that nothing can hurt you.  Although I don’t wear a “W” on my chest, I still look in the mirror, see that black hat and it seems that everything hurts me.  I still feel the tightness of that black brim several times a day.  Some days there it is a strange comfort like that of a tight hug and other days it feels like the weight of a mighty mountain.  The farther we get from the date that my husband departed, the more the image of me as “a widow” fades from the minds of many.  I actually overheard a co-worker ask another, “Why isn’t she over this yet?”  I refuse to let it anger me.

Sitting in the theatre as “The Best Man Holiday” unfolded, I knew about 15 minutes into the action that Lance’s wife Mia was going to die.  I’d seen the cast on the cover of Essence and the first person I noticed was Monica Calhoun.  She didn’t seem to have aged as well as everyone else.  That was foreshadowing, but I didn’t know it at the time.   I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself.  I was with a group of friends and I told those to my left and right, “She going to die.  I don’t know if I can sit through this.”  But I sat there because I didn’t trust my legs to get me out of the theatre.  So I stayed in my seat.

And then her illness was revealed.  And I cried.  Hard.  And I sniffled.  And I blew my nose.  Loudly.  The scene with husband and wife embracing in their bed for the last time because her death within the next couple of hours is already a foregone conclusion almost broke me.  I cried, and cried, and cried.  Although it is a fictional movie, these beautiful brown people on the screen resemble my family and friends.  Having watched the original in my 20’s, the characters actually felt like friends that I had known for years.  So when I cried, I cried for the pain of Lance as a new widower and father of three.  I sobbed because I know what it’s like to spend Christmas without your spouse.  Watching him sit in the front pew, surrounded by his children during the church service took me back to my husband’s service.  The eerie and unsettled quiet at their home after the service took me back to the repass that we held at DaddyTDJ’s house.  And while every other woman was drooling over Morris Chestnut holding Taye Diggs’ 10 month old baby in the closing scene, I was struggling to catch an angle that would show whether he was still wearing his wedding ring.

I went to see the movie during its opening weekend, on a Saturday night.  Prior to that, at least a half dozen people that I’m close with viewed, reviewed and raved about the movie.  And not one single person gave me the heads up on Mia’s death.  Even when talking about it after the movie, those in question froze like deer in headlights before blushing and apologizing profusely.  Let me be clear – I’m not upset with them; it simply reminds me that although they love me, it is impossible for them to truly understand how I feel.  No one thought that I might need to know the tragedy that occurs.  My little heart shattered into another million pieces watching a loving couple that has been together since college, married for 10 years, raising 3 children together on the big screen as one partner died.  Yes, it’s a movie and it is fiction but it is an emotional parallel that I wasn’t ready to see.  I don’t want or need anyone to approach me with kid gloves or walk on eggshells around me.  I simply wish there was a way for me to help others understand what my new “air” is like.  My new air hasn’t allowed me to watch any of my favorite movies like Beaches or Steel Magnolias because I just can’t deal. This new air hasn’t allowed me to open a computer folder full of videos that MrTDJ and LittleTDJ recorded together during his first 3.5 years of life.

If I can write and have just one person understand the depth and range of emotions that loss brings, I’ll know that I accomplished something.  I won’t ever attempt to compare categories of loss as they are all devastating, but I can surely speak on the loss of a spouse.  Overall, I was entertained by the movie and I’ll add it to my DVD collection when it is released, but I don’t know if I’ll ever watch it again.  As Christmas approaches, the commercials for the movie have increased and the airwaves have been playing songs from the soundtrack.  Every commercial and every song causes a small tightening in my chest, and I feel the constriction from my own wide black brim that has become almost invisible to the rest of the world.