March 16th, 2008 by Jemaleddin Cole

One of the things any­body who has suf­fered a death in the family gets asked a lot is: “How are you doing?” “How ya holdin’ up?” “You hang­ing in there?” And the cyn­i­cal amongst us - by which I would usu­ally mean me - prob­a­bly have some­thing snarky to say about that. But not me. I like it. I love know­ing that people are con­cerned about me.

Tonight’s update is in two parts: things that don’t make you cry, and things that do. More after the jump.

Some people are really ner­vous to ask any­thing more than gen­eral ques­tions. I guess they think that any little thing could set me off and make every­thing worse. But of course, that’s silly. I try not to com­plain too much - well, at least about things that matter - but losing the love of your life, the mother of your chil­dren and your best friend all in one day is pretty much the bottom. And if it isn’t, an off­hand com­ment cer­tainly isn’t going to get me any closer.

But to reas­sure every­one: don’t worry. Say what you like. Ask what you want to know. I’m an open book. Noth­ing that anyone has said so far has made me feel any worse. And a lot of things people say help. They don’t make it better, but they remind me of things about Kellie, and that’s always a good thing. There were things about her that drove me crazy, but every single memory I have of her is a good one.

The other thing that helps is just doing things we always did. Get­ting break­fast from McDonald’s. Going to all-​you-​can-​eat buf­fets. Watch­ing cook­ing shows. And every night before going to sleep for 8 and a half years of mar­riage, we said, “I love you,” and to this day, I look over at her side of the bed, wish her a good night and tell her I love her. That really makes me happy.

You know what does make me cry? Every­thing else. Not really - just the stupid things. I was riding home from work the other day and and heard Donna Lewis’ “I Love You Always For­ever” and just broke the hell down. If you’ve never heard the song, count your­self lucky and don’t go look­ing for it. It’s the exact oppo­site of every­thing Kellie or I liked. If you have heard it, I apol­o­gize for bring­ing it up since it’s now stuck in your head. But it was our song.

When we were dating, that song came on the radio all the time, and we’d end up singing along to it at the top of our lungs. It became a little tra­di­tion, and we signed every card or letter “Love you, Always and Forever.” I got a tattoo with her name on my arm for our eighth anniver­sary, and after Kellie died I had “Always & Forever” added on to it. I guess it’s a good thing our song wasn’t “Yellow Led­bet­ter” or “One Week” or any of the other songs we used to sing together that we actu­ally liked. How would that make sense on a tattoo?

But it’s more than that: any stupid song about being in love, losing love, or find­ing love can set me off. Kellie always loved “Last Kiss” by J. Frank Wilson and The Cav­a­liers (or the Pearl Jam cover), and now that song just kills me. Heck, for no good reason that I can think of I drove out to Curtis Bay in Decem­ber and lis­tened to “Christie Road” on repeat about a dozen times. There aren’t that many people who know that song, and I’m prob­a­bly the only one who will always cry when he hears it.

One last note: Kellie bought me 3 col­lec­tions from the Post Secret project for Christ­mas last year, and I always read through them won­der­ing if she might have sent some­thing in. This week, I may have found my answer:

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