My husband died 5 years ago. Some days it seems like a lifetime ago, while others seem like it was just yesterday. Some days I feel like I am making great progress in the grief department, but most days I not… not at all. I learn more everyday. There is a lot about myself I wish I would have realized and been more aware of prior to experiencing such great loss.

So many things I wish I could go back and tell my younger self. My 21 year old, newly married, fresh out of college, ready to take on the world with the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, naïve self.

Simple, common sense, I knew better about things.

Things that for some reason I didn’t truly realize until it was too late.

Here are 5 things I wish I realized more about myself before my husband died…

  1. Love him hard. Mike was my first love. When we met at 18 I would have told you he hung the moon and the stars. I was beyond smitten. As we graduated college together at 21, got married, began careers in law enforcement for him and education for me, went on to have babies and live a typical day to day family life our love became routine. I assume like most married couples. Don’t get me wrong, we had an amazing relationship. I just think I took that almost picture perfect marriage, family and life we had created together for granted. I wish I would have put down my stacks of papers to grade on the nights he was home from work and spent more quality time with him. I wish I would have kissed and hugged him more for no reason at all. I wish I would have told him everyday how much he meant to me and not assume he already knew. I wish I wouldn’t have nagged him about putting his dirty clothes in the hamper rather than on the floor. I wish I would have been more grateful he made it home safe from another day of work and I was still getting to do his laundry.
  2. Don’t be so quick to judge. I have never been much of a good actress, until my husband died. Early in my grief journey I could have been nominated for an Oscar for my performance. Well, I am no Meryl Streep, but you know what I mean. I hid SO much of my heartache and pain. I was dying on the inside with a fake smile on the outside. I know I am not the only one. I wish I wouldn’t have judged the woman at the grocery store in her pajamas and slippers holding a bottle of wine in the checkout line. I wish I wouldn’t have judged the impatient moms yelling at their kids or the misbehaving children I would see out in public. I wish I wouldn’t have judged people who would flake on plans or never return texts or phone calls. I was and quite frankly still am those people. You never know what someone is really going through. Who are we to judge and decide for ourselves how someone should or shouldn’t be living their life? I wish I would have given more grace to others.
  3. Don’t hold grudges. Seriously, what’s the point of keeping records of wrongs? I still need to work on this myself even to this day. Thank God when Mike left this earth we were on good terms and I even had the chance to hug, kiss and tell him I loved him when he left for work that morning. Can you imagine being in a silly fight with your husband, holding a stupid grudge, not speaking to him and then he gets killed?! I think I would have been even more heartbroken than I was, if that’s even possible. Tomorrow is never promised. I wish I would have forgiven others a lot sooner.
  4. More quality time. Our little family of 4 was actually pretty good at spending quality time together. When Mike was off work he was always such a present husband and dad. I wish I could be more like him in that regards. We regularly went camping, dirt bike riding, fishing and did whatever we could as a family. Just hanging out at home together, Mike had a way of always making fun. Even though I think we did quality family time well, I still wish we had more. You can never spend enough time or make enough memories together as a family. One day those memories might be all you have left.
  5. Plan for the worst. This is the hardest one. Mike and I didn’t talk much about the possibility of him being killed in the line of duty. Maybe because we never thought it would happen to us. There were a few things he would blurt out here or there in conversation, but the real “what do we do if I die” talk never happened. Making all the decisions on my own based on what I think he would want was excruciating at times. I wish we would have had the conversations like, Do you want to be buried or cremated? Do you want me to donate your organs? Where do you want to be buried? Do you want a huge public service or small and intimate one?  Anything at all…. I wish we would have discussed it. Even just one time of writing down all our wishes and creating a “what if” plan would have saved me so much more heartache.

There are so many more things I could add to this list. So much more I would tell 21 year-old April.  Lessons learned for sure. I just wish they weren’t learned as a result of losing my husband.

Losing Mike has changed me. I am not the same April I was when Mike was alive. How could I be? As much as grief and loss absolutely sucks, I am so grateful for everything I have learned about myself along my journey so far.

My hope is that maybe this list will create a tiny spark in someone and they will be able to implement even just one thing into their life in order to create more love, happiness and so many amazing memories with the ones they love.