Matt and I would have been married eight years this coming Tuesday we were only married six. On our fifth anniversary we took a trip to Maine by ourselves it was our only vacation alone. This year I am packing my grandma’s house and preparing to move into my house. My heart is broken and I am not sure when it will heal.
My grandma passed away on Thursday and with the holiday weekend, the funeral had to happen on Tuesday. I was originally dreading that day because I was not sure how I was going to handle my second anniversary without Matt but now I am dreading it because I have to say goodbye to another person I loved.
Everyone keeps asking how I am doing and checking on me and I don’t know what to say. I am lost, numb, sad, hurt, and mostly broken. My next chapter is about to start without the two people that I loved the most in the world.
Nights were hard before but now I am truly alone. There is no grandma watching me as I type this like she did so many Sundays. As I packed some of Matt’s stuff yesterday and cried I could not come back over to the main part of the house and talk to her about it.
I do get comfort knowing that she and Matt are probably together in Heaven talking about how I am doing. Her telling him that she told me I will find love again and I would not listen to her. Matt tells her that the tears I am crying are not new and that I have been still grieving him.
I picked out paint colors for my house and painted the living room the other day so that we can start moving me in there. Tonight my dad talked about where things would go in the living room. It is strange to actually be moving forward with the plans I had for the future.
The last two years have been the hardest years of my life but I survived and I will continue to do that. Over the next week, I will be packing more of my life up figuring out what I can take and what I must part with. I 
am holding on to the memories as the items they had are not going to bring them back.
This is going to be the first funeral I have gone to since Matts and I am terrified that I am going to fall apart and just want to hide. I still have to figure out what to say but that is a problem for tomorrow. My heart and soul are a bit broken tonight.
About Laurel Snook
Laurel became a young widow on October 2, 2020, her husband Matt had a heart attack he was only 37. Matt was a juvenile diabetic and they always knew he would die young but she never thought that she could be a widow at 32. Navigating grief with anxiety, regrets and guilt have been a struggle for Laurel. They had gotten into a fight days before he died and they had talked about divorce. One of the things that helped her the most is finding other widows who understood the pain she was feeling. In February she decided to start writing her story. Self-care is something else she started to do daily and art has become her outlet to get what she is feeling out which she shares on her Instagram. Being a young widow comes with its own challenges but we are not alone in this journey.
You can find her on Instagram @HealingPorcupine or her personal blog link- Healingporcupine.com.