Nineteen months without you and I still feel like I’m doing grief wrong most days. When I’m not sad, I feel guilty because I should be sad. When I’m sad, I feel guilty because I should be trying to focus on the joyful moments with our 2 1/2 year old.
“Life just keeps on lifing” has been my go to saying these days. Because it keeps going on, in hard ways, in crazy ways, and sometimes in good ways. The dog is sick and needs expensive medication; the condo has been on the market for two months but no condos around here are selling because of high HOA fees. Work/life balance is increasingly hard for me as I feel a calling to something greater and want more time with our little babe. Oh, and I made steak for the big kiddo and they gave their stamp of approval, so I guess I can learn new things.
Our little one is wonderful and kind and smart and curious and determined and beautiful, and, he is a lot sometimes. His energy knows no bounds, he’s opinionated and stubborn and wants control and is always right. He’s an outgoing little charmer, which I know you know exhausts me as an introvert, wrangling his social side was supposed to be your job. I just know he’s a little you based on every story I ever heard of your childhood. And some days I have so much guilt that I don’t have more energy for him, because he deserves so much more. He deserves you.
Most of my blogs seem to be letters to you. I’m not mad about it. When I think of writing about being a widow or grief, the words just pour out as if I’m speaking to you. I often think I have nothing to say remotely helpful to others, especially with these letters to you. But really, maybe knowing that others aren’t alone with speaking to their lost love is really all that connection we need sometimes. Or maybe not, I don’t know, but life will just keep on lifing.
About Cassie Dockter-Reeves
Cassie Dockter-Reeves struggled to write this bio. Who is she now that her husband died? Sometimes she doesn’t know anymore. She is the mother of sweet Everest, her (currently) 15 month old. She is the Mutti to kind Jude, her almost 9-year-old stepson. She is the little sister to 2 awesome older sisters and 2 brother-in-laws. She is the aunt to 2 wonderful nephews and 1 amazing niece. She is the daughter to 2 loving parents who they are lucky to still have. She is the friend that is like family to several. But her favorite thing was being loved by Jonathan, she was most proud of (along with the role of mother) being his wife. His loving her helped her love herself. She doesn’t really know who who she is anymore as she has changed so much since her husband’s death, and it’s too fresh to know, it’s only been 4 months.
Cassie works a full-time remote job as a workforce management analyst. She loves photography and whales and the ocean and the mountains and has recently found the love of reading again. She has the most anxious dog who started her life as a stray and is a mutt (11 breeds in all, yes, she DNA tested her), named Livie after Olivia Benson on Law & Order SVU, because her husband knew her love of that character. They were together 6 years; were a family of 3 with his son Jude for 5 years; a family of 4 eight months after that when we adopted our dog; married in Cannon Beach, OR on July 26, 2021 (yes, because of The Goonies - Jonathan’s ring is engraved with GNSD - Goonies Never Say Die); and became a family of 5 with the unexpected early birth of their son, Everest, on March 24, 2023, who moved mountains to be here after infertility and a high risk pregnancy.
She is a newly single mom, and it’s challenging and rewarding and exhilarating and exhausting. She wasn’t supposed to do this alone. Her husband died from his bipolar disorder with psychosis at the age of 40 on February 29, 2024. And they are slowly learning to live again as a (smaller) family.
You can find her photography at: https://www.instagram.com/photographybycasandradockter?igsh=bGN1a3k4NzRhNTVr&utm_source=qr