My Husband’s Birthday – AFTER His Death – Year One

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Anniversary dates are hard. Even decades later, I remember my mother and father on what would have been their birthday. Both of their birthdays fall in January, which is also the month of my father’s death anniversary, so that month has always been hard for me.

When my husband died, I wanted to help my daughters get through days like this. I wanted to find ways to get our heads out of the “what ifs” and the “I just wish” kinds of thoughts. My goal became to give them an outlet to make the day special while also acknowledging the gaping hole in our lives. Tricky!

For some reason, my husband has decided to give ME something special on his birthday every year since he died. You don’t believe in signs? Well, I do and my husband knew that I did. He knew that I looked for them, but the past three years I haven’t had to look very hard when as his birthday approached.

Year One

John’s birthday is in April. April is the beginning of the Major League Baseball regular season and John was a lifelong Milwaukee Brewers fan. He would start nagging me in February of each year to see if we could go to spring training. Then, he would start convincing me of perfect dates to go and see a game. “Look!” he said enthusiastically, “Brewer’s have a Stitch and Pitch game! You can bring your knitting and we could sit in a section where everybody is knitting! They even have a goodie bags!” he tried to tempt me.

“You had me at knitting,” I told him, and we went!

Year after year, Brewers baseball was something he lived for. I lost him to endless summer nights of either listening to or watching the game – and often he would watch the game while listening to the radio commentators! I was a baseball widow – and when I became a true widow I decided that going to a Brewer’s game would be the best way to celebrate his first heavenly birthday.

Being the cheap…. ahem frugal person that I am, I bought tickets way up in the highest section. I had a big trip coming up, and wanted to save as much money as I could for that. Three of my four daughters were with me. We hiked up to our seats, put our jackets down and went to go get snacks. While we were buying pretzels and hot dogs, I could feel this man staring at us. We went to a different vendor, and he followed. I was feeling pretty uneasy, and then he approached us. “Is this your entire group?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered cautiously. Wondering if I had just given away too much information. A woman and three daughters alone. Would they find our bodies in some dumpster out in the back of the parking lot after the game?

I watched him closely as he said, “I’m with the Brewers organization and I wondered if you would like a free upgrade. There are four seats available behind home plate. Would you like them?”

“Are you serious?” I asked, dumbfounded. “For FREE?” and when he said yes, I was instantly reduced to a pile of sobbing mush. I was ugly crying and now HE was the one who was scared! I pulled myself together and explained to him that we were there to celebrate my dead husband’s first birthday without us. That he was a life long Brewers fan and that I had paid for his name to be on the big screen, and on and on and on and on until his eyes glazed over and I’m pretty sure he wished that he had just picked someone else. Anyone else!

This is one of a three part series. Make sure you hit the subscribe button so that future posts go directly to your email! That way, you can see the gifts my dead husband has sent to me the second and third years after he died!

If you, or someone you care about is dealing with grief, here are some tips for coping with grief from people who are dealing with it themselves!