Fatherless Son

I’m sitting down to write this on a day that this time last year would have caused my story to be so very different.  Justin and I were at odds during my pregnancy with our son.  We had broken up about 2 weeks before I got that positive test that changed my world.  Justin and I only had 5 amazing months where we were actually together, and I was able to tell him how much I loved him.  It’s been 5 months, 21 days, 2 hours 35 minutes since I got the phone call that would shatter my world.  Christmas came at four and a half months; I thought I was going to die from the sadness that seemed to overwhelm me.  My grief for myself however; was nothing compared to that of my grief for my son.  Justin was such an amazing father; he called every night to wish our son and I sweet dreams.  Joshua wouldn’t even go to sleep until Justin made that nightly phone call.  I remember the day that Justin left, watching him detach himself to focus on the mission ahead.  It was the hardest day of my life, and the moment the bus turned the corner, I lost control and cried like a baby.  6 months 23 days have passed since that moment.  Little did I know the hardest day of my life wasn’t even 30 days ahead.  I can’t offer any advice in the little time since Justin’s death.  Except that it hurts, like a fresh knife in my heart every morning when I wake up to that empty bed and the silent phone.  The staying up all night just praying and praying that everything was a mistake and that I am going to hear his voice on the phone THIS night.  He’ll call, he promised he would make it home safe.  This is what I tell myself.  My head knows he’s gone, my heart refuses to believe the evidence I have before me.  The nightmares are more than horrid.  Being deployed myself, which was such a positive for our relationship before he left, has turned into a walking living nightmare.  I’ve seen what men look like when they are killed the same way Justin was.  Now, I close my eyes and see the men that I knew so well, but it’s not their face I see.  It’s my husbands.  I scream at him in anger, how could he break his promise to us?  I beg and plead with him to let it all be a mistake.  I cry every single day because the fear of the future without him is terrifying.  I cry for the loss of our future together.  I cry because of a life that meant so much intertwined with mine was cut so tragically short.  But most of all, I cry for the father my son and Justin’s daughters have lost.  That’s the most tragic loss of all.