Trish and I married on December 20, 2003 at 7 pm. She died on that same date twenty-two years later, December 20, 2025, at 7 pm. Our anniversary became the day I lost her.
What Death Could Do
Our marriage had survived disagreements, aging, illness, and the loss of activities we once enjoyed. Death finally separated us. Then suddenly I had to learn how to live in a world in which she was no longer physically beside me. There is no estimating that. I had spent thirty years professionally estimating the cost of things. Give me drawings. Give me quantities. Give me labor rates. Give me equipment costs. Give me enough information, and I could develop an estimate. But there are things in life for which there is no formula.
What does it cost to lose the person with whom you expected to grow old? There is no number for that.
What Remained
Death ended our life together physically, but it did not erase those twenty-two years. I still had our conversations, our travels, the Feast days, and the ordinary days that became precious afterward. We had lived the promise to remain together in sickness and in health, until death.