Blog Intro: What are you laughing at, Widower?

Grief hasn't been the least bit funny since my wife died last October at the age of 27, and that really gets my goat. I love laughing. I loved hearing my wife laugh. So I had this idea. I'm gonna force some funny into my grief. I'm gonna shove funny, unwanted and unasked, into my grief. That sounds bad and sexual but it's not. In fact it's as good and asexual as anything I've done since she died. Cuz I lost so much when she died. I won't lose my humor, too, dammit! (Plus, my incessant dreariness would get tiresome real quick if I didn't pepper in a few yuks for the folks I wanna share with) So I'm here to play slide-whistle sound effects for the tripping of emotional breakdowns and stuff like that.

Let me tell you why I had to start this. I was out driving by the lake, a road my wife and I used to drive a lot. There was a beautiful sunset over the nuclear power plant, and something caught my eye. I thought it was like a piece of wood or something stuck up from the ground on the side of the road and paid it no mind, but then did a double take in the rear-view and I was like -- I think that was a falcon eating some roadkill! That I had to see! So I turned around. I went back and sure enough, as I slowed to the spot, the hawk looked at me, and flew away and I saw the rust colored tail feathers of a red-tailed hawk which I've always loved. I looked at the dead animal being devoured by the hawk and it was a kitty with black fur. And you wanna know what my first thought was?

Actually, some background first. I own two black cats, formerly 'with my wife.' His and hers cats, you know the deal. They're both black, like the dead fella the hawk was munching on. Also, one of my wife's many pet names was 'Kitty.' In this case, 'pet name' may be more literal than figurative, but I digress. To top it off, on the way home from my wife's funeral, I chanced to see an ominous black cat along the side of the road that felt...significant in some way (I'm noticing a pattern of seeing stuff on sides of roads and am making a mental note to keep my eyes the road in the future).

So what was my first thought when I saw that dead cat?

D'aaaaaaawwwwwww! It's a sign from my wife! She knew I would appreciate the hawk and feel reverence for the reality of nature and black cats seem to be a thing with me and now I feel a glow that has nothing to do with the nuclear power plant! I love animals and the thought of someone's pet getting hit by a car makes my stomach turn. But just this once, roadkill made me feel as wholesome as a matching-t-shirt family at Disneyland.

Life is darkly funny like that. I find in my grief, my humor is still around, just darker (which was aleady pretty dark to begin with). I don't expect many people to get me. That's why I went to the internet. There's billions of you out there. In all those billions - I'll drop it down to millions to account for people who don't speak my language - I know there's gotta be, Idunno, at least four of you out there that could relate to a good dark laugh right now. And I have a lot to share with you three. I bet I can spin my grief into something that makes the two of you laugh. Even if it's just you and I. I know how lonely it is.

I'm a widower. I was 26 when I was handed that demotion. Grief sucks worse than anything I've ever experienced. But if I can make somebody laugh in it all, that'd make me pretty awesome, right? It feels pretty 'not-awesome' to be me right now. However, I'd like to, if I have a choice in the matter, emerge from grief 'awesome,' you know? I know my wife, and she would be ashamed of me if after she died I fell all to pieces and died OD'ing Vicodin I paid for with stolen printer ink behind an old, abandoned Denny's. That'd be 'not-awesome.' She'd prefer 'awesome.' Now that's just my guess, but I was only with her for 11 years and married 6, what do I know about what she would think?