By Abel Keogh —

November tenth is a day that creeps up on me now.

It wasn’t always this way.

In past years it was a day heavy with memories, emotions, and unanswered questions.

Now it’s a day just like any other.

This year it wasn’t until after lunch that I looked at the calendar in my office and noted the date. Suddenly, I realized what day it was. I pushed my laptop to the side and looked out the window at the green grass and sunshine. In seconds the memory of hearing a gunshot from our bedroom and finding my late wife’s lifeless body flashed through my mind followed by a tinge of the raw terror that flowed through my body that afternoon.

But it lasted only a moment.

Then, just as fast, my mind flashed through the seven years of my life since that afternoon. Marrying Marathon Girl. The birth of two sons and a daughter. Buying a house. Having my first book published.

And I found myself smiling.

Smiling at the choices I made that put me on the path to a new life. Smiling at the thought that with this tragedy came an opportunity to start and a chance to become a better and stronger person. Smiling that I conquered grief, misery, and depression.

With happy thoughts in my head, I returned to work.

After work there were no side trips to the cemetery or participation in any kind of commemoration on my late wife’s death. Instead I went home and ate dinner with the family, played with my kids, then helped put them to bed, fixed a bathroom sink for Marathon Girl, and wrote a chapter for my next novel before going to bed.

It was a busy day full of all the people and things that make up my new, happy life.

I wouldn’t have spent it any other way.

Abel Keogh — His memoir, Room for Two (Cedar Fort, 2007) is about the year of his life following the suicide of his seven-month pregnant wife, Krista, and death of their premature daughter nine days later.

Tags: grief, hope