I know you aren’t suppose to speak ill of the dead and it feels like if I go on to much about how much I love my husband that I am somehow sullying his memory to those in my life who knew and loved Travis. The truth is I shy away from expressing to you how each and everyday I am grateful that Matt found his way into my life. I know how everyone loved Travis and so the depth of the pain that he inflicted on me is my cross to bare. And if you think you have an idea of what it was like to be married to Travis trust me you don’t. Or at least I hope you don’t. I hope that I hid my pain well enough from those in my life. I hope that no one else has to experience the anguish and loss of self that I experienced. For those of you who think you know because I let you in, you really don’t know either. And this isn’t some big attempt to illicit sympathy because I didn’t want it then and I don’t need it now. I kept you at a safe distance from my pain because I was not yet prepared to act. It was also easier to just carry on if I wasn’t open and honest with people. But I also want you to understand that I loved Travis, I loved him as he loved me to the best of my ability for 13 years. And the day I got a text message stating that Travis had killed himself shook me to my core. I cried out to my father who couldn’t do anything as he was on the other end of the phone. I grieved that day for a loss that felt as though someone had ripped a whole in me. Even as I write this my chest aches. I can only imagine what that was like for my father who loves me but who was also experiencing a loss of his own.

I feel like my love for Mathew is overshadowed by the grief you still feel for Travis. I don’t want you to think of the pain he inflicted on me when you think of Travis. I simply want you to also remember the love you have in your heart for me. I want you to fully embrace the love I have now in my life. Mathew came into my life when I had a huge emotional gash. He could have run away from the serious baggage, a recent divorce to a suicidal ex-husband, a daughter and my emotional turmoil, no one would have blamed him and his friends encouraged him to do just that.

But he and I both knew from the very beginning of our relationship that our individual journeys in life were designed to bring us together. I wake up every morning so grateful that he is my husband and I know that he has that same sense of awe. Our love for each other is easy, we anticipate each other’s needs seamlessly. Mathew is the only one who has seen all my scars and, although I can’t say that I am without any effects, he has healed me. And as sad as it is that you haven’t fully embraced Mathew sadder still is that you are losing out on a relationship with his son, my son, who is no less apart of me then Carina.