October 5 can be a rough day for me. It’s not the case every year—or maybe I should say, it’s in varying degrees, from one year to another. One thing I’ve learned about Grief: the healing of it doesn’t happen in a linear progression. Twelve years ago I’d have assumed that every October 5 would be easier than the one before it, and that turns out not to be how it goes. There’s something about anniversaries that makes it impossible to ignore the fact that their trauma is in the past. Something about anniversaries that lifts that trauma back into the present, even if only for a day.

October 5 is the anniversary of the day, twelve years ago, when my previous husband shot himself in the head, while we stood face-to-face in our living room and I tried to talk my Glock out of his hands.

I’d always known I’d be his widow—he was a generation older than I. But I’d counted on some decades more before that happened, not that it would hit me a few weeks after the 40th-birthday-bash he’d thrown me in our restaurant. (When I walked into the mortuary, the funeral director blurted, “You’re awfully young to be a widow!” I politely did not answer what came to my mind: “No fucking shit.“)

The funeral home made me sign a waiver before they would let me see him to say goodbye. Someone had very sweetly fashioned a toweling-turban to hide the damage. (I couldn’t help myself: I took it off.)

Yesterday I talked to my Sponsor and availed myself of four online AA meetings, which (as they most often do) provided exactly what I needed. And it was not because I felt like drinking, but because I didn’t feel okay. My husband Jon understands about this, having been widowed himself for five years when we met. (Strange first-date conversation, but that’s what we knew we had in common!) I’m Blessed to be with someone who KNOWS that when my mind turns to losing Keoni, it’s not at all because I’d wish away our life NOW. It’s just still a piece of my past that surfaces and has to be dealt with.

Yesterday was a beautiful Indian-summer October day, sunny and warm, yellow leaves and yellow sunshine, just like the day Keoni made his exit. After the EMTs had removed him (still breathing, though not for long) the detectives let me call my ex-husband, to tell him not to send the kids over on schedule, and my mother, who jumped in her car and made the six-hour drive in four, before taking away my phone and testing me for gunpowder residue and making me change my clothes so they could take my bloodied night-wear in an evidence bag. Keoni died, not in our bed and my arms like he was “supposed” to, but without me entirely, while I dealt with detectives.

And for the hours while I awaited my mother’s arrival, I burrowed into my comfort-zone of bed (and the pillow that still smelled of him), and over and over, I stepped over the mess on the living room floor to step outside and smoke. Yesterday, for some reason, that’s what my mind fixated on: the similar weather, and the stepping outside to smoke. (I haven’t had a cigarette for years, but yesterday I actually thought about asking my neighbor if I could bum one… except I didn’t want to upset Jon.)

On that day, my ex-husband (who has shown me many kindnesses I didn’t earn) answered my plea to come sit with me at the table outside my house, while I smoked and cried and waited for my mother. I don’t know what possessed me to call him, but he came.

And when my mother arrived, I burrowed back into my bed while she and her girlfriend cleaned up the whole bloody mess. I thought of that yesterday, too, and thought about calling her—but she’s visiting that same girlfriend this week for an 80th-birthday-celebration, and it seemed like a needless wet blanket to throw on the day.

I didn’t learn till after the fact, but after we initially told my kids simply that Keoni had died, my son (a very thoughtful 13-year-old at the time) had ranked the three possible causes of death in his mind in order of likelihood. Least likely, but the scenario he most worried about, was that Keoni might have committed suicide. I didn’t learn till after the fact, but when the kids returned to my house, he prowled the premises looking for any sign of clean-up, fresh paint, missing throw pillows, anything. My mom and Judy clearly did a stellar job, because he concluded that there hadn’t been a mess. (My butterfly-daughter, on the other hand, lay on my lap in the living room and blithely commented on the single item that hadn’t been cleaned away: “Mommy, there’s a hole in your ceiling!”)

I think that pretty well describes ME, on October 5’s. There’s a hole in my ceiling. Fortunately for me, it can be filled with AA meetings, and God’s love, and Jon’s, and my mother’s.