Visit

After 3 years of widowhood, you get used to, or maybe numb to, a lot: the telemarketers who call for Paul, the school forms where his name would be, cursing while struggling to take a light fixture apart to change the bulb and being surrounded by the memory of him cursing at that same fixture on the same ladder in our same kitchen. But, the cemetery is one of a few things that I doubt I'll ever get used to. It's not the grave site itself. It's the overwhelming love and heartbreak of watching my children excitedly jump out of the car to "visit" their dad.

These photos, taken a few days after Christmas, capture some of it. The way they look like little kids and little men at the same time. How proud they are to be posing with a marker inscribed with the words "Paul Andrew Hawthorne." Before these were taken, their fingers traced each letter of his name as if it might help them know him or remember him or see him. And maybe it will.  But I don't think I'll ever get used to this place or these visits.