Letters to Jason: March 15, 2026
Today is Nora’s 7th birthday.
I remember in April last year when Matt and Morgan were visiting us for Easter. We were outside walking around the high school field and you said something that caught me off guard. You said “Nora’s probably going to outlive me.”
It stopped me dead in the moment. My heart sank. It broke my heart for me and for you that’s where your mind was.
Fuck no she’s not, I thought.
Well shocker, you were right. Only I don’t think you meant it in that I’m going to die in the next 4 months.
But the reality of you dying from cancer had become much more real.
The next week Dr. Lentz sat us down following your April scan, which showed two new small cancerous lymph nodes which appeared by your groin. This was the first real time definitive cancerous lymph nodes had appeared outside of your abdomen and the large conglomerate of lymph nodes near and around your colon and pancreas.
Two new lymph nodes in a new location in your body.
He had told us on average people live 1-2 years past this point.
But he said it with hope, hope that the clinical trial they thought they had for you would extend that time.
I cried in the doctors office that day. You were fairly calm, I can only imagine what was going through your mind.
I held onto that hope. Maybe too hard. But I clung to it. Because that hope was all we had. At the same time, no one was saying there was any reason we shouldn’t be hopeful, after all, the trail they had found for you, you were deemed the perfect candidate.
That day in your notes to me you wrote the note below, I found it in a letter to me after you died.
4/25/25
To Die and have someone see you…Like inside of you, brings me the most joy day in and day out. I want everyone to know what you saw in me, what seemed to far outweigh what I saw in myself, Lauren is what everyone dreams to have in a partner. Frick you could have gave up a long time ago, but you saw my heart and never gave up. Haha god I love you and despite what you think right now god fricking loves you Lauren.
Today I flip open Instagram.
Friends of ours are traveling again. Growing their families. Multiple pregnancy announcements have come since you’ve been gone. More babies, more joy, for them. People are planning their weddings, vacations, what’s next, all with the person they love. They get to kiss their spouse or partner goodnight, every night before bed.
My cousin sent a March Madness email this morning and it started off with the typical “woe is me” energy he moves through life with, all while living a life most people would say is very privileged. The email started with “I’ve got three kids and me and my wife are heading to the Caribbean on Tuesday.” I feel general annoyance about the oblivion of lucky some people live.
I feel general annoyance and jealousy of people who get to not feel the daily ache of this type of loss.
Annoyance of people who get, without struggle, to live the future they dreamed of. You’d always tell me life without struggle isn’t always a good one, idk maybe that’s true Jason, but I really could do with you being alive and living out our dreams together.
I could have taken the cancer and “lessons” from 6 months of chemo and had you here and alive, through it and done, like some people are. Did those things make us better, give us each strength to be better and show more love. Yes. Could I have done without it, also yes.
I want you here, and I’m tired of the “I’m sorry’s” the “I can’t imagine’s”. Can someone come up with something better than that? Can people stop saying you’re so strong, you’re brave, can someone just saying what this is, that it’s fucking bull shit that you, my husband, love of my life, is dead at 37 and I’m 31 and a widow. No amount of lessons or strength that comes from this will ever make this ok.
Some days I really truly feel like I have no one other than my mom and dad and Megan. When I had you, that didn’t matter. Without you, well, I just feel sad.
The I’m thinking of you texts fade, the conversations with people who I thought would still be around are short, or non existent.
There are people out there who won’t ever know the pain I’m carrying, many of them actually.
People who get to be carefree and living life without an ache in their chest.
I envy that greatly.
Everyone keeps going, gets to forget, or maybe not forget, but not hold this heavy.
But Me. Me?
I just pulled your death certificate from the file folder as I put all our documents for our 2025 taxes away. 4 different W-2’s between us and a 1099-MISC to capture all our income from 2025 across the various forms of disability, leave, and standard pay we both received while navigating trying to save your life.
Go figure the IRS needs to be sure your taxes are done but social security still hasn’t paid for your disability that was approved 7 months ago.
Thank god this year, the government owes us money, it was already brutal enough to do our taxes, I think I would’ve lost my shit had we had to pay them!
I’m down to 3 death certificates, which means I’ve used 7 copies, not to mention the many scanned versions of your death certificate I’ve used. I can’t even remember where I’ve sent 7 copies. Now I’m wondering if I started with 5, because using 7 copies seems like a lot, but I don’t think I only started with 5. But yup, that’s me, happy Sunday. While the world is out living, I get the file taxes for me and my dead husband. Life’s pretty fucking unfair.
I miss you like hell.
I’m really angry today, that of all the people in the world, the man I fell in love with and married, the person who was perfect for me, the one I saw my entire future with, had to die of cancer.
There are just some days when I’m angry.
Jealous of people who don’t live this hell.
Exhausted of feeling this way.
Exhausted of feeling lost between who I was with you and who I am now, without you.
Who is that? I don’t know.
Wondering when the fuck you’re coming back. Even though I know, you’re not coming back, I still wonder.
Today is just one of those days and I really wish I could burry my face in your chest and cry about it. “It’s going to be ok, I love you” you’d tell me, as you gently stroke the back of my head and hold me tight.
I wonder when I’ll start feeling like it’s going to be ok.
I don’t really know if there is an ok without you here.
