My cell phone rang from an unknown number. Normally, I let those calls go straight to voicemail, but since I recently bought a new Jeep, I thought maybe it had something to do with that.
So I answered.
The woman on the other end asked for my husband.
Not just Ricky.
His full name.
“May I speak with Richard Wellmann?”
And just like that...
Punch in the gut. Slap in the face. Knock the wind right out of me.
For a split second, hearing someone ask to speak to my husband sounded so normal.
Except nothing about it was normal anymore.
I asked who was calling and what it was regarding.
His truck's extended warranty.
REALLY?!
Of all things. His truck.
The poor woman had absolutely no idea. She was simply doing her job, and I'm sure she wasn't prepared for the response she got from me either. I explained that my husband had passed away and that everything regarding his truck had already been transferred into my name.
But by then, the damage was done.
What made the timing even harder was that less than thirty minutes earlier, I had just finalized our tombstone with the monument company.
Think about that for a minute.
I had just finished making decisions about the stone that will someday mark both of our lives...
and then my phone rings.
“May I speak with your husband?”
My heart wanted to scream:
No. He's not available. And I wish more than anything that he was.
That's grief.
It doesn't always arrive on the dates you've circled on the calendar. Sometimes you prepare yourself for the birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and milestones—and then an extended-warranty phone call on an ordinary afternoon is the thing that brings you to your knees.
Almost months later, I'm still learning this.
You can be having a perfectly okay day. You can be moving forward, handling business, buying a new vehicle, checking things off the list and doing all those hard things you've learned how to do...
And then someone simply asks to speak to your husband.
And suddenly you're his wife standing there all over again, wishing you could hand him the phone and say,
“Ricky... it's for you.”
Oh, what I would give to be able to say those four little words again.
But even in moments like today, when grief knocks the wind out of my sails, I know the One who continues to carry me.
God was there thirty minutes before that phone call. He was there when the phone rang. He was there when the tears came. And He's still here now.
Grief came calling today.
Literally.
And it reminded me once again that moving forward doesn't mean I've moved on.
It simply means I'm learning, one unexpected phone call at a time, how to carry a love that will always be part of me.
