Six Years Without My Husband: What Grief Looks Like on Our Wedding Anniversary

October 4, 2026 is our 29th wedding anniversary.

However, it will be my sixth wedding anniversary that I celebrate without my husband.

Six years!!

Sometimes that number feels impossible. Like he was just here a minute ago.

Other times, it feels like a lifetime.

And somehow, both things can be true.

I recently shared Todd's "proposal" story with Dylan's girlfriend, Alexis. I put that in quotes because it DEFINITELY was not the type of proposal that I or most women would be expecting. 

I was leaving for a weekend of shopping in Minnesota with his mom, sister, and some friends. He hid the ring in my checkbook! To this day, I still do not completely understand the why behind that. But, what he didn't count on was a breakfast stop on the way out of Oelwein. I found that ring before I was out of state! That resulted in a trip back to Hazleton to let him know that I had found the ring.

But, in the end, it is memorable! I will give Todd that! 

What's weird about October 4th for me, is that wedding anniversaries are supposed to be about celebrating.

A dinner. A card. Maybe flowers. Looking back at photographs and remembering the day you said, "I do."

But when your husband dies, the date doesn't disappear from the calendar.

The anniversary still comes.

And it can bring a whole lot of feelings with it.

Six years later, I still notice the date

One thing nobody really tells you about losing someone is that grief doesn't follow a schedule.

There isn't a point where you wake up and think, Well, it's been six years. I guess I'm done with that now.

That's not how it works.

At least it hasn't been that way for me.

The grief is different now.

Six years ago, everything was raw. So many tears. So much exhaustion and widow fog.
I was just surviving. Figuring out how to get through a day. 

Then a week.

Then a month.

If you are in your first year of widowhood, take a look at What Nobody Tells You About Widowhood.

Eventually, there were birthdays and holidays and ordinary Thursdays (Todd died on a Thursday and it took me a very long time to not have a little bit of PTSD every Thursday morning).

And eventually, there were good days.

Really good days. I had met Ben and he immediately felt like home to me. That was also very confusing but comforting at the same time.

That can be a strange part of grief.

Because when you start laughing again, enjoying yourself again, making plans again, or imagining a future again, there can be a tiny voice in the back of your head wondering:

Am I allowed to be this happy?

The strange thing about grief years later

The loss of Todd doesn't consume me the way it did for so many years.

And I don't think that means I love him any less.

It means I've lived six years of a life he wasn't here to live.

I've changed.

I've grown.

I've experienced things he never got to experience with me.

I've made decisions he never got to help me make.

I've laughed about things he never got to hear.

I've cried about things I wish I could have told him.

And I've built parts of a life I never imagined having when we got married.

Hunter and Dylan have graduated from high school and college. They are adulting and I am so proud of the humans that they have become.

I am renovating our barns and continuing the dream that we shared when we purchased our property. I am literally building my next chapter.

That is one of the hardest and most beautiful things about life after loss.

You keep going.

Not because you stop loving the person who died.

Because you are still here.

You don't "move on." You move forward.

I've never really liked the phrase "move on" when it comes to grief.

Move on from what?

A person you loved since you were 15 years old?

A marriage?

A family?

A life you built together?

I don't want to move on from Todd.

I want to move forward with everything he was to me—and everything I've become because of the life we shared.

There is a difference.

Moving forward doesn't mean leaving someone behind.

It means continuing to live.

And I think that distinction matters.

Especially for widows.

Because there can be an enormous amount of pressure—sometimes from other people and sometimes from ourselves—to figure out what "normal" is supposed to look like after losing a spouse.

The truth is, there probably isn't one.

Your wedding anniversary might feel completely different than you expect

Maybe you'll want to celebrate.

Maybe you'll want to ignore the date completely.

Maybe you'll cry. Or lay on the floor, sobbing into your wedding dress! You will want to check out my Grief & Joy Founder Reflection on that one!

Maybe you'll laugh.

Maybe you'll do all of those things before lunch.

Maybe you'll spend the day looking at old photographs.

Maybe you'll want to be surrounded by people.

Maybe you'll want to be alone.

Maybe you'll find yourself irritated that everyone else is carrying on with their normal Tuesday while you're suddenly back in a moment from 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Or maybe you'll surprise yourself.

Maybe you'll wake up and feel okay.

And then feel guilty for feeling okay.

If you've lost your husband, there is no "right" way to experience your wedding anniversary.

There is just your way.

Grief and joy can exist in the same life

This is probably the biggest thing I've learned in six years.

Grief and joy aren't opposites.

They can exist in the same person.

Sometimes in the same hour.

I can miss Todd and laugh until I cry.

I can wish he were here and still be excited about what's ahead.

I can look at an old picture and feel completely heartbroken—and then turn around and have an absolutely wonderful day.

That doesn't mean I'm confused.

It means I'm human.

And maybe that's one of the things we don't talk about enough when we talk about grief.

Life doesn't become happy or sad after loss.

It becomes both.

Six years ago, I couldn't have imagined this life

Six years ago, I couldn't have imagined some of the things that are part of my life today.

I certainly couldn't have predicted that Ben would show up at my house to fix my driveway and I would fall in love with him.

And I couldn't have known that someday, the life I was terrified to imagine without Todd would contain laughter, love, purpose, adventure, frustration, ridiculousness, and moments of genuine joy.

That's the thing about grief.

You don't know what comes next.

And maybe you don't have to.

If you're facing another anniversary without the person you love

If you're reading this because your own wedding anniversary is coming up and your husband isn't here anymore, I don't have a magic formula for getting through it.

I don't think anyone does.

But I will tell you this:

You don't have to make the day mean something.

You don't have to be strong.

You don't have to be sad.

You don't have to pretend you're okay.

You don't have to prove that you're "moving on."

And you don't have to choose between remembering him and living your life.

You can do both.

You can miss him.

You can love him.

You can laugh.

You can cry.

You can make new memories.

You can have a good day.

You can have a really crappy day.

And six years, or ten years, or twenty years from now, you can still have a day when something reminds you of him and it hits you right in the heart.

That's not failure.

That's love.

October 4, 2026 is our 29th anniversary.

There is a part of me that will always wish Todd were here.

I wish he could see the boys. I wish he was here to do my car maintenance. Dead serious about that! That does not bring me joy!

I wish we could look back at 29 years and laugh about all the things we thought we knew when we were young.

I wish we could talk about the people we've become and the life we've built.

But that's not the life I got.

This is.

And after six years, I've learned that accepting the life you have doesn't mean you stop wishing for the life you should have had.

Both can be true.

So on our anniversary, I'll remember Todd.

I'll remember our marriage.

I'll probably laugh.

I'll probably cry.

And I'll keep living.

Because that's what we do.

We carry the people we love with us.

And we keep going.

Even when going forward looks nothing like the life we originally planned.

Happy 29th anniversary, Todd.

I still wish you were here.

And I am still figuring out what comes next. But I am grateful I get to keep going. And I hope I continue to make you proud.

If you're navigating life after loss

If you're a widow figuring out what comes next—or you simply want honest stories about navigating life's messy transitions—join the Grief & Joy Club. No toxic positivity. No pretending everything happens for a reason. Just honest stories, a little humor, and reminders that grief and joy can exist in the same life.