When you got your diagnosis we both knew you were going to die, albeit at not as fast as you were taken. I also became pretty convinced that I was also going to die. Initially I assumed it would be immediate after the drama with my colonoscopy, but then later came to believe it will just be at some point in the future. Not as soon as you, but too early regardless.

I am really sort of planning my own death, with most concerns being the kids. I decided that I would, from the point of my own diagnosis, start writing the kids emails regularly that they could see after I died so they could still have communications from me. They would include pics of me / them that they had not seen, memories, words of encouragement, etc.

Despite the fact I knew your time was short ... I didn't consider how I'd feel this desperate need to still hear from you. Despite the fact I knew my kids would feel that for me. I knew you'd leave me, but never really believed it.

Now I sit here strolling every social media post and reading every text message. There are not enough videos and I need more. I need more words from you to me, more words from you to the kids.

In every movie when someone dies there is the "last voicemail." They save it forever and listen to it on repeat. I don't have a last voicemail. Do I save every text? Every email? Every instant message? What about all the millions of texts I deleted? Can I retrieve them? Can I hunt down stories you wrote for a now defunct online magazine? Can I find writing you did under pseudonyms? How do I find a way to still hear you now that you are gone? I don't know why I started planning the end of my own life while simultaneously not preparing for yours. That was a pretty massive mistake.