While watching the kids swim (water is only warm enough for me to dip my feet and legs in!), I got sad watching the other dads with their kids. Everybody KNOWS that when the water is borderline cold, moms make the dads go in with the kids and I can't do that. I felt terrible (but not terrible enough to go in the water!). My daughter brought up "surfing" on her dad's back and we all then sat thinking of what we used to do with Jove; how things would never be again.
Also, as I said, my friend came with us but she left her husband at home. Well, he called to speak to his daughter and, after the daughter got off the phone with her dad, she says "oh, it was just my dad; no big deal". Except that it IS a big deal. And this poor child didn't know what she was saying, of course, but boy did that hurt. It got me in the gut. I looked at my son and he felt it, too. How we would love to be able to get a phone call from Jove. It's a simple thing that most wives and children take for granted but it's an enormous blow for those of us that don't have those people in our lives anymore.
It's just one of those realities that must be dealt with. We could avoid vacations and/or swimming in public pools because those things might bring on sad feelings when we think about our "daddy memories". Or, we can continue to try and live the way we lived with Jove, doing things we enjoyed doing as a family, realizing things ARE different but they CAN still be enjoyable for us together. It's important, for me, to continue to instill the same values (which, for our family, has always been to not have the biggest house or coolest car but to travel often, making tons of family memories that will remain with us for forever), do the same things that brought joy to our lives before Jove died, and embrace the fact that things WILL be different but they won't ONLY be different. Things will be good again. I'm pretty sure the kids and I know that already most days.