I’m inside the little chapel on 2nd Avenue in Columbus. You know the place. I’ve written about it several times. Old-school wooden pews. Plain concrete block walls. Men in the recovery program at Valley Rescue Mission seated around the room.

It’s my turn to “do the devotion” as Shawn and I call it. I’m talking about Noah, attempting to draw significant life lessons from a guy who built a boat the size of three football fields in the middle of nowhere.

When the evening ends, one of the guys comes up to me. A lot of the guys come by with a handshake and a thank you. But this guy steps off to the side and waits.

“I’ve got something I need to say to you.”

I shake a few more hands, and then turn back to this guy. His name is Ian. Slender face with a thin mustache and a wanna-be-goatee.

He speaks.

“When you said something about walking through the shadow of death, I could tell that death is very personal to you. That you live with it every day. I could see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice. Your words came from the heart.”

That was last night. I don’t know what he saw or heard, but he was right. I do live with death every day. I just didn’t think it was all that obvious.

And the timing of his comment? You tell me.

Today marks the third anniversary of the day Beth left us. This is the day anything normal that my family knew changed forever. This is the day that calling her on the phone stopped. This is the day that cooking in the kitchen together stopped. This is the day that making plans with her stopped. This is the day that comes around every 365 days and will keep coming for as long as we live on this earth.

You don’t forget the loss of a spouse. No matter how much you move on, she is still with you. Like Ian said, you live with the shadow of her death every day.

I don’t know what he picked up on. I know I didn’t have her on my mind last night at that moment. My voice wasn’t shaking like it did the first time I did the devotion after Beth passed. He didn’t know I had lost her. He simply recognized a tone, or a look, or maybe an honesty.

On a day like this, you get real honest. It’s unavoidable.

You relive the moment. This was the day the Doc called me from the ICU. It was a Sunday afternoon. The worst thing I’ve ever had to do in my life was to call my children and give them the news. We hovered in the waiting room. Said our goodbyes. Wept. Prayed. The Nurse came in to tell us she was gone. We wept some more.

To begin with, you play that scene over and over in your mind because it doesn’t seem real. But eventually, you don’t think about it hardly at all. The good memories come. The best times shape how you think of her. And that’s how it should be.

In fact, my kids are texting back and forth right now, sharing some of their favorite pics of their mom. It makes me glad. It also makes it hard for me to concentrate on writing this story.

Today, I think about the things she missed out on. We never went to Ireland. We had the trip booked with a downpayment, but I had to cancel it.

She never got to see the back porch built. She wanted an open deck, but I decided to close it all in and put a roof over it.

She would love the paved driveway. We drove over dust and ruts and mud for so many years. I hate that I waited until after she was gone to make it nice. She’s probably looking down on me with her arms crossed, saying “Great! Just great!” every time I leave the house.

Beth never got to meet Naomi. To her, Beth will be a collection of pictures and stories. We want her to know her Nana, and we’ll make sure she does the best we can.

When you’re married to someone for over four decades, you’re surrounded by so many reminders of that part of your life. The empty chair in the room. The vacant spot in the cabinet where her coffee cup used to be. The lamp she hated. The color of paint on the wall that she picked out. The extra bed she bought for the grandchildren. The pictures on the wall.

Those things never go away. I don’t want them to go away.

If I were to write her a letter today, I would tell her that my love for her was one of the best parts of my life. I can’t completely square that up with death, but I know it’s true. I’d also tell her about the new love in my life, which is awkward and wonderful at the same time.

Awkward because love is so different at my age. Awkward because my new life is awkward for the kids on both sides. Awkward because I was with Beth for a looooong time, and I’ve had to give myself permission to love again.

But at the same time, love is wonderful. I’m crazy lucky to have loved twice. Just like the empty chair at the table, there’s an empty spot in my heart that’s not empty anymore. For two years, nobody, and I mean nobody ever once told me good morning at the start of the day. Now I get a ‘good morning’ every single day.

The little things matter.

I mostly think today about how much my kids miss their mama. They counted on her for advice about life. They were just getting old enough to think of her as a friend and not just a mom.

My youngest said to me recently, “I know I don’t know what it’s like to lose a spouse, but you don’t know what it’s like to lose your mom too soon in life.”

She’s right. I can only be a dad to my kids. I can’t sustain the role that Beth filled for them. I can get married again, but they can never have another mom.

That’s hard.

This day will always be about remembering Beth. I’m so grateful that Marion and I are not shy, or weird, or selfish about this sort of thing. Beth is forever a part of who I am. She may be gone, but she is still family.

When Ian said to me what he said, my first thought was that he might turn out to be a little creepy. “I see dead people” kind of creepy. But it turned out not to be that. I guess it turned out to be a God-nod.

I do live with death. I’ve been touched deeply by it. Beth’s death will forever shape the way I see life. It’s brevity. It’s beauty. It’s tragedy. It’s wonder.

Today is her day. Tomorrow is another day.

I am grateful for both.