I don't know how to let you go.

"How are you doing with this?"

Is something I'm hearing a lot these days. And the truth is, I am _________.

Fill that in depending on the day.

I'm not going to lie and say I still don't feel like I'm in mourning -- but more often than not I'm really, really OK.

Like I told Jess -- I'm losing a wife and all the trappings having one brings.

But I'm gaining a husband -- and all the heterosexual privilege that having one brings.

We were talking the other day about how I feel about things... well... no... Jess was talking, I was all, "I'm good."

I mentioned how the fear of everything I know changing is just overwhelming right now.

And I said how I didn't even know what the sound of his voice would be.

And I burst into tears.

Typing that brought them back.

I couldn't hold them back. I've been working really hard at shutting off my emotions on this subject and there they were -- forcing their way to the surface.

I didn't even know that his female voice would be missed so much until the flood of tears.

But I know why.

It's always been soothing to me. I can't count how many times I've sent him an IM at work and said, "can I hear you?" and get a phone call.

Or how many times we lay in bed at night in the dark and that voice would lull me to sleep and I'd have to hear the next morning how I fell asleep on him in the middle of a conversation.

Or how many times we'd be driving somewhere in the car and a song would come on and he'd start singing -- no matter what the mood in the car was (we could be in the middle of an argument and he just busts out singing LOL).

Or the sound of my name from those lips.

Or the sing-songy/half-chuckling way he says "baaaaaaaaabeeeeeeeee" when responding to something silly that I say.

Other.

Sounds.

Today I mourn his voice.