When I was a child, summer was endless. Each day stretched out longer than the horizon. My siblings and I turned feral; we would wander the neighborhood pretending to be lost pirates at sea, adventurers discovering new lands in the wooded area of the semi-maintained town park, or simply play tag. With dirty, bare feet and flushed faces, we’d find our way home once we couldn’t justify the amount of light left in the sky.

As an adult with children, a career, university classes, and the normal day-to-day of any other adult, the days can sometimes fly by and I’m left shocked that a new year is about to begin.

How long is a day?

I imagine that it depends on the unit of measure. Is one counting minutes, hours, moments? A deadline makes for the short unit of measure, especially for a procrastinator like myself. A heart break is the longest.

The longest day of my life began the morning after an argument with my husband. I had gone to sleep exhausted, my emotional state fragile and frazzled. Sometimes I hate thinking of it.

I had been afraid that night but let’s not dive too deep into what occurred before…not because I don’t remember, but because at the time of this writing, I’m not ready to look deeply into what was.

I curled myself around the warm, sleeping body of my toddler, my oldest sleeping just across from me in his own little bed. Their breaths lulled me to sleep, even when my mind raced and ached. I felt battered.

I woke up to chaos in my bedroom. Harsh light spilled out into the hallway and I was surprised that he was awake. I crept into the bedroom but no one was there. Just a rumpled bed and an open gun safe. My mind registered the scene but didn’t begin to try an process the images. I only wondered why the house was so silent if someone was awake.

When I finally found my husband, time stopped for me. There was no initial cry or scream. The finality of the situation didn’t break me until I called 911 and began to talk. I thought I was speaking slowly and clearly.

“Ma’am, please slow down and repeat your address. I can’t understand you.”

Was I crying? Was I screaming?

Time slipped by as slow as molasses. I was so frustrated at the day. Morning wasn’t over and I longed for dusk, I longed for the night, I longed for a new day to begin. I don’t even know why. Maybe I just wanted it to be any day other than the day that death visited our family, another day than the one in which my husband took his life.

That day lasted a hundred years. I aged a lifetime by the next morning. Inside my soul, a dull knife slashed me open. I bled out without dying. I was an empty husk that watched the events around me unfold.

I fell into an ocean of grief and pain, but it was too much to process. I was in shock and I had two buoys barely holding my nose above water. They were 2 and 4-years-old. As they were rushed past the body of their lifeless father, blankets covering their heads so they wouldn’t witness a thing, I realized that our entire world had ended and I had to figure out how to piece together a new one for them.