Spring stinks

I spent part of yesterday outside, looking at my garden. The first flowers of the season are in bloom, and of course it was salt in the wound again. Every year previous I would go running in the house, grab Mark, and bring him out and show him "our" flowers. It was a reaffirmation that even after the most harsh of Minnesota winters, life and beauty returns. This time there was nobody to show them to. Just another reminder of the hole in my life.
I read an article on young widow/ers in the NY Times. (http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/21/nyregion/coping-widowed-young-grieving-long.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all) Almost everyone depicted in the article was at least a decade older, and while it was possibly informative of why it's different to lose your spouse at this age than it is in your 70s or 80s, it only skimmed the desolation that it leaves emotionally.
Mark was the anchor to my life. I had hobbies, friends, and a brother - but I was always led back to Mark. He was the one that I fell asleep with, my head on his chest and his hand stroking my hair so my pain would be distracted. He was the one that my whole day revolved around. The "me" ten years ago would have been aghast that I could be this way. I'm a bit wiser now. It isn't strong to be tough. It takes incredible strength to finally give yourself to someone else.
What's unique about losing someone at this age is that you are blindsided in the "prime" of your life. We were making plans for everything from having a baby to retirement, and then the next thing I knew I'm driving 12 hours to see the spot of ground that he's buried. In my case there was no preparation. Just one day the whole world changed. The relationship didn't deteriorate as it does with divorce. He was just ripped away - along with some of my definitions of who I am (Mark's wife...future mother), my plans for the next four decades of my life...but most importantly my best friend is gone. The only person who made me feel butterflies when I'd catch a glimpse of him in public places...the only person who I plotted with...the one who taught me that it really was okay to be nonproductive and just have fun..the one who would spend a day in bed with me when I was sick because he didn't want me to be sick and lonely. Gone. Nobody gets it unless they've gone through it. It isn't even something that you can imagine how it would feel. You can't....I couldn't.
Insensitive people talk about "couples dinners" -the whole world is geared toward couples. Even the people that try to "get it" don't. They don't understand that there is a huge hole in me, that I will never feel whole again. They don't understand that the weekends are a journey to hell - the days that I would spend with Mark now are the days when my phone is conspicuously quiet.

Mark quipped that this house was Noah's Ark, because we have 2 of almost everything. You name the gadget or tool, we have at least two of them. Two drills, two dogs, two stand mixers, two coffee grinders. Two of everything I don't really need. And, the only one that I do need is gone. I really don't understand anything.