What must he think?

I don't really worry much anymore about what other people think.  I don't care if they think I am grieving too much or not enough or that I am too angry or too sad.  Sometimes I worry what Max might think.  People have been telling me since we lost him, that he would want me to be happy.  Would he?  Would he really want his mother to be happy in spite of his death?  I think it is one of those things people say.  I say it too and, most of the time, I believe it.

A widower that we know lost his wife less than a year ago.  It was DEVASTATING.  He looked like he'd been hit by a truck....and somehow I had this feeling that he would probably get remarried before too long.  He was too in love with that wife to know how to go about life as a single person.  He hasn't remarried yet, but he does have a girlfriend...and I think it is a really good thing.  I don't think it erases her memory or his heartbreak - it just creates a space for him to love again.  I like to think that if Ted lost me, that I would be happy to see him fall in love again.  I don't want him to be alone.  I worry that what I'd actually feel is jealous.  

If my parents lost me - how would I want them to feel?  When I felt that they were particularly horrible to me (I mostly felt that way when I was a teenager - like when they wouldn't let me do something I wanted to do), I'd picture them at my funeral - crying over me and wishing they'd just have let me go to the party I wanted to go to.  It's really morbid, I know, but I think many of us have had these fantasies.  Of course I'd want them to be happy again but how would I feel about really seeing them woop it up?  I can't really say, even though I'd like to say that I'd be smiling down on them.  I don't want my parents to know sadness, but I'd expect them to mourn for a while.  Or maybe my dead self is more evolved than that - I sure hope so.  

All this to say, when I laugh to loud, I wonder what Maxie must think.  I hope he knows that I am laughing despite feeling sick to my stomach that I am forever without him.  He must - because the laughter is just a band aid.  I hope he knows that.