On Father’s Day, I hold the wristwatch—a stainless steel Bell & Ross—and notice the delayed clicks of the white second hand. My thumb moves in circular motions across the waterproof glass. I’m surprised by its weight.

Erik, my 29-year-old husband, pleaded with me for this expensive watch, but I said, “You know we can’t afford that right now.” We were saving money to buy our first house in over-priced Marin County, California.

"Hyla, he’s going to give it to me for one-third the cost."

Oh, Erik. "Why do I have to be the one who has to say no?"

Erik put me in charge of our finances after he’d accepted that his impetuous spending habits weren’t helping us save. We were newly pregnant with our second daughter, and moving from one rental house to the next was getting old.

Erik bought the watch anyway.

Keira, my five-year-old daughter, whined, "I don’t want to talk to anyone," from under her purple, fuzzy blanket. She did not want start going to therapy.

She had recently returned from school one too many times, saying "nobody likes me," or "I’m not smart," or "nobody wants to be my friend." 

But that was as far as the conversation ever went. She really didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not even me.

I pulled the covers back, exposing her angry, brown eyes. "That’s just it, honey. It isn’t good if you don’t talk about your feelings."

She wrapped her front teeth around the base of her thumb’s cuticle and chewed on the skin. "I don’t have any feelings."

Match.com. E-Harmony. Yahoo Personals. J-Date.

Yup, I signed up for them all. I was a mama on a mission to find love online.

More sites, more options.

I had tried the club scene. Blaring music. Dim lights. Too much booze.

“Nice toes,” one guy had said, looking first at my feet and then straight at my chest.

For three hours, the grasshopper-like chirps call out from the defibrillator. Three hours.

This entire time, I continue to write sections of my memoir, Drop Dead Life, trying to pretend the beeping isn’t there.

If the beeping is there, that means we really own a defibrillator. That means I actually need to be ready to pull out the child-sized paddles and jump-start my daughters’ hearts.

Tatiana, my eight-year-old daughter, begins to cry. "Mom-my! I’m not talking to you. You are making me so sad."

Her curly blonde hair flies everywhere, as if being blown by a fan. She stomps into the bathroom, slams the door, and locks herself in.

All morning, Tatiana has not been listening, and I’m fed up with having to repeat my words six times just to be heard.

Deep breath, I tell myself.

My dad is Lutheran, my mom is Jewish. My childhood exposed me to traditions from both denominations, but I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as religious. 

Spiritual, yes. 

Religious, no. 

In fact, if there is a god, I’m still pretty pissed off at him. 

A friend of mine recently asked me, "Do you ever have sex with Evan and imagine, just for a moment, that you're having sex with Erik instead?"

Normal thing to wonder about a remarried widow, I suppose. 

Actually, I love that she asked me this. 

Guilt. Mommy guilt. Daddy died guilt. Always the guilt.

Each morning, at 6 AM, Julian, 2, calls out, "Ma Ma. Ma Ma? Ma Ma," and the race begins.

Ugh! I shouldn't have stayed up so late.

Four kids, like newly hatched spiders, crawl up my skin. They nip at my arms, my shoulders, my feet, and I want to flick them off. I want five minutes, just five freaking minutes, to make my coffee, before I get them ready for school.

The red taxi drove away, leaving me there, alone, for three days of writing, lectures, read-and-critique workshops, author panels, editor insights, networking, and the nerve-wracking one-on-ones with literary agents. 

Already, I wanted to board the plane back to San Francisco.

Only days before, my memoir, DROP DEAD LIFE, a pregnant widow’s poignant, heartfelt, and often comic journey through death, birth, and rebirth, had been rejected, via email, by yet another literary agent. Like most rejections, there wasn’t much commentary on the actual writing, but I conjured up plenty of imaginary bashing on my own.

Not feeling very poignant or comic, I dragged my horse-sized brown suitcase up to the hotel lobby check-in and gave my name.

DROP DEAD LIFE, the blog, must make a shift.

Despite my own insecurities as an intellectually under-stimulated mommy of four wild children, ages 2 through 12, my memoir, DROP DEAD LIFE, a pregnant widow's poignant, heartfelt, and often comic journey through death, birth, and rebirth, has recently sparked enthusiastic literary agent interest.

So, what this means, I imagine, is that my book will eventually end up in your local stores.

Erik folded his hands beneath his black sweater, his thumbs fidgeting with the wool.

"I know we' re supposed to go to dinner," he said, "But I don't know if I can even eat right now."

I laughed. "What? Am I making you sick?"

"No, no, not at all, it's that . . . it's just a lot, being with you."

I walk out of the closet, my arms full of Erik’s shirts, all still on hangers. My 8-month-pregnant belly acts as a shelf, enabling me to carry more.

"I hope you’re alright with this," I say to my brother, Troy. "That you don’t think it’s weird I’m giving you Erik’s stuff."

I pile the shirts on top of my bed, the white plastic hangers clinking together like falling dominoes.

Tatiana clings to me, her legs wrapped beneath my 9-month pregnant belly, while the other Marin Day School toddlers push balls, rakes, miniature vacuums, and each other around in the outdoor play area of the preschool.

Primary colored toys are scattered everywhere—many of which Erik had cleaned only two months before, when he donated his time to Tatiana’s school to make some "minor repairs."

Erik was supposed to fix a couple of loose locks over a weekend, but the teachers returned to a new garden of potted flowers, re-stained benches and sandbox, and a large rainbow play-structure that had been flipped and scrubbed from bottom to top.

When he walked through the metal gate to bring Tatiana there the next day, the entire staff gave him a standing ovation. "Look, Honey!" he said, as he showed me the thank you card made out of red construction paper and a dozen one-year-old hand-prints. "Can you believe they did this for me?"

And now, at Marin Day School, there is still story time, singing circle time, and "tick-tocking" clean-up time, but something has changed. Now there is a solemn understanding between all of us.

Erik told me about his dad, Hayden, when we first started dating. We were both 20, both students at Florida State University. Erik majored in computer science while I studied creative writing. Within days of knowing one another, it was obvious that Erik's rational, organized side would compliment the artist in me.

Erik spoke slowly, with quiet intensity. "We were on vacation."

I sat cross-legged, on Erik's bedroom floor, soaking in the masculine whisper of his words. My attention was focused entirely on him.

I give Troy the burgundy velvet bag that contains Erik’s ashes. "Do you mind holding them? I may need to run down to the beach by myself."

"I’ll put them in my back pack." Troy rests the gray sack by his feet and slides the ashes in. He starts to zip up the backpack, but pauses. "Jeanette, I might be able to fit yours in, too."

Jeanette hugs her pine box closer to her chest. "No, I want to hold him. Hayden’s fine right here."

My mother-in-law, Jeanette, has held on to her husband’s ashes for 17 years now.

My body is as still as a corpse while my obstetrician shaves the rest of my pubic hair, so that she can neatly slice my womb open.

I stare at my right hand, into the dark eyes of the black and white photograph I am holding of my husband, Erik. I study his black hair, his defined jaw, his young 29-year-old skin, probing his face for answers, but the picture has no reply.

He should be here. How can he not be here for Keira's birth?

I folded our warm white towels while Tatiana, only twelve months old then, napped in her bedroom. Erik and I had been married just over two years and, already, I was four months pregnant with our second daughter, Keira.

Erik and I both felt the same intense love for Tatiana and were excited to have another baby right away.

But there was no excitement in the house that day. 

The house was quiet, except for the annoyed thoughts I could hear myself thinking about Erik.

Sick of his crap.

I walked in slow-motion towards Erik’s closed, mahogany casket.

The old stone chapel was filled with familiar faces. There were faces from Skywalker Ranch and other Lucas parties, faces I had photographed in my studio, faces from my bridal shower, my wedding, and Tatiana’s birth.

I kept my head down.

As the pregnant widow, all eyes were on me, but I did not want to be seen. Direct eye contact would break me open in a way that I would not be ready to be broken open for years.

I admired Erik in the shower that Easter Sunday morning. Salt and pepper hair. Deep brown eyes. Broad masculine shoulders covered by smooth olive skin.

Steam had filled the bathroom, like the fog that frequently hovered over the Golden Gate Bridge.

I could only see parts of his body through the hazy, glass shower doors. He sat against the corner of the tub, as he always did, carefully scraping the skin off of his well-manicured feet.

Have yet to figure out the descent from these mountains I have climbed.

Two butterflies, burnt orange in shade, dance frantically around me, only an inch away from each other. Bells in the distance, buoys navigate the way, and the fog horn blows on this clear sun-filled day.

There are no whales to be seen down below. No seals doing somersaults. No deer hopping their way through the golden summer bushes.

I turn off my music so that I may hear the mountain lion preying on me for her morning feast. I figure if she eats me, it was meant to be my day.

I heaved my pregnant body onto the exam table. 

"What about the baby?" I asked Lizellen. 

She leaned against a small wooden desk, arms folded in front of her pink blouse. "What about her? She’ll be fine. Better than fine. Babies are resilient." 

It had only been twelve hours since my husband's death. My mom had called Lizellen to give her the news. 

Three years had passed since the last time I had seen Erik. This would be interesting, I thought, as I finished drawing the black eyeliner on my upper lids.

I slid into a just-tight-enough pair of black pants and declared the matching violet sweater set winner of the “I want to look good, but not too good” contest. My bed was made for the first time in weeks, its inviting purple and red chenille covers setting a serene and sensual mood.

It was time to present myself as the successful baby photographer. Time to show that I was a together 26 year-old woman, someone who learned from her mistakes, someone willing to take responsibility for her actions. Time to apologize for all of the crap I put on Erik when we broke up.

I stretched out on the green velvet couch, my legs resting in Carlyn’s lap. My statue of Quan Yin, the Goddess of Compassion, hovered above us, on the fireplace mantle. Quan Yin was peaceful and wise—exactly what I strived to be—her stone arms out in front of her, her hands open wide.

The light from the candles illuminated Carlyn’s long, curly brown hair. Her green eyes connected with mine. We were present, no lies between us, no false pretense.

Carlyn spoke softly. "I keep seeing his face . . . Erik’s face."

I stared at her, blankly, and said nothing.

At the hospital, just thirty minutes later, I stood over his body in total disbelief.

Erik was stretched out on a steel table in the Emergency Room. Eyes closed, arms at his sides, he was motionless. There was no subtle rise in the white hospital sheet where the air once filled his chest.

This can’t be real.

The body in front of me was what had been carrying my Erik, but my Erik was gone. It was as if I had been able to feel his massive spirit pass through me—a disorienting consumption of my senses—in our kitchen, during my call to 911. All the while my brother had tried to revive him, all the while I had repeated to Tatiana that “Dada was going to be OK,” I had known it wasn’t going to be OK. Somehow, I had known. I had felt it.

Erik was dead.

How did the happiest day turn out to be the saddest day?

How do I go there? How do I tell my story—our story—when I must feel so much pain to tell it completely? Sitting still long enough to write about it means acknowledging the ache, the low-grade hum of this relentless grief. It is a hurt I have never known. Yet how do I describe such pain without describing the happiness? Without that happiness, I would be left with nothing.

I moved the girls to Florida, to be closer to my family. This house is mine, I think. This skin holds my body, but this body does not feel mine. To feel my body, this house, would be to feel reality and, this, I am afraid to do.

Today, for the first time, I woke up looking for Erik next to me in my bed and, of course, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there to hold me or make love to me or tell me that this was all going to be OK. And, now, I am afraid of getting close. I have pushed everyone away. I am afraid of getting close to anyone for fear of losing what I love the most.

I had everything I had ever wanted . . . right up until our Easter Sunday dinner when my then seventeen month-old daughter and I watched as my amazing husband, Erik, slid down the kitchen counter and died. He was 29 and I was seven months pregnant with our second child. One minute he was laughing, and thirty five minutes later, he was proclaimed dead. Just like that.

After graduating from Florida State University with my B.A. in Creative Writing, I moved to Northern California with my fiancé, Erik Grieve.

At age 23, I started my business, Hyla Molander Photography, specializing in hand-tinted black and whites of babies and children. My photographs and writing have been published world-wide in a line of "Wise Little Souls" greeting cards and posters, sending the message that our children are both our students and our teachers.

After the sudden death of my husband, Erik Hayden Grieve, 29, I began writing pieces of my memoir, DROP DEAD LIFE.