Jan. 8 changed Life with Liz forever. It’s the day that Life with Liz became Life Without the Wonderful Husband, or as I guess I can now identify him: Steve. I was driving home from a swim meet with E, happy that all my little fish had had a successful day, and hurrying to catch the tail end of the varsity swim meet where A was swimming.

The phone rang. It was my brother calling. The line was silent, and I thought it was a butt-dial. Then he spoke and I knew. There had been an accident.

It is amazing the clarity that comes to you in a moment like that. E was sitting beside me. All I could think about was getting her somewhere safe. Luckily, I had close friends who could answer the call and not ask a lot of questions.

I knew what was waiting for me on the other end of that phone call, because the night my dad died, I had received almost the exact same phone call from my brother. That night, the WH drove us all home from our beach vacation, under great duress and fearing the worst, he managed to keep us all safe, and now I found myself in the same position.

During that half-hour between the phone call and until I could get home, I desperately hung on to the idea that our lives were not about to be completely turned on their heads, but deep down I knew.

This column has always been just about as much his story as it has been mine. The “with” implies togetherness, at least two beings, something more than just myself. Sure, I still have three kids with me, who are now trying to do their best to keep things as normal as they can, and hope like heck that mom doesn’t go off her rocker. We have a certain kind of “with” each other, but it’s not the same kind of “with” that I had with the WH. (After all, you can’t spell WITH without the W and the H.)

From the beginning of this project, the WH was deeply involved. Before I ever wrote my first word, we laid some ground rules. First of all, if any member of the family didn’t like something that was written, it got cut. End of story. If someone said, “Don’t write about this, Mom,” I didn’t. Secondly, we all had to agree to have a little bit more of a sense of humor about ourselves, at least the way we were written. The WH knew that if he said or did something that earned him an eye roll in real life, it was going to end up in the column.

It took a huge amount of trust for him to allow this project to proceed, and every week, as I struggled with wording things just the right way, or what details to leave in or take out, or just had nothing in my brain to write, I could always count on him to be a brutal editor. In his own writing, which he did quite a bit of, he couldn’t place a comma for anything, but when it came to my writing, he could pick it apart in an instant. Whenever I had writer’s block, he was quick to suggest one of the many hunting stories he had in his back pocket at all times. I quickly found something else to write about.

I’ve struggled with how to finish this particular column. So many times in the last two weeks, I’ve had to ask myself, “What would Steve want?” I’ve also had to take a long, hard look at all the balls I now have to juggle by myself, and ask which ones I need to put down. I’ve also lost my moderator, the person who wasn’t afraid to tell me that I definitely shouldn’t print that.

Since I find myself constantly bouncing between anger, sadness and grief, I am more than a little worried about moderation.

But I also realize that what I’ve been able to capture in these last 300-plus columns has created an incredible record for my kids that is now more meaningful than ever. I also feel like the WH’s story isn’t over just yet.

This column has frequently been about trying to laugh when I really feel like crying, and now is definitely not the time to stop doing that. Plus, when I asked the kids what they thought about shuttering things, they looked at me like I had four heads. A even offered to help out like Dad did.

The kids have told me that the thing that helps them the most is just keeping life normal: going to school, playing their sports, watching the same awful YouTube videos, not putting away their laundry, whining about washing the dishes.

One of them may have even thrown around the word hypocrite when I talked about stopping doing all the things I’ve been doing. My kids aren’t about to let me take the easy way out.

Finally, while I expected to hear from many of Steve’s old friends, co-workers and family members, I have been overwhelmed by the number of letters I’ve received from people who only knew him as the WH. He was well-loved by many of you.

So, Life with Liz will continue. Not in a way that I ever expected it to, but that’s the thing about life, isn’t it? Life with the WH was always something to look forward to, another crazy adventure or scheme on the horizon. These last two weeks have been the darkest, loneliest, emptiest weeks I’ve ever had, and knowing there are more days like them ahead is daunting.

A friend of mine who has recently experienced terrible loss told me she finds solace in poetry, and for the last two weeks, the following lines from “Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann have been running through my head: “And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should … with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.