The first month is now behind me. It is amazing to me how acutely aware of time I have become. Surviving the first day seemed impossible, then the first week. Now it’s already been a month. On each of those milestones, I spent the day thinking, “at this time yesterday, I still …” or “at this time last week, I still …” My calendar has more or less caught up with all the things that Steve had scheduled.

I got the car to the body shop, touched base with the plumber about an upcoming project, called the accountant to start to try unraveling the mystery that is income tax. At least I can stop thinking that when Steve called to make these appointments, he had no idea he would never make them. Being thankful for things like that makes me question my sanity.

Sanity feels in short supply. I’ve grieved for my grandparents, my father, a miscarriage that we had between G and E, dear friends, and beloved pets, and nothing could have prepared me for this. Over the last month, I’ve had to break down every bit of my relationship with Steve, mainly so that I can see which hats of his I now need to wear, which hats I need to crowdsource, and which hats I need to put on the shelf, never to be worn again.

Thanks to the overwhelming support from friends and family members, I’ve gotten the taxi-driver role covered. The kids are getting everywhere they need to go. Those closest to Steve are making sure that his kids are having the same opportunities Steve would have made for them, particularly when it comes to all the outdoorsy things that I just don’t do.

The boys have divided up some of the household chores, while I’ve taken over a few others. A lot of the practical bases are covered, even if it is with pinch runners.

In the middle of all of this, G decided to sprout some facial hair and I had to scramble to get him razors and hope for the best, all the while crying because I knew his dad should be the one helping him with this. Somehow, we’ve muddled through a month. I keep telling myself if I could make it through that first day, I could make it through another day; that first week, I could manage another week; and now, it’s been a month, so I know I can manage another month.

I’ve lost my partner, my best friend. I’ve lost the person who I didn’t have to explain anything to, and after weeks and weeks of explaining everything to everyone, over and over, I long for just one more silly, inconsequential conversation that meant nothing to anyone but the two of us. At night, I whisper the nickname I’ve had for him since we started dating, and know I will never hear his nickname for me again. There were so many little secrets we shared: squeezes, winks, code words when we were in crowds, that let each other know what we were really thinking or wanted to say.

Some of it seems downright juvenile now that I think about it, but it was our own way to make our own fun, and to connect when we were feeling disconnected.

As the years passed, and things got more hectic, I frequently worried that Steve and I were missing a lot of quality time together. I didn’t want to end up being the old couple going out to eat, sitting in silence, because they’d run out of things to say. So much of our lives revolved around our kids, and sometimes we would go for days with little communication other than text messages and quick phone calls to coordinate drop-offs and pickups. Sometimes our only touchpoints were a quick kiss goodbye in the morning and another quick one before we fell into bed exhausted by the day’s activities.

Then, miraculously, the stars would align, and we’d find ourselves with a few precious hours alone, together. Just a week before Christmas, all three kids headed out to a Christmas party, and we had a free evening ahead of us. We ate a quick dinner with some relatives who happened to be passing through town, and then we headed out for a night of Christmas shopping.

Walking through the mall, hand in hand, running through our checklists for each of the kids, it reminded me of the first year we went Christmas shopping for A. We were fresh off of A’s second surgery, the one that removed the artificial stent that put him at high risk for a clot, and made him a lot more stable, and we were still just so ecstatic that we were going to have our first Christmas together as a family of three. We spoiled him rotten. So many presents, and 7-month-old A had zero interest in any of them.

Now, older, and much, much wiser, we rapidly talked each other out of every spontaneous purchase, stuck to our list, made it back home in time to unload the car, and have a beverage long before the kids came home. That evening we talked about what the new year would bring, projects that we had on the horizon, where we would go on vacation next summer. I explained for the hundredth time how exactly the relatives we’d seen for dinner were related to me. My very large, extended family frequently overwhelmed him.

Of course, we talked about the kids, the dogs, and everything in between. And, finally, we talked about how much we really liked spending time with each other. We reminded each other that we really needed to start doing more of it, now that the kids were becoming more independent, and having busier social lives of their own.

In the course of three short weeks, those plans were blown out of the water. On any given day, I am grateful that we had that one last night together, just a few weeks ago, a reminder of just how special what we had was. On any other given day, I am resentful and angry, because we had promised we would make more time for just each other, and neither of us got to keep that promise.

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