Bindi and Terri Irwin at the Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards
Patrick Riviere/Getty
"It ebbs and it flows," Irwin, 40, says on Thursday's Ellen DeGeneres Show, "and I tell you, sometimes I expect him to walk in the door, and other times I just think it's like one of those really good movies that you want to remember."
However, she adds, "Sometimes you think, 'I'm not remembering all the last 14 years,' but I think that's just a protection device."
Her marriage, she says, "was a great ride. I had a good time."
Steve Irwin, 44, died Sept. 4 while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia's Queensland coast.
"Steve was never afraid for his own mortality," Terri tells DeGeneres. "Countless times he has said to me, 'Okay, now I can die this is the most incredible thing I've ever done, now I can die,' and then we'd go and swim with the manatees, and then he'd go, 'Okay, now I can die.' "
Moving ahead, Terri, appearing with her 8-year-old daughter Bindi, says, "Steve's mapped out the next 10 years for us. We talk like he's still here."
As for the reaction of the fans since her husband's death, she says, "I can't thank everyone enough. It's a long road I got ahead of me but, the love and support that I've gotten from people – the letters from America, the outpouring of sympathy – he would have never believed it. He was a very humble man, and he would've been shocked."
