Just Let Me Cry

Dear Michael,

I haven't written for a very long time.  It's not that I haven't thought of you, because I think  of you every minute of every day.  It's not because you're no longer important to me or that I don't have a million things to say to you, it's just because I'm still struggling, and maybe I just don't want you to know how much, after 2 1/2 years, I still struggle.

When you died, if someone had asked me honestly how long I thought grief would take, I probably would've said "One year.  I should be better and back on my feet in one year".  It's not that I thought I wouldn't think of you, or miss you, but I really thought that one year was enough to get over the heart ache.

Now, I know..it just doesn't happen like that, Baby.  The pain changes, it gets lighter and there are some good days thrown in there, but the grief stays.  You just learn to live around it.  There are days that I'm hopeful and think that maybe I'm ready to move on..but then I realize that by moving on, I'm still just searching for you.

When you were here, we were always so busy.  Remember when I told you that time was going so fast because we were so happy, and maybe we ought to try to be a little more miserable, to slow down the time so that the end wouldn't come so quickly?

Now, my days seem to go by in a blur.  I'm always so busy on the outside, so many things to do, but I just don't have the same attitude.  I've lost my joy.  I struggle through days like I'm walking through quick sand.  I wake up and think "I need to clean the house and get laundry done today".  Then it hits me...why?  Tomorrow is the same as today.  I don't have a reason to hurry and get anything done.

I struggle a lot, Michael.  I struggle emotionally, financially, physically.  I struggle with loneliness.  I have never felt so alone in my life.  You were my "person" and now you're gone.  I  struggle with sadness and fear and anger.  I miss you Michael.

You changed my life in so many ways.  You were my "golden years".  I was so happy with you.  I was so fulfilled, and I had so much joy.  I looked forward to you coming home from work.  I looked forward to our weekends and crawling in bed at night to sleep next to you.  You brought everything I'd ever hoped for into my life.  When you left, Michael, you took it all with you.

Now that you are gone, there is no one here to protect me.  No one to protect me from being taken advantage of, no one to protect me from the loneliness or the dark days.  There is no one here that is in love with me.  No one to help me be a parent, to fix things when they break.  There is no one to touch my face or to tell me I'm beautiful when I feel everything but beautiful.

I try really hard to encourage others and to encourage myself as well.  I will keep fighting and keep breathing and keep putting my feet on the floor even on those days that I feel like giving up, because life really is worth living.  I will keep saying "fine" when people ask me how I am and I will keep choosing to believe that I really am "fine", until the day that it's the truth.

So, I guess the reason that I haven't written in so long, is because really, no one should have to know what it's really like in the day of a widow.  Life shouldn't be about thinking of death and sadness.  And who knows...tomorrow may be the day that I wake up and am excited to get the laundry done...but for now..just let me cry.  Let me cry so that all the sadness and the loneliness and grief can work themselves out of my heart.  Let me cry because today, I miss you so much.

Two years-does it ever get easier?

Dear Michael,

Two years have come and gone since you died.  It has been the hardest two years of my life, but it has also been two years filled with amazing gifts and growth and love and loss.

As I look back over these past two years, I realize that yes, I have survived.  I was not a willing participant in my survival-at least not at first.  But, somehow life and the love of friends and family pulled me forward one day at a time.

This has been a journey in faith...having it, losing it, finding it again.  It has been a journey in self confidence.  Yes, I lived alone before I met  you (when I used to tell you that I couldn't live without you, you'd ask "well, what did you do before you met me"?) but that was before I allowed myself to lean on a partnership and love affair that was beyond my wildest imagining.

Two years ago, I could barely breathe.  The pain was so deep and so intense, that it literally took all my energy just to breathe, to keep the horror of losing you from driving me insane.  Today, I'm actually finding my strength again.  Part of that strength comes from you, part of it comes from a place inside myself that I didn't know existed.

There is not a single morning that I wake up without you on my mind, or a solitary night when I go to bed without you being my last thought.  And even in my dreams, you are with me.  Sometimes I feel your presence so strongly, that I catch myself picking up the  phone to call you, or thinking that you'll be home from work any minute.  Sometimes, I feel you so near to me, that it's almost physical.

Death has not kept you from me, Michael.  It has not kept us apart in my heart, only your physical self is gone.  Two years of you being gone has shown me that love exists because it simply IS.  Death did not destroy a love that is so deep, so pure and so good, that it bonded us into one spiritual person.

I think that you would be proud of the things I've accomplished in this two years that I have spent in the desert.  I encourage the widows in my group to list twenty four things that they have accomplished in the twenty four months that their spouse has been gone.  So, I'm going to list twenty four things that I never imagined I could accomplish, to remind myself, that yes, I am doing this damn thing!

I love you so much, Baby Boy.  And, I am so glad that I will never have to say "goodbye" to you again.  I look forward to saying "Hello Again" and I know that next time, it really will be forever.

My Twenty Four Accomplishments  

1. I planned and lived through your funeral.
2. I woke up every day and put my feet on the ground.
3. I have managed to pay the bills and haven't had anything repossessed or turned off.
4. I have continued to attend church and make sure that Tru attends.
5. I started a second stage support group for widows that now number 96 members.
6. I have published this blog which now has almost 8,000 views in over 17 countries.
7. I have gotten Tru through Kindergarten and First Grade.
8. I have buried my grandchild.
9. I have cared for, and buried my brother in law.
10. I have attended the births of almost 40 babies.
11. I quit smoking.
12. I gained 50 lbs and have lost 12 of them.
13. I have handled family problems, kid problems and friend problems.
14. I have washed somewhere around 500 loads of clothes.
15. I have fed Tru over 725 dinners.
16. I have attended the funeral of your best friend's wife.
17. I have developed friendships with people who were strangers 2 years ago.
18. I have taken care of car repairs, appliance repairs and home repairs.
19. I have rented the farm.
20. I have planted flowers.
21. I have placed flowers that I arranged, on your grave every Holiday and special occasion.
22. I have taken Tru on a plane ride, a train trip, a car trip.
23. I have become a faculty member and educator for the world's larges childbirth organization.
24. I have loved  you every single day.       

So, to answer my question....does it ever get easier?  Yes, Baby, it does.....it's always there, the loss is always going to be there....but I think that what happened is, I have changed.  I have learned to live with the loss of you, cry when I need to, talk to friends when it gets hard, and to pick myself up and add to this list.

Living Until I'm Alive Again

Dear Michael,

Tomorrow, it will be 23 months.  It gets harder and harder to write these letters to you, Sweetie.  Sometimes it feels like I don't have anything new to say..just a repeat of all those things I've already said to you so many times in the past (almost) two years that you've been gone.

Remember, before we got married, I told you that my love for you was independent of you?  My love was not contingent on whether you loved me back, that my love for you had a life of it's own...it just simply was?  I have loved you without having seen your face, without having heard your voice, without so much as a touch, I have loved you with a love that simply is, for (almost) two years and I have missed you every single moment of that (almost) two years.

Sometimes I wonder, if you came back today, would you recognize me?  I feel as if the person I was, left with you, and I'm an entirely different person now.  I look back at who I was and the things I did, and I compare that person to who I am now..and Baby, I hardly recognize myself.  Grief just takes a whole lot out of a person, you know?

Before you left, I was always so busy.  I always had something going on, something to do.  I had projects and plans and goals to meet.  Now, I still try to stay busy, but it's not the same.  Two years ago, I was up and dressed, had the house cleaned and was out the door by 10:30 a.m.  Now, well, sweetie, I haven't changed out of my pajamas since I put them on last night, and it's now time to go back to bed again.

But, it's not always like that!  I have really good days...days when I wake up full of energy, I take the bull by the horns and I get the day going.  And sometimes, I have five or six or even seven of those good days in a row.  And then a grief "wave" hits out of the blue and just knocks me right onto my grieving behind.

Tuesday was like that.  The day started out like an average "(almost) two years" day.  I got Tru off to school. I had plans. I straightened up the house and then I sat at the computer to check in on my friends and for some reason, I decided to watch our dance videos.

Oh, Baby...there  you were!  You were alive and laughing and talking.  One of us would laugh and the other one of us would reach out and put a hand on the other one's shoulder.  We would stand together, waiting for the music to start and I would kiss your neck.  I could taste that kiss watching the video.  We looked so in love and so happy.  I reached out and tried to grab you out of the computer.  I just wanted to BE in that video once again.  And when the video ended...you died again.

It had been a long time since I had a visit from my friend the "ugly cry", but oh my gosh, when it comes, it comes with a vengeance.  The painful, wracking sobs, the feeling that you can't get your breath, the pain in your chest as your heart is squeezed mercilessly...I had forgotten the intensity of the ugly cry, but yet, it was almost like an old friend had come to visit.

I miss you every day, Michael.  But, life seems to happen-.time marches on, so they say.  I haven't found the courage to dream of finding love again, I'm still too in love with you to be ready for that.  Sometimes, I think my future looks bleak..I don't see a way out of days and more days like this one, spread out endlessly in my future.  I often wonder if this will be the way the rest of my life goes...alone, struggling, missing you?

But, I am an optimist.  I know that God will not leave me in this place.  I know that I have a future and I know He holds tomorrow.  I've learned after (almost) two years, that I will feel better again.  The waves come crashing into me, but by now I know, that the waves also go back to where they came from.  And if you've ever sat on a beach and watched the waves, you know that as they come into shore..loud and roaring, they leave something new on the beach, and as they quietly slip back to sea, they leave behind them a clean slate..they wash away the footprints, the imperfections and the broken shells.  I think the grief waves do the same..they hit hard, but as they recede, they take with them more of the hurt, more of the tears and more of the sorrow.  Slowly, little by little, they take away the pain.

I heard a quote on a television show the other day.  The older woman was talking to a young woman who had just lost her fiance.  She looked at that grieving heart and said "You just keep living until you're alive again".  And I wanted to just jump up and shout "that's it..that's the magic formula".  I want to say to all the others who are grieving , "We have to put our feet on the ground.  Everyday, we have to breathe in and out...until one day, we realize "we're alive again".

I'm going to keep on living until I'm alive again.

A Testimony of Grief and Faith

My Sweet Michael,

It has been almost 21 months since you went to Heaven.  The journey that I have walked in this time has been long and slow and hard.  There have been so many twists and turns in this road.  There have been good days, there have been horrible days and there have been days that just were.  For me, the hardest part of this journey has been my journey of faith.

I would like to say that my testimony is one of constant faith.  About how I stayed true to God.  Instead, it's about how God stayed true to me.  I'd like to say that in all this time, I never took my eyes from the Lord, but instead,  it's about how Jesus never took his hand from me.

When you first died, I promised I would not be mad at God for taking you.  I said that I needed to focus on Christ to survive it.  And I meant that.  I remember the day when it changed.  I had tried really hard to make just one normal evening for Tru.  I set the table, cooked what he wanted and sat down for dinner.  The first thing Tru said was "you can't sit in Popi's chair", so I moved.  He then continued to have a total melt down.  He used his hands and ripped apart the meat that was on his plate, he screamed and cried and I ended up sending him to his room.  I sat at that table and I yelled at God "Really?  You thought THIS was a good plan?  You took my husband and you say you LOVE me?" and I was furious.

Thirteen months and 7 days after God called you, He also took my precious grandson home to Heaven.

The fury turned to doubt.  Suddenly I was unsure of everything that I had believed in.  What if when  you die, that's all there is?  What if everything I've been taught all my life is just wishful thinking?  I went between being furious with God and not knowing if He existed.  But something deep inside of me still told me to pray every night "God, please, protect my mind, my heart and my soul from the enemy while I'm so vulnerable".  It was all I could manage, but I know that God heard my plea.

They say that Hell is the complete absence of God.  I felt like I was in Hell.  I was afraid of everything..sometimes I couldn't even move because of the fear..I just sat frozen in place.  IF Heaven was real, I only wanted to go there so that I could be with you again.  My eye was constantly on YOU, not on God, not on today, but on you my Sweet Husband. And I felt so alone.  You were gone, my grandson was gone,  my Saviour was gone.  I was totally, completely alone in my soul, and I was in Hell!

As I look back on that time, I see that Jesus never left my side.  He sent me beautiful, Christian women friends who would drop by and listen to me cry.  He sent friends who invited me to lunch and dinner. He sent my loved ones to stay with me.  He sent His church to wrap me and Tru in their unyielding love.  I felt so alone, but looking back, I can see that I was never really alone. I had never been so loved! God had me and He never let go!

During that time, I never stopped going to church, I never stopped encouraging others to pray, to believe and to lean on Jesus.  I KNEW in my heart that it was the right answer..I just had to get my head back, I had to somehow get the lies of the enemy out of my mind.  And I knew that I was incapable of doing that myself.

At first, I read Christian fiction.  Stories based on the Bible about the days that Jesus walked the earth.  I read over and over about the crucifixion and resurrection and cried each and every time I read about what Jesus sacrificed for me.  I wanted to go back and KNOW Jesus.  And I prayed.  Sometimes, all I could do was say the Lord's Prayer and ask God to restore my faith!

Before you died, I had felt God so close and so near.  He had blessed me beyond my wildest dreams.  I had a happy marriage with a man I simply adored, Our children were doing well, we had a nice home, we had a church we loved, my business was going well.  And I often felt like I could just reach out and touch God.  I wanted that back.  It wasn't the blessings I wanted back so badly (although that would be nice), but more than anything, I wanted that closeness to God.  I wanted to FEEL Him, I wanted to love him and feel loved by Him.

Because the God I love is an awesome God, because He is slow to anger and because He loves us so much, He hears our prayers.  Because He is a Father, He doesn't always give us everything we ask for when we ask.  He wants us to learn to trust Him.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I have felt Him answer my prayers.  And for the first time since you have been gone, I went to Church and I praised HIM.  I wasn't looking for you, I was looking for God.  I realized for the first time in a long time, that I wasn't anxious to get to Heaven to see you, my sweet husband, I was anxious to see God and feel his love surround me.

I will always love you, Michael, that love is as much a part of me as breathing is.  But when you were here with me, when you were beside me in church, my worship went to Christ.  God came first and you came second only to Him.  I think that's the lesson that God wanted me to learn right now.  I believe that He wanted me to learn He is still God, that He still sits on the throne and more than anything, that He will never leave me.  I may not understand His plan, and I definitely do not always like it, but if I keep my eye on Him, He will lead me the rest of the way through this journey.

My prayer now is that God will fit me to His purpose, that my life will be a testament to His love and Mercy.  That my testimony will not be about MY faith, but about God's faithfulness.

I don't know how much longer I will have to walk this journey, but one thing I know..I will never walk alone.

I love you,
g

Psalm 23:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest  my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. 

Just to Hear Your Voice

Hi Baby Boy,

I know it's been a while since I've written to you.  There have been so many times that I've just wanted to sit down and talk to you, to write you a letter, but life keeps happening.  Well, I guess that's partially true...the other part is that as long as I don't think about how gone you really are from my life, I can breathe!  I get busy and I even have good days.  Days when I don't feel the pain.  Days when I can put my grief aside and pretend that I'm happy.  But, the truth of the matter is...it always comes back.

When I let myself think about our reality, it just crushes the breath out of me.  I MISS you so much, Baby.  I miss every single thing about you.  I miss the fact that you always had my back, I miss that  you protected me.  I miss your kisses and holding your hand.  I miss our life, Michael.  I miss you so much.

It has been twenty months since you died.  TWENTY months!!!  In the beginning, when other widows told me that they had been widowed twenty months, I thought "wow, you must be over the pain by now".  And, I think that so many people out there believe that the grief stops at a certain time.  Six weeks?  One Year?  Surely by two years?  And I thought the same thing before I was inducted into this club of the broken hearted.  Now I know the truth.  The truth is that the grief does not stop (at least not by twenty months).  It softens at times, but the feeling of always having a part of you missing does not go away.

People ask me how I'm doing and I say "better..I'm doing better" and then I have to wonder if that person thinks that "better" means I've "gotten over" you.  That I've stopped loving you or have forgotten you.  And that's not it at all.  When I say "I'm doing better" I mean that I took a shower and laughed and made the bed and went out in public despite the pain in my heart and I just want to call that person back and say "Hey, I still love my husband, I still talk to him every day, but today, I laughed out loud and so that means I'm doing better".

Yesterday was my birthday.  You always made my birthday so special.  I had wonderful friends and family to celebrate with this year, but I couldn't help but think of what we would be doing if you were still here.  I listened to our favorite band and I closed my eyes and I was dancing with you.  I closed my eyes and felt you hold my hands.  But, Baby, the scary part was,when I closed my eyes, I couldn't remember how you sat in the chair at the club?  Did you put both arms on the table?  Did you turn towards the band and have both hands in your lap?  And I felt like I had just lost another piece of you..because I couldn't remember!

As I sit here writing to you (I'm sorry, my thoughts are all over the place), all I can think of is this..I could bear the physical separation, I could bear the years that will come before we can be together again..I could bear all of that if I could only talk to you.  If I could only hear your voice, ask your advice, hear you tell me that you love me and that everything would be okay.  If only the separation didn't have to be so complete.  If only God had allowed telephones in Heaven!  If only our conversations could be two sided once again.

So many "if onlys" rule my world today, Michael.  The world seems to be such an uncertain place without you here beside me, so I try to lean on the only certain thing I know.  I lean on my faith.  God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow..of that I am certain.

I love  you, Michael.  And as always, I'll talk to you in my dreams.

Hebrews 13:8  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever!