I Smile

(A Recent Photo I Took on One of my 2011 Adventures)

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.”
-Arundhati Roy

I must say, with each passing year it's as if another layer of sludge is washed away from my life....The life that began the day Michael was killed. I life I used to loathe to the core of my being.

But for once, I've been watching, I've been learning. I've been trying to understand that which I don't, and yet, with no answers I smile with the reflection.

I feel that so much has been bestowed upon me since becoming his widow, and yet, I find more of it that I love than I could ever hate. I've never looked away. And for once I am seeing the fruits of that sometimes painful action. I see the immeasurable gifts before me, and even more for my taking. And just as the quote states, I know it's because I never allow myself to forget. Forget the nights we sometime wish we never had to remember, the moments where taking my life seemed like the only means to an end of all that I felt was taken from us both, the moments where I cursed God for continuing to test me and my strength I sometimes ignore.

Those moments, though they will probably occur time to time until I'm reunited with my love, are the ones I sit here at my computer smiling over.

The questioning, begging, and pleading have gone on an undetermined sabbatical and I feel free. And I feel Michael. And I feel excited for where our story will continue to lead me.

And I feel alive.

And it's all I because I never forgot.....It's all because I'll never forget.