5 years.....
In 5 years I've gone from someone that felt I had nothing.
Felt that dying was a better choice then inhaling and exhaling over and over again.
Over time, life crept in. And in a way, I slowly started investing in the day ahead...the week ahead...the month ahead...
I didn't see it as I was doing it, but in retrospect, I finally let the love between Michael and I be an action for life, instead of letting his death be a reason for doing nothing more than existing.
And like any investment....the stocks will rise and fall...there will be times you want to pull out because the future is to uncertain and your head starts telling you it won't get better....but something in me told me to hold on....let his love stay...grow...show me what was possible for my own life.
5 years ago I took a risk....I took the risk to live...to invest the love he had left me with into an uncertain life....
There are certainly going to be moments in the future where I will doubt that decision....but I know the investment will always turn out in my favor...turn out to show me that his love...my love for myself and the life I had before...but more importantly the life I have NOW...is worth it...
He bought into me when he let me love him...I bought into him when he allowed me to love him...and I still love him...and I feel in my soul the eternal love we still share....and that investment was and is worth every second of every day....crashes...rises....recessions...and all....
Love is worth the investment....but even more...life is worth it....
Well said! So beautifully and tragically true.
ReplyDeleteEven before my beautiful husband died I said that I wouldn't trade this journey with anyone. It was ours. And now it's mine to continue. And regardless of the pain I feel, it's still worth it and it always will be.
It's the greatest love story of all.
WOW. I am only 20 months into this and it has been awful, terrible, horrid. And I too would have rather died so many times.....until recently.....I finally have captured the fact that Marty stays with me.....that the "you and me" = WE continues on.....but in a way that neither of us ever dreamed of....that God is transforming he and me = WE, into yet another lovely example of Himself. This is HUGE for me. I have long known that I carry Marty with me wherever I go (as do our kids); but I have not been able to lay hold of how that "we", which in reality is "WHO" I really am now, how that would be used in the future; but it will. I have long since realized how much of me is like Marty; after 32 years together, we were fortunate to have he and me meld into one WE. That fact makes losing him oh so much more harder, but I too, wouldn't trade.
ReplyDeleteI now feel more purposeful, more decisive and stronger than ever. I feel his love propelling me forward. Not that I don't hurt - I do; the ache I feel is deeply embedded in me. I miss him whole heartedly, but lately, it's different, I'm different.
I love your analogy of the stock market rising and falling; because I have found grief to be a beast of its own self, one that is untameable. I know that I will not always be "ont top" but for now I receive it and continue to move forward in the "little bit faster" lane on the grief journey.
Thanks for the great insights.
I'm three years in and it is so true. You don't realize it happening, but it does. I have been trying to get it jump started, but don't really feel it truly happening until now. This was so beautifully written.
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