What death can do

[beanielips]

He will have died 5 years ago this Monday.  I will wake up and go to work.  I will get our kids ready, and every second that passes I will think how odd it is that I am 33 and he was 33 that morning that shook me to the core.  The morning when my life changed in ways that I could not imagine.

I never imagined in the 5 years that followed I would move to a new home. I would FINALLY be out of debt, and have a savings.   I would plan birthday parties alone.  Play Santa alone.  I would (finally) learn how to be a single parent.  I would juggle work, parent conference and a (albeit small) social life.  I never imagined that I would find love again, yet here I am with a boyfriend that has stood by me for 2.5 years, while I navigate widowhood.  I thought that my world was shattered, but it had blossomed.

While Dennis was alive I was in my 20's caring for a sick man only 4.5 years older than me.  He was sick, often.  Then he was so sick he was hospitalized.  My life revoloved around taking him to dr. appointments, the hosptial, taking care of our girls and working full time.  I loved him and resented him at the same time.  I was constantly moving, sleeping little and not taking care of myself.  I was the walking dead.  Then he died and my world was empty.  I didn't know what to do.

The guilt rushed in where the busy-ness had been.  I felt freedom and loss.  And I pressed on.  On the outside I was strong, on the inside I struggled with my new freedom.  So goes it with the loss of a spouse.  My husband that I cared for during most of our marriage.

So, as the 5th year is dawning I find myself struggling again.  I struggle with being 33, having such a great love currently in my life, and enjoying my life while I still grieve for what could have been.  How odd it must be to someone looking in.  A happy widow, yet one that still struggles on those days.  The days that we could never imagine in our 20's, yet there they are.

I will be taking the afternoon off from work.  I will be taking my sister out to lunch for her 30th birthday.  Yes, another twist, my sister's birthday and the day that my husband died are one in the same.  I will then do something just for me.  Something that I want to do.  After my day..... I will pick my girls up from my parent's and spend the evening with them.  Then I will call my boyfriend and we will spend the rest of the night talking and laughing until it is time to hang up the phone and go to sleep.  A day of paradoxes, such is my life.

[cleanaturalady]

Aug. 31, 2009 at 7:36 AM

Hugs and prayers to you.

[Jennibug]

Sep. 1, 2009 at 11:03 PM

This post almost made me cry! Well said, "A day of paradoxes..." My dad's girlfriend has faced much of the same this summer with her only daughter (3rd child) graduating HS and heading off to college, a grandbaby being born, and loosing both of her parents nearly at once. I guess it's what life is-birth, milestones, then on to eternity, leaving loved ones behind. You are an incredibly strong woman. I can't imagine the thought of Tony never coming home.