“There are two days you should never spend a lot of time thinking about: yesterday and tomorrow. Many of us are crucified with two thieves. On the right is yesterday, and on the left is tomorrow” (Tony Evans)
I never imagined myself to be a widow at 50, and we just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary just a month earlier. 25 at 50, two celebrated milestone years, both numbers broke my heart instantly. What seemed to be blessed numbers turned out to be the numbers I want to forget.
Grief is a lonely, difficult thing to endure. In her book, The Path to Loneliness, Elisabeth Elliott said, “Loneliness in widowhood is a kind of death. we can see it as simultaneous exit and entrance, an exit from the comforts and consolations of having a husband, and an entrance into the strange world of having to make unilateral decisions again and to learn to say ‘I’ instead of ‘we’.”
My husband and I looked forward to growing old and serving the Lord together, our future, our “we” together; we have plans already for this year as another school year is about to start. Most of these plan lets go of my desires and choices and the security of our “financial” future, so as not to depend on our children’s support. My husband had this faith that the Lord would take care of us, just as He did when he resigned from his lucrative job to minister to the prison. I was looking forward to it too. We prepared our children for what to expect, but plans for our future were erased in an instant, our life changed irreversibly, we did not choose this change; I did not want this change. My children and “I” are facing the loss of a one-of-a-kind father and husband. We grieve the person we lost and the many “nevers” that go with missing the person. These “nevers” that hurt, the never another call, never another “I love you mahal or darling,” never another smile, never another hug and never seeing your face again and the should haves and would haves of the future.
What many do not understand is that all were taken from my children and me; that is why it is difficult to move forward. (It takes time and faith and brings me to my knees every day). The one-time-all time loss hit me hard. We cannot recover anything except the memories left behind, and these memories become more trying and challenging. The more memories, the harder it becomes, but they provide me comfort and peace.
I hoard, preserve and recover all my husband’s memories as I can because there will be no more new ones to create. This journal is a memory of my husband; I know this is not beautifully made, just like his life, but it holds his memory in a tangible, more visible, and realistic form that even when I leave this world, my children’s children have something to look back. His other memories are in my heart; it is safe, I do not want to lose it, and it is my way of holding on. Nobody can tarnish, touch, and question these memories, good or bad, because when you love someone for who they truly are, accept them, and everything else becomes beautiful.
Grief is born when someone you love passes away – and as long as that person is loved– grief will stay. I learned that “You will never completely get over the loss of a loved one because you loved the person.” The fact that the loss is so difficult to accept is proof of this love. People often tell others who are grieving to get over it, but why would you get over the loss of someone who has meant the world to you? The grief will not be better, but it will change, the feeling will be different, it will still hurt, but I know it will not consume me, although I am expecting that there will be moments that it does.
Grief is the price of loving someone so deeply. The deeper the love, the deeper the pain. We live in a broken world where life is not fair, and suffering on earth is just a guarantee. We are all born to die. Nobody is exempt from this. It is the price of our sinful nature. Knowing this made me understand love better than I used to; it is more than just a feeling that changes according to your mood. You will learn how beautiful love is – let alone life! as Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, God …He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also, he hath set the world in their heart… “ And losing a loved one is a painful reminder that life is way too short.
“For the LORD will not cast off for ever: but though he causes grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” Lamentations 3:31-33
