Time

     I'm so very grateful that I was so fortunate in life to be married to such an wonderful man.   As I've been reading through our journals , I realized that even before the really difficult health challenges came we faced lots of difficulties from outside forces.   These challenges and experiences refined us brought us closer and closer together.   So when cancer became a part of our life, neither one of us was strong enough to survive it alone but that the two of us together were able to.  I've thought over and over about how we truly were "one".   In trying to think about what that meant I came across this quote that defines it pretty well:

"Emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, financially, and in every other way, the couple is to become one. Even as one part of the body cares for the other body parts (the stomach digests food for the body, the brain directs the body for the good of the whole, the hands work for the sake of the body, etc.), so each partner in the marriage is to care for the other."

     I'm so grateful to be so blessed to have been so connected with someone so deeply.   But where does that leave me now.   When two become one... and one becomes an angel, the other becomes...    At this point I don't feel as if I could describe myself still as one, somedays I don't even think I could say a half.   Perhaps a quarter?  No wonder I now struggle to wake up and face the reality each day that he's gone.   Why basic things like eating, sleeping and working are a struggle.        It's so hard for life to be moving forward... without him.   

     I came across this quote that I really liked and felt it did a great job of explaining why time feels so strange.  The past three months, and even the years before that have been both fast and slow, long and short.  I read once that the concept of time is made up by man to make sense of the world around us.    I wonder what time feels like in heaven.        Many years ago on our first official date we stopped at a park.  He told me that one day he was going to marry me and I remember being stunned and to tell him to slow down.   He did and he was very patient.   At one point when I was considering it more, but not quite ready I remember saying "It is such a big decision, eternity is a LONG time."   I loved him, but it was such a big decision.   But luckily I came around and once we were married I quickly realized the error of my ways.   Even if we had been fortunate to live to old age, to be with him for just life on earth would not have been enough.

 

     I feel fortunate for my knowledge that we will be together again.  It is giving me strength to move forward.   My belief that he is here with me every chance he can get, gives me peace.  He fought so hard to stay with me in this life, that I'm certain he's fighting to be with me every chance he gets while in heaven.   I haven't yet figured out what that feels like, but perhaps one day I'll be more attune.  It's not a skill I needed before.  If I wanted to be with him, I simply had to move to the room where I knew he was.   For now sometimes that's simply means turning to where he normally would be, closing my eyes and whispering "I love you" or "I miss you".   So while I desperately wish that God's timing wasn't that I would be a widow at the age of 42, I'm grateful that it did mean that we were able to meet while I was young and we had 22 years of marriage.   It is my faith that gives me strength and peace, so I must trust in his timing.