Clingmans Dome - Great Smoky Mountain National Park
May 8, 2015
I wish I could meet each
of you individually to hug and thank you for the precious feedback to my last
post. It wasn’t easy to write or to
post, but you are important to me and I am so grateful that you have stuck with
me through well over a year now of very sporadic posting. The spirit is willing and wants to write, but
the act of sitting down and doing it remains overwhelming. I often write posts in my head while I walk
each day, but then simply can’t find the motivation to put it on paper once I’m
back at home.
Three months have come and
gone. I wake up, I breathe, I do the
next thing, I cry, I conduct business, I help my mother, I try to take care of
myself, I pray (A LOT!) and I wonder how it is remotely possible that I can
ever be “OK” again.
One thing is for sure…..without
the firm foundation of faith, family and friends, I cannot imagine how anyone
survives the horror of losing their spouse.
FAITH – You cannot have
read my blog long without knowing that my Faith is the foundation on which my
life is built. I don’t talk it about all
the time and certainly don’t try to push my beliefs on anyone else without
first establishing a relationship in which we share together with mutual
respect. But without my certainty that
there is an eternity beyond this mortal life, that I will spend it with my
Creator on a recreated Earth the way it was originally meant to be and that
Bill, my dad, my grandparents and others are waiting for me, I cannot imagine
surviving this grief.
FAMILY – Our family is
small, but we are strong. My mom, Bill’s
mom and I all now share the bond of being widowed and we lean on each other
heavily. My sister is two hours away and
comes as often as she can.
FRIENDS – What can I say
about this amazing support system of friends that I have? To this very day, it is my choice to eat a
meal alone or spend an evening alone.
There is always an invitation to be with someone. For the first eight weeks after Bill died,
this was truly what saved me. I could
not bear to be alone and did not have the mental ability to plan where to
go. My friends took over and did it for
me. I had a calendar that simply told
me where to go for lunch, with whom I was spending the afternoon and where to go for dinner. There are still two people who text every morning to make sure I'm up and every evening to ask how my day has been and if I'm ok. It has been an incredible act of sacrifice on the
part of a huge network of people that brings tears to my eyes to even think
about now. Gradually the day came when I
would decide I wanted to spend a few hours alone, but there was always (and
still is) a backup place to go or number to call.
So yes, three months have
come and gone. Because of my faith, my
family and my friends, I can laugh, I can sing, I can hike, I can be alone in
my condo without falling apart, I can take short trips to do something I find
pleasurable, I can read, I can play.
But even more important
are the things I can give away or share with others…..my time, my story, my
experience, my money, my ability to care on a level deeper than I could ever
imagine, my compassion for those who are hurting or suffering, my hope for the
future, my desire to love others as they have loved me.
I would love for you to share a time in your life
When friends came through for you in a
Way you didn’t expect!
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