On Days When the Sun Shines……..

This month is the most difficult month of the year for me. It is supposed to be the best month. You know the kids get out of school and summer is on the way. We are supposed to be looking forward to the long warm days and spending time outside. Yet a cloud hangs over us this month as the one year anniversary quickly rushes towards us. It is unlike anything that I know. All year I have wanted the days to just get over with. Yet now I am screaming to slam on the breaks. I’m not ready for this. Yet suddenly God shows up and once again and hope is on the horizon.

We must move forward in life. If we don’t then we miss out on things that God has planned for us. It wasn’t long after Ed passed when a friend I had met on line to help with my marathon training also lost her husband. He was much younger than Ed was and she is much younger than I am. I sat in stunned silence as I read about her loss. It killed me, but I knew what she was going through. I reached out to her and suddenly our bond over running became more. We were suddenly both part of a club that neither one of us wanted to be a part of. We have visited many times, both of us trying so hard to figure out what life is supposed to be now that it is no longer what we planned for it to be. It is nice to talk to someone who knows. I mean someone who woke up one day thinking life was perfect only to have our worlds come crashing to a halt.

Last night we talked about how we both miss being a wife. Yet what I am learning more and more is that while I miss being a wife, I am getting pretty dang good at being alone. We talked about staying busy to avoid the grief, but I told her that it doesn’t matter how busy you are the grief will catch up. Usually when you don’t want it to. So we might as well face it. People call us brave, and most of the time we don’t feel it. We are just trying to get down this path that was laid before us. We try to run down it, but it doesn’t help, it doesn’t lessen the pain it just makes us tired. The only thing that has helped with the pain is facing it. Letting it knock you down and you stand up and fight back and face it again. It is the only way.

Yet here it is almost summer and getting outside helps. It reminds us that life still moves forward and so should we. No matter how we want the clock to move, fast or slow, we must move with it. We have had some pretty cloudy mornings here, but the sun has shown by afternoon and warmed us up. That is like life, we will have times when it seems like the sun has disappeared and it will never shine again. Yet here we are, the sun is beginning to shine, because we have chosen to move forward.

I am reminded daily that I am not alone. I am loved by friends and family and on my worst nights there is always someone to talk to. So while the anniversary is barreling down the path, I am going to face it. It will come and it will go and I will make it out on the other side. Beaten, bruised, and maybe battered beyond recognition, but I will make it out on the other side. Twenty days to go.

Dee