4:59 P.M.

An entire decade!

How is that even possible???

Is it even real?

Was that life a figment of my imagination?

Are you???

 

No.

That life was real!

You were real!

You are real!

You are simply different now.

You are no longer here with me physically.

But, oh my, you are still very real!

 

Ten years ago I held you and listened.

I counted the heartbeats.

I counted the breaths.

Then the silence.

It was the worst

and the most precious moment of my life!

 

Walking you Home was hard!!!

I mean it was hard!!!

Seeing your suffering,

watching you disintegrate...

There was a measure of relief in that silence.

But oh my goodness, the agony that washed over me!

Blinding, suffocating, crushing in its intensity!!!

 

Unexpected!

 

I knew I would grieve!

But you lingered far longer,

months longer,

than anticipated.

And that last month you were in agony.

We had stopped praying for another day

and started praying that the angels would come quickly.

 

I anticipated relief for you.

I anticipated grief.

I did not anticipate the tidal wave that hit in those moments of initial silence.

And it was only the beginning.

It hurt like that, and worse,

for a long, long, long time!

I didn't think I would survive!

I didn't think I could survive!

I was sure several times that I was actually dying.

But I wasn't.

And I did survive.

And now, it's ten years later.

Ten years.

 

This month has been hard.

This tenth year has been hard.

I have grieved you with great pain again.

You have been very near.

And so very, very far away.

I've had to pay attention this month.

I've had to think about not using your name...

I'm not sure I haven't......

That hasn't happened in several years.

 

Everything was harder this year.

Your birthday was harder.

My birthday was harder.

Father's Day and Mother's Day were harder.

Christmas was harder.

Our wedding anniversary was harder.

Our "going steady-aversary" was harder.

Grayson was born and I wept in joy -

    and deep sorrow at your absence.

Everything was marked with significance

and a big, bold, bright red

 

10!!! 

It was harder.

Everything was harder.

 

Some years are like that.

 

I miss you!

Our daughters miss you!

We've talked about you a lot this year!

All three of us have missed you more this year!

 

But what a celebration you are enjoying!!!

And I wouldn't take that away from you!!!

Not for all the relief in the world!!!

 

 

 

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, 

and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. 

All these things are gone forever.

                                ~~ Revelation 21:4

  

Almost there...

I sometimes wonder

if I spend too much time

thinking about things.

 

Things from the past.

Things from today.

Things I hope for tomorrow.

The things that make my life unique.

Things in general.

The things of widowhood and remarriage...

That's the real one.

Things of widowhood and remarriage.

 

But, really, that is, after all, my life.

I am a remarried widow

married to a remarried widower.

And our lives consist of the four of us.

In all things.

Our very existence as a couple

is because we are widowed.

Our very existence as a couple

is because we so enjoyed being married

that we came to realize

a life outside of marriage was not 

how we wanted to spend the rest of our lives.

And because we so enjoyed being married

we think of them often.

And it was absolutely the right thing for us

because we so enjoy being married to each other!

 

We are both in our tenth year of widowhood,

Lanny's tenth year is just getting going good,

mine is morphing into the eleventh in less than two weeks.

For me, this tenth year has been one of the more difficult.

 

This year, my Al has been extra near in my thoughts,

an almost constant presence again,

right beside my Lanny Love.

In the third and fourth years

both my Lanny Love and I had a problem.

A month into my third year,

we began dating,

and just before the start of my fourth,

we married.

Can I be honest?

During those years, he sometimes called me Judy

and I sometimes called him Al.

After all, we had spoken loving, romantic words

using only those names for several decades.

I have had to be careful of that again this year.

Because my Al is never far away.

And because I still love him and would,

but for death,

still be his.

And he, hers.

 

As I approach the tenth anniversary I have struggled.

The last year brought a lot of change

and I don't care for change,

it upsets my apple cart and 

the little buggers scatter everywhere!

While I never loved major change,

it didn't rock my boat so much before.

But with widowhood came an aversion to it.

And to talking on the phone.

Who knows...........

Added to the tenth year,

and the significance we attach to anniversaries in tens,

well, it's been a difficult year.

But I'm almost there.

Life has mostly settled again.

I am beginning at last to feel at home

in our new house.

And the tenth year is almost done.

The memories that come with each day now

as "the" day draws nearer,

will soon be fulfilled

and another year will start.

Each year is different

and I find myself wondering

what the eleventh will hold...

 

This is what I know.

Life is good!!!

I have been and continue to be blessed

in the life God has given me!

I have the privilege of loving a wonderful man who died.

I have the privilege of loving a wonderful man who lived.

Life is good!!!

You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 

                ~~ Psalm 16:11 ~~

 

A teabag

I hated that stinking teabag!!!

He left it on the counter.

    Every. 

                Single. 

                            Time.

Not just on the counter,

    Right. 

                Above. 

                            The trash compactor!

All he had to do was step on the foot release

and drop the teabag in the trash.

But no. 

He left it on the counter.

 

How I longed for that teabag 

in the early days of widowhood!!!

I determined in my heart that

should I ever be blessed to love and be loved again,

I would focus less on the teabag

and more on the man!

And, for the most part, I do.

I don't remember the last time my Al and I made love.

In the days of singleness,

I wished I could.

I determined then that,

should I ever be blessed to love and be loved again,

I would take note of love-making -

and other lovely relational things.

Every time.

And I do.

My Lanny Love thinks it's an oddity

that I remember "the last time".

It's one of many oddities... 

 

Isn't that humanity in a nutshell?

Don't we spend an inordinate amount of time

focusing on the teabags

and a pitifully minuscule amount of time

focusing on the love-making 

and other lovely relational things?

Not just in marriage and remarriage,

in all relationships!

Our society seems to have embraced

being offended, dissatisfied, unhappy.

We almost look with suspicion upon those who are different.

 

I am an emotion-based person.

As such, I sometimes (often)

have a hard time differentiating

between "real" and "feel".

I was annoyingly reminded of that self-fact

during a recent conversation with one of our daughters.

But as with all annoyances,

I am trying to learn and grow from the reminder. 

And choosing again

to focus on the lovely relational aspects

instead of the teabag. 

 

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. 

Fix your thoughts on what is 

true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. 

Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

                                        ~~ Philippians 4:8 NLT

 

Fascinated

I am a woman.

Wholly.

There is very little about me 

that might be considered traditionally masculine traits.

I am mostly emotion based.

Sometimes that's fun.

Sometimes not so much.

I am passionate.

Sometimes that's fun.

Sometimes not so much.

I can be very adult -

and very childlike.

I came into life with baggage.

You'll just have to trust me on that.

My baggage grew through the years.

 

I am a complicated woman.

Yes, you may feel sorry for my Lanny Love.

Have I mentioned that he is a saint?

Well he is!

 

One of the complications is that

I struggle with situational/emotional/seasonal/chemical depression.

As the years have gone by

I have learned tools to help me when I am in an "episode"

so the fall-out is less.

Thank You, Daddy God!!!

 

There is no rhyme or reason to when the depression hits.

Oh, there are triggers for the blues,

but other than the seasonal,

there is no particular pattern or warning,

it just hits.

Sometimes it is very sudden.

That tends to be chemical or sunshine related.

Sometimes it is more gradual.

That tends to be emotional.

Situational can go either way depending on where I am in the others.

 

Sometimes it is short lived,

more "blues" than depression.

Other times it is longer,

weeks or months.

 

Just before Covid hit,

I began the decline.

I recognized it.

I began the process of coping and getting safely through.

It turned out to be a long one.

I am just really beginning to come out of it.

 

This episode has had all the factors.

It started out as chemical.

That often kicks off the emotional response.

Covid hit and we were stuck indoors

so situational and sunshine became a factor.

 

The hard thing about depression is that

once one type begins to include the others,

it compounds and worsens.

It becomes a cycle that is hard to break.

Think of the merry-go-rounds we rode as kids,

spinning faster and faster,

tummy getting sicker and sicker,

but jumping off is scary and dangerous.

You do jump, but right back on you go.

Jump, back on, jump, back on, jump, back on...

Until eventually, the thing stops spinning altogether,

your tummy settles,

and you step off and go joyfully on to the swings.

Depression, for me, like the merry-go-round,

speeds up more quickly than it winds down.

The merry-go-round is winding down.

The past year has been less depression

and more blues - flat, dull, colorless.

But color is returning!

 

One of my childlike aspects is

the ability to be fascinated by absolutely nothing.

I can still find wonder in clouds

    and birds floating on wind currents

        and Christmas lights

            and a pretty butterfly

                and a unique leaf

and so on and so on and so on. 

This ability is one of the things I lose

during a depressive state.

And I always miss it.

And I always try to manufacture it.

But until God sees me through the episode,

it can't be manufactured.

 

I have been thinking about that recently.

The ability is not yet fully back,

but it's getting there.

The other night,

I found myself fascinated by something quite ordinary -

and extremely unordinary!

Oh the rejoicing!!!

 

I don't do New Year resolutions.

They tend to push me into at least the blues

and sometimes into depression

when I fail.

And, you know, we almost always fail at those don't we?!

I tried goals for a couple years.

That worked a little better,

but not much.

 

Then the word of the year became a thing.

While I realize that it is in reality

another way to make a resolution or set a goal,

somehow it is different.

For me it is more focus than resolution or goal.

It's not something to accomplish,

a thing or place to reach,

it is simply a word,

a concept on which to ponder.

Something to watch for in one's life.

Since words are my "thing"

it works for me.

 

So this year, my word is "fascinated".

I want to practice noticing when I am fascinated.

Sometimes I will talk about it.

Sometimes I will just enjoy it.

But I want to practice noticing it every time! 

Today, I noticed the wind.

We get a lot of wind,

and truthfully, I dislike it.

It can be a trigger for me.

But today as I was sitting at our dining table

looking out at the dog and our "mountain" back yard,

    I noticed the wind.

        I noticed how the natural flora danced and waved.

            I noticed how the fluffy, white clouds scuttled across the blue, blue sky. 

                I noticed how the the naked trees bent and swayed, but did not break.

                    I noticed how the dog's coat ruffled in the breeze.

                        I noticed how the birds dipped and rose with the currents.

It made me want to run out there and experience it!

So I did!

    And I noticed how it lifted my hair,

        how it ruffled my shirt,

            how it chilled my skin,

                how it pushed against me and with me as I turned.

Fascinating!

 

 

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

                    ~~ Romans 5:8 ~~