The twelfth January

It is January,

the month I became a widow.

Today is January 6.

A significant day in my journey to widowhood.

But not a sad one.

 

That January 6 day was difficult.

It was filled with pain and hallucinations.

But it ended with God's brilliant light and deep, deep love surrounding us.

Today is a day I celebrate.

 

Perhaps some January 6

I will tell the story of that day,

22 days before his death,

but not yet.

It was a precious, intimate moment in time

between my Al, my God, and me.

 

This is the twelfth January since my Al went home

and it is odd.

I told my sister yesterday that

this year, it is constantly on my mind,

that time of his increasing illness and approaching death.

It's a return to that time of constant awareness that he is gone.

But it is not the hard grief of that first January after his death,

or even the strange pre-widowed dread/grief of watching him die that January.

It is just constantly there.

I find myself having trouble concentrating,

like grief-fog but without the anguished pain and tears.

I am having trouble sleeping soundly

and am, therefore, sleeping more.

It's an odd time.

 

And yet, in the midst of my odd grief awareness,

I am happier and more content that at any other time in my life.

My Lanny Love and I grow more in-love daily.

My life is filled with God's favor and blessing.

Life is good!

That is what remarriage from widowhood is like!

Really, I suppose, I pray, 

what widowhood is like, remarried or not.

We never forget.

    We never stop loving.

        We never stop missing.

And yet, life moves forward.

We learn to live.

    We learn who we are in this new, unwelcome life.

        We learn to smile, even when it's forced.

Then one day we realize,

life is good once again!

It's different, but it's good!

The forced learning is over

and natural living and the same learning we all experience in life

has replaced the confusion of those first early days, weeks, years.

If you haven't reached that place yet,

it's okay, you will.

It doesn't come easily.

It takes "intentionality" and practice and following God's leading,

but you will eventually reach it!

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other

and moving forward!