When goodbye is the only way

It's been a year since we said goodbye to a most beloved husband and father. In reality, I am still in shock. I long to wake up from a nightmare and find the life that was lost. Instead, there is an emptiness, an ever present heartache. I reach for the empty spot on my bed and find nothing but the extra pillows and I clutch them as if to cling to the life and love I once lived. And then I say my prayers each night and ask the Lord to bless me and my children and then I pause and say something like "oh yeah, but You already have", I know that we were blessed by being loved by a most amazing father and husband. And so off to sleep I go filled with gratefulness for all that has been, even though ...

To start a paragraph like the one above with words like nightmare, heartache, and emptiness and end it with the word gratefulness is a mystery to be sure. That mystery is Jesus Christ who is "the fullness who fills all in all". I don't know how it works. I just know that each day is hard beyond what words can describe and though so many days I want to spend the entire day in bed, I never have, not even once. Some days are harder than others, but somehow, by faith, I plant my feet on the ground and onward I go. The Lover of my Soul beckons me to live fully in the moments that pass me by. And somehow He gives strength to live each moment.

Brian's illness was the training ground for this new life I am called to live. One event stands out most starkly in my mind. Brian's cancer had started growing again a mere ten weeks after the completion of his grueling treatment. He had barely started to recover and we dared to hope that treatment had been successful when the awful news came. The day before his next surgery we flew to Stanford for a second opinion. I remember sitting on the plane just wanting to scream and cry and completely lose it. But here I was, sitting next to my husband, and he was here. How could I mourn while he was with me? So I  prayed this prayer: "I know it's wrong to mourn now, but my heart is in agony, please tell me how to do this! I need something to go on here, I'm losing it!". And this still small voice, as clear as the light of day, said to me "live in the moment, fully in it". And so I did. We did. And we laughed and we cried and we loved and we lived, even as his body was fading away. And we clung to the apostle Paul's words, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain."

Brian's final days came way sooner than I thought possible so we never really had a "goodbye" moment. If we'd had that moment I would have asked him for a blessing. But I did at one point ask him for instructions. And what he told me was more than a blessing but a profound source of inspiration that stays with me. He said, "You will know what to do. You're smart, you have good instincts, but most importantly, you have the Holy Spirit." And so onward I go living and loving in the moments that pass me by all the while embracing a heartache that never quite leaves. And even though the harsh realities of living as a single parent and widow require more from me than I ever thought possible, I get up each day to live in these moments because I am not the Author of my story. If I was, it would have been written entirely differently. I don't have an answer for the hard question of the day, why? So I trust the Author to give me what I need to live in the moments He's placed before me. I don't really do a lot of planning ahead. I just get up and do the next thing each day.

I do it because the Author has written more days for me and He asks me to live fully in them. But I also do it because I made a promise to my dear, sweet, amazing husband to finish what was started. God gave us an amazing adventure together and he gave us three amazing blessings we have the great pleasure of calling our children. And so there still is an adventure to be had ...

Me and the kids the day we buried Brian

Selfie at the cemetery one year later

These kids are my inspiration along with the memory of a life lived sold out to Jesus!