Looking up less, forward more

Looking up less, forward more

When you have your life ripped from your grasp in a sudden devastating blow, you are often left reeling and in shock. The grieving process is well documented in books, articles, and all over the internet, yet it is of little solace. You think you know pain. I thought I knew pain. Just read my blog about my injury – pain and I have been pretty close in recent months. I’d take two broken heels ( twice over ) if I could trade the pain that I feel now. Your life is altered in EVERYWAY imaginable and in ways unimaginable. Little triggers pull you back at the oddest times. A song, a word, the fresh mountain air as you hike through the trees trying to move on and forget. You have an ever present battle in your mind – move on..don’t give up hope…have faith, when all you really have is your faith and this empty shell of what you once were. People stop by your desk and pat you on the back and tell you how good you are doing. Really?! Funny – I feel half dead, or better yet, three quarters dead. The three most important things in my life are gone. Sure I will always have the kids, but they are FOREVER CHANGED and our time together has been cut in half (AT BEST).

I hit my knees often and it feels good. I have always known that there was something bigger out there but I am a pretty independent person and a very strong willed person. I don’t believe in calling in favors too often, but this has been different. Sure at first I asked for her back…”please bring her back”..but as time goes on , my thoughts evolve, my personality evolves…I look up and ask for that less and just simply ask for ME back. Let the cards fall where they may, but when the people who have been close to you for years see the “old you” coming back, you kind of have to embrace that and work on that. You have to look forward and realize that you did not ask for this and you do not want this, but with each day you grow within and you are constantly lifted up and given such raw feedback. You realize that you are not what you are ( and were ) always told. You are good, and people love what you are. Like Popeye always says…”I am what I am”. Nothing in the near future will be easy, but I am surrounded by wonderful friends who are honest with me and who know what lies beneath. When you begin to accept and internalize your resources ( for me anger) you begin to take a hold of who and what you are. You utilize those “resources” in positive ways. You begin to replace that hope you had with ambition and understanding of what you need to do. It takes courage to fight for what you love, but it takes more to let it go. While I know the road is long and full of bumps…sometimes you just have to pick your path, put your head down….and look forward.

"God - teach me to dance.... and I'll never stop"

Through it all, the pain has been beyond description. It is as if you wake up one day and the one true love of your life is gone...has died and will never come back. Those beautiful eyes that stared across the dinner table for 15 years are now empty. Those eyes won't even meet yours anymore. The love gone...the soft gentle touch that lets you know you are alive...gone. You are wracked with pain and questions, wondering how a God that you know as just and fair could do this to you and your family. You cry until it hurts as if your body cannot create another tear. The feet that crept over to your side, for warmth and reassurance, for all those years are gone and will never return. The soft angelic touch as those wisps of hair brush across your face like an open ocean breeze on the perfect night. The soft gentle kiss that lets you know that you are something special to someone who you adore....gone. You try so hard to be strong and put on a happy face. You muster all the courage and strength to move on and find yourself again but when you are lost in her soul, you can't figure out which way is up, you lay there at night in a strange new place and slowly slide your foot over looking for hers, only to find nothing. I find myself pulling my seat belt to my nose and searching for that soft faint scent that you became so accustomed to, but it is no longer there. All you find is an empty piece of nylon, a shell of its former self. Everyday you wake and want it all to be a dream but it is reality. You know you must go on for the sake of the two little lives left in shambles, their tears incomprehensible, their lives forever changed. You scream out at night for God to give you the strength and courage to keep putting that one foot in front of the other. You gave up days ago, praying that God would bring her back to you....she is gone. Everyone around you reassuring you that "it'll get better"...but no one can tell you when as they have not suffered such a loss. You watch in silence as each layer of your spirit and soul are pealed back to expose another wound. You look into the mirror and wonder what she saw in that reflection that repulsed her to the point of this. In her eyes you no longer see the stars that illuminated your soul...only emptiness and a Milky Way so far way. All taken so suddenly. You will never have that last kiss goodnight, that final farewell. You reassess who you are and what you have become and all you know is that you love her with MORE than you are.

She said I'd never dance with her, but in my mind we danced the night away so many times. We stared into one anothers eyes and the dance was one of a connection unexplainable to even the wisest of profits. The dance we shared on a moonlit night above the lake...just a memory. The music was universal and the rhythm one that only two souls who shared the dance floor of life could understand. You look back and wish you would have pulled her onto that dance floor of life and twirled her and held her for an eternity. I am out of things to ask God for...but if I could have one more wish...it'd be for him to teach me to dance... and to tell him if he granted me one last wish...you'd never stop dancing with her........