Back in a Moment

The further down the path you are, the more you forget.  You forget the hurt, the pain, the reality of it all.  Even starting a new life, I look back as if I'm watching a movie. My emotions are limited, best compared to the reaction I felt as I watched The Notebook, or Titanic.  Except its not Kate Winslet playing the lead, its the vaguely familiar girl, who I don't realize at first, is myself.  Its sad, it pulls at my heart, but it doesn't feel real.  That is until the moment comes...

Someone says something, you walk into a familiar place, or facing a new experience alone.  Suddenly you are back, and it only took a moment.  Your mind, heart, and soul fall back in that moment, and its real.  The triggers are unexpected, and can't be tracked.  Throughout my journey as a widow I found myself back in the moment, in the oddest situations: attending preschool parent night, walking into the restaurant where he took me the night he proposed, attending an industry training meeting.  Last night it was hearing someone say "I want my wife to pass on first, so she doesn't face the pain of burying me." POOF! I was back in the moment.

I felt the overwhelming confusion, why did I go back to work? How did I even function.  And I felt this sadness slowly creeping over me.  I thought about kneeling at the grave the day we buried him, and saying "I leave it all here.  I'm burying it all."  Why is it that our emotions do that? Why does a simple phrase, smell or location take us back to the moment?  Perhaps thats how healing works.  We move on, we live life, and every so often our emotions flex out of shape.  Just like a broken bone acts up when it rains, our pain lies dormant, and when the weather changes, we remember.

Healing is a process, its not an event.  I know that no matter how wonderful life is, how complete I feel, that moments like these will happen.  I know that the longer I live, the less often they will be.  Perhaps these moments are for my benefit.  Maybe I need to remember, so that I can truly live.  Remembering makes me realize how far I have come, how much I have grown and how amazingly God has turned my life around in 2 short years.  Remembering helps me reach out to those who are on the path I once walked.  Remembering is important.  No matter how long I live, how strong and happy of a marriage I have, I want to remember what I have been through.  I want to look back on the movie of my life, shed a few tears, then turn off the TV, wipe my eyes, and enjoy the reality of the life in which I now live.

My Princess

This weekend I am heading to Disney World along with 20,000 other runners, to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon.  While I am excited to break a personal record, and celebrate my 35th birthday in the "happiest place on earth", the race such such a deeper meaning to me than any of this.

Almost one year ago, I lost my sister and best friend.  She unexpectedly encountered some complications from her seizure disorder, and on March 7, after being removed from the respirator, she went home to be with Jesus.  She was the most special person in my life, EVER!

Karrie was mentally impaired, and had the mental age of a 3 year old.  She is technically my step sister, which I almost NEVER reference, because she had been my sister for 25 years.  I was 9 when I met her, she was 14.  She was fun, silly, strong and obstinate.  We shared a room for almost 6 years, often falling asleep holding hands, if we hadn't already pushed the beds together.  She stood up in my wedding, and was the best aunt my son could have ever asked for.

So as I head down to Disney, to run a Princess race, I will be running for my princess, Karrie.  I'm dressing up as Belle, her absolute favorite princess.  I don't think she knew Disney had other movies besides Beauty and the Beast, and anything that had Belle on it, she loved.  So I will be donning a yellow skirt, yellow tank, long yellow gloves, and carrying a rose.  Every mile I run, I will remember the honor it was to grow up with and later care for my sister.  I will remember every moment we shared, and try not to cry for the moments we were robbed.  I hope that on Sunday morning, as I board my bus at 3 am, wait in a corral in Epcot til 5:45, and cross the finish line about 2 1/2 hours later, that she will be looking down from heaven and see.  She will be the strength I need to keep going, and the tears on my face when I finish.  I love you Karrie, and I miss you.  I'm doing this for you sister.  You're my best friend!

A Memory

Tonight as I looked out the window, I saw the most beautiful sunset.  I stopped my son from playing, and we walked to the window to admire it together.  As we stood there looking and talking about God's painting in the sky, I thought of my late husband, Jonathan.  Before him I never noticed the sunset, or the arrangement of the clouds in the sky on a bright summer day.  He taught me to stop and enjoy the beauty of life around me.  And when I stop everything to admire a sunset, or stare into the clouds, I think of him.  So I wrote a Facebook post about it.  As soon as I posted it I wondered if I should have.  I'm moving on in so many ways, closing the door on that part of my life.  Was it appropriate to post this?  I thought about where we were in our relationship when he died, we were headed to divorce.  Would a divorcee post something about how the sunset reminds them of their ex, because he taught her how to stop and enjoy creation?  Likely not.

Death has an interesting effect on how we remember our loved one.  It doesn't matter how they lived, or the things they did, we tend to remember them in a much more positive light.   I'm not saying my late husband wasn't a good man, because he was.  He just didn't live life to the fullness of that good nature which dwelled within him.  And as I am spending time recovering from his death and the destructive lifestyle I was connected to, I am more and more aware of the negative impact his sickness and issues had on me.  But yet I continue to memorialize him.  I look past the struggles and the faults and in moments like these, I remember the good side.

Had he lived, and we had been divorced, I wonder if I would view him in the same way which I do tonight.  Would it have been a pleasant thing to think of him as I stared at the sunset?  Would I have carried a bitterness and anger for how our life turned out, instead of sadness?  The mere fact that he is no longer alive here on earth impacts the way I walked out of the horrible situation in which I found myself.  And I can't deny that it helps me to look back on our life with fondness in ways I may never have been willing to.  I am grateful for that.  We had good times, and he made me the woman I am today, through the good and the bad.  So I will cherish these memories and I will cherish these moments when I can see how he touched my life.