Hey again friends, and hey there May:) I felt like I was hiding a bit all through April. Bracing myself for each new hard day on the horizon, and then when it would come and rush over me, I would pick myself up and shake it off only to look up and see the next one coming even faster. I've gotten used to living this way for years now, but I was overwrought all the same.
Preparing for May offered some relief of anxiety, knowing that there were only a couple grief anniversaries to get through and that overall it would be a slightly easier month. Then the 1st came, and I realized that this is also Melanoma Awareness Month, that yesterday was National Widow's Day, that May is when they told us that he only had a couple weeks left, that this month last year is when Marty really said goodbye to the children and I, and on and on. May came, and I realized yet again that there will never stop being days that stop me in my tracks. Days that freeze my body and rush my thoughts through months of pain and crying children and fear, memories that stop my breath in my lungs and make me sob and mourn and miss and regret and dwell and hurt. Memories that break my heart over, and over, and over again.
But there comes a point when you have to just live.
All those emotions are needed and healthy and expected and important yes, but so is peace, and so is joy. It's okay to feel crushed after a year and ten years, and it's okay to get excited and to dream. It's okay to get lost in the fog, to curl up and cry, to feel like a wreck, like you're falling apart and that you'll never be okay again. And it's also okay to dance in the kitchen, to laugh, and to stick your head out of the window to feel the sun and the wind rush over your face. It's okay to surrender to the heartache once in a while, and it's okay to wish for normalcy sometimes. Because grief has no rules, and because grief comes where there was once tremendous love, and just like love, once grief takes over your soul it will never leave you.
What I've realized (over and over) and tried to share, is that moving through the deepest pains of life can open up more space for experiencing the deepest joys. That the deeper grooves that sorrow carves into our being, the more space we have to contain happiness. We feel lost in the dark and so alone, but we're being shaped to see the brightest light.
If you had asked me a year ago if I could live without Martin, I would have said no. He was everything to me, my dearest love, my other half, my whole world, and I could never imagine a life without him... and then he was taken from me. We fought his terminal diagnosis as hard as we could for 15 months, but he still just slipped away. And yet here I am, and I'm still alive. I have happiness in my life, I have love, I have peace in my soul, even if just a tiny little fraction at times. I can't think what can be worse than watching my sweetheart die in pain, but I am surviving. This tells me that we as human beings can survive anything. Any loss that we suffer, any heartbreak, any betrayal, any pain. We are forever changed, but it becomes part of us, of who we are. We heal, body mind and spirit. We rise. We thrive.
I talk to so many of you every week who are scared of death, who have lost or are losing someone you love and you don't think you'll ever feel happiness again, but you will. I'm not saying you'll 'get over' it and be all better someday because that's not true. I'm not saying that you'll start missing them less because, in reality, you'll miss them more and more the farther away their presence becomes. You'll feel the heartache deep in your bones, but you will adapt, and you will get used to living with the pain and sorrow. You really will.
Not only will you change, but I've come to meet so many broken people who are the most beautiful people, whose lives are deeper and richer because of their brokenness. Especially after losing a loved one, we see that life is so so short. We don't waste time on trivialities. We have a new appreciation and understanding to savor every moment, and we never have enough time with those we love after a loss. These people that have known such intense fear and defeat and suffering and have struggled their way forward, they have more tenderness, more compassion, and more kindness than ever before. Value is added to even the smallest moments, and we hold desperately to even the tiniest bits of things like hope and faith and joy.
Light comes, laughter comes, joy comes. The dark doesn't fade, but the little patches of light shine so much brighter than ever before, that even a tiny sliver is enough to flow through you and fill you. It may be a text message from a friend or a little plate of cookies on your porch. It may be a good night's sleep, your favorite song, a sweet memory, or a tighter hug than you've had in a long time.
Hold onto that light.
Don't let anyone else tell you to slow down, to turn back around and face the despair when you're struggling every day to find reasons to even breath. Don't let anyone else tell you to walk faster towards the good either, to speed up and stop letting yourself feel pain. It's like you've lost your legs, and everyone is standing around you with their healthy bodies telling you how to feel and how to walk and run again. Shut out the voices, shut out the opinions. Your journey through grief and pain and recovery is as unique to you as your fingerprint.
Let yourself feel everything with your whole heart. Don't laugh because you think you're supposed to, don't cry because it's expected. Don't shut out the world because people tell you it's what your loved one would have wanted. Anyone who truly loves and cares for you would want peace for your soul and love in your heart. It's as simple as that. Missing them doesn't mean you have to live sheltered and miserable, it means living more richly for their sake. It means becoming their voice and honoring their life through living your own. It means adding more value to each day in their absence. It means not taking life too seriously and enjoying the journey as they would have if they were here. It means finding light and joy and peace, even when it seems impossible.
Thanks so much for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts below if you have a minute to share:)
xoxoxo
But there comes a point when you have to just live.
What I've realized (over and over) and tried to share, is that moving through the deepest pains of life can open up more space for experiencing the deepest joys. That the deeper grooves that sorrow carves into our being, the more space we have to contain happiness. We feel lost in the dark and so alone, but we're being shaped to see the brightest light.
If you had asked me a year ago if I could live without Martin, I would have said no. He was everything to me, my dearest love, my other half, my whole world, and I could never imagine a life without him... and then he was taken from me. We fought his terminal diagnosis as hard as we could for 15 months, but he still just slipped away. And yet here I am, and I'm still alive. I have happiness in my life, I have love, I have peace in my soul, even if just a tiny little fraction at times. I can't think what can be worse than watching my sweetheart die in pain, but I am surviving. This tells me that we as human beings can survive anything. Any loss that we suffer, any heartbreak, any betrayal, any pain. We are forever changed, but it becomes part of us, of who we are. We heal, body mind and spirit. We rise. We thrive.
ALL PHOTOS BY XAN CRAVEN in UT
Not only will you change, but I've come to meet so many broken people who are the most beautiful people, whose lives are deeper and richer because of their brokenness. Especially after losing a loved one, we see that life is so so short. We don't waste time on trivialities. We have a new appreciation and understanding to savor every moment, and we never have enough time with those we love after a loss. These people that have known such intense fear and defeat and suffering and have struggled their way forward, they have more tenderness, more compassion, and more kindness than ever before. Value is added to even the smallest moments, and we hold desperately to even the tiniest bits of things like hope and faith and joy.
Light comes, laughter comes, joy comes. The dark doesn't fade, but the little patches of light shine so much brighter than ever before, that even a tiny sliver is enough to flow through you and fill you. It may be a text message from a friend or a little plate of cookies on your porch. It may be a good night's sleep, your favorite song, a sweet memory, or a tighter hug than you've had in a long time.
Hold onto that light.
Don't let anyone else tell you to slow down, to turn back around and face the despair when you're struggling every day to find reasons to even breath. Don't let anyone else tell you to walk faster towards the good either, to speed up and stop letting yourself feel pain. It's like you've lost your legs, and everyone is standing around you with their healthy bodies telling you how to feel and how to walk and run again. Shut out the voices, shut out the opinions. Your journey through grief and pain and recovery is as unique to you as your fingerprint.
Let yourself feel everything with your whole heart. Don't laugh because you think you're supposed to, don't cry because it's expected. Don't shut out the world because people tell you it's what your loved one would have wanted. Anyone who truly loves and cares for you would want peace for your soul and love in your heart. It's as simple as that. Missing them doesn't mean you have to live sheltered and miserable, it means living more richly for their sake. It means becoming their voice and honoring their life through living your own. It means adding more value to each day in their absence. It means not taking life too seriously and enjoying the journey as they would have if they were here. It means finding light and joy and peace, even when it seems impossible.
Thanks so much for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts below if you have a minute to share:)
xoxoxo
from The Freckled Fox http://ift.tt/2qFsL7O
and still we rise - Natural hairstyle for mens and womens
