Learning To Say Goodbye

To the man of my dreams, the one and only true love of my entire life…one year ago today you parted from my life forever. It was sudden, it was unexpected, it happened way too fast. Up until the very moment that they told me you were gone there was still hope in my heart that you were going to get better. Why would I think anything else? You were only sick and you’d been sick before. This time seemed to be worse but not unfixable. I was wrong, so very wrong. I didn’t realize it at the time though. I stood by your bedside and I loved you. I poured my heart out to you and believed for a miracle, one that never happened. I stayed there nearby for almost 5 hours as I waited. I didn’t want to just leave you alone in that strange place. When it was almost time for them to come and get you to take you where you needed to go next I came in to tell you goodbye, something I didn’t get a chance to say to you before the end but I did then. I stroked your face, your hair, told you again I loved you and gave you kisses and told you I would see you again soon, in a few days. And then I turned around and left the hospital with my newly broken heart, not really knowing what I was feeling or doing, just going through the motions and moving along in a daze.

I came home to an empty house which soon filled up with lots of people, family and friends. But in that time, with all who surrounded me, I was so alone inside of me - distracted by all of the activity around me but alone just the same. And so it’s been since then, so alone, so lost in a sea of grief…at times feeling as though I was drowning in the grief and in my tears - more than I ever knew were in me. At the time I wasn’t sure that I would ever make it, through the moments, the hours, the days, the weeks or the months. And now, here it is one year later since that fateful day that your life ended and this new, unwanted life of mine began.

I didn’t realize what an impact this would have on me although I knew for sure it would have one. How could it not? Someone told me the other day when I mentioned that it would be exactly one year on Sunday - they told me “it’s just a day”. That’s so not true but I understand why they would have said that. How could they possibly know what that one day could and would mean to me and my heart? It’s impossible for anyone else to understand although some seem to have an idea and have done all that they could to make it easier. Their efforts are very much appreciated yet it doesn’t diminish the sadness or the longing for what once was which nothing in this big wide world can ever change. I knew it would be hard and it is and it hurts and there’s nothing to do but just go through it and hope that, with yet more time, it’s going to get better. I know it will and I know this because in the very beginning I would never have thought that I could even get to the point where I could even say that - that it will get better.

I started this journey at the bottom of a very dark and lonely hole that I never thought I would ever get out of as I struggled over and over and over again to climb and reach the top, to the see the light of day once again. All I can say is that I’m not at the bottom of the pit anymore but I’m not completely out yet and the sunshine is not yet as bright as I once knew it. God tells me that it will be that way once again in the future and since He’s never told me anything untrue before I have no choice but to have faith in His promise this time too. This, in itself, is more than I believed could ever happen - that I would once again believe…in God’s promises.

The memories, all of them are running rampant today, a rush of all that you and I had, were together, did together, built together, the love we shared that now is still with me, in my heart with noone any longer to share it with. I’m still learning to cope with this and so much more but I am learning, little by little, it’s just still very hard at times.

So my angel who now belongs to God…I love you still, I miss you still, I always will. I just needed to say these things to you on this, your angel date - one year since you’ve been gone…my love, always and forever.