Grief, pt 2

Somewhere in the universe, in a dark little den, live trolls with boney fingers and claws.  Sometime in the past they thought that it would be the ironiest of ironies to see to it that I lost my husband on Singles Awareness Day.  I mean, seriously, what could possibly make anyone more aware of their instantly single status than losing their spouse?  Those trolls mock me, I am sure, with gleeful cackles. 

However,

2 years

or 24 months 

or 104 weeks and 3 days

or 731 days

or 17,544 hours

or 1,052,640 minutes

or 63,158,400 seconds

will not make me regret the 7,770 days I got to spend with my husband, or wish to exchange it for never having known him.  I may be single and aware of it until I die, I might not, I don’t know.  But, trolls be damned, they can rub salt in my wounds until Hell freezes over.  I won’t let them steal the joy I have in the memories I have and the knowledge that my husband loves me now more than he ever could while on this earth.  It is the ever-present comfort of Believers – we know we will see our loved ones again, and that once on the other side of the divide, we are healed and whole, relieved of all anger, sorrow, regret, bitterness, and pain.  So, I could never “wish him back” to this life because it would mean taking him away from all that beauty.  I would rather be single than restore him to the sorrows he carried in his heart and the pain he carried in his body. 

Grief is a funny thing and I hate it.  It’s a bully.  It beats you up at your weakest moments.  It messes with your brain, your sleep, and your body, too.  It tries to fill you with all kinds of unmerited thoughts and feelings and it won’t let you get to the other side of it without swimming through its sticky morass.  And, like the trolls, I will not let it win.  My husband often told me I was the strongest person he knew (so, I may have fooled him a little) but on this day, my 2nd “dreadful anniversary” and also. apparently, Singles Awareness Day, I will shake my fist at the sky like Scarlett O’Hara, and claim, “As God is my witness, I will not let grief defeat me!” 

I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most:

’Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

~Alfred, Lord Tennyson

~~Vanessa

via WordPress

Personal, Sorrow, Grief, Widow