I'm amazed.

You gave me this song 3 days after you left, but I wasn't ready for it. Thank you for showing it to me again when I was ready to listen. I love you.

"I'm amazed at a quiet ocean,
I'm amazed at your warm devotion...

I'm amazed at all that has happened,
and I'm amazed at all that will be...

I'm amazed at the love we are rejecting,
and I'm amazed at what we accept in its place."

Working on it...

One of the most difficult things for me to conquer right now is staying physically and emotionally healthy while attempting to get out of bed and go to work. I work in a profession where I am caring for others in their most trying times. I care for people who have had parts of their skull removed to decrease the pressure in their brain, people who have had strokes and have ten IVs hooked up to them, people who have had to practically have their throat removed due to cancer.

I work the night shift, and so I wake up and spend hours thinking about my husband until I finally drive the 90 minute commute to work, during which I am also thinking about my husband. I then sit, sleepy and exhausted, for a 13 hour overnight shift.

But the thing that I think weighs on me the most is how jealous I feel of my patients sometimes. I am jealous that they are laying in these beds, getting care from wonderful nurses who just want to see them go home and get better. I am jealous that they get to have their families by their side, and even if they pass away, their loved ones will be sitting next to them. I am jealous that they got to live with basic comforts like a soft bed or to be able to hug their wife or children recently. I am jealous that my husband got none of these things before he died. I am angry he did not get those things.

So I have decided to pull back from work a little bit. I think the healthiest thing one in my position can do is be totally aware of their limitations. Right now, my limitations mean having a healthy mind, body, and soul before I can throw myself back into a career in which I have to be totally present to care for others in pain. I think working less will allow me to enjoy the sunshine, a new town, and be able to volunteer through some worthwhile organizations here. I feel good about this.

63rd day

It has been 63 days. I find myself oftentimes in complete disbelief, as if I am still living that movie that I was so convinced of in the first few days. When I don't know his grandma's phone number, I think "Oh, I'll just ask Mike the next time we talk." When there is a box too big to carry to the storage unit, I think about waiting until he comes back to move it. In my saddest moments, I wish I would hear him pop up on Skype to comfort me.

In 63 days, I tragically lost my husband and my future with him. I traveled across the country to retrieve his body in Dover and attend his memorial service in Kansas. I have accepted the flag at his funeral. I have kept my composure at a wedding. I have moved from my home away from family. I have moved to a new home closer to friends. I have struggled at work taking care of others while questioning why my husband was not as lucky as these people. I have talked to counselors, pastors, fellow widows, and an online community I never thought I would need to join. I have gone through some of my husband's remaining personal effects, and avoided going through others. I am muddling through, and most days I think I can make it. Some days I do not.

I think the phrase "heartbroken" is used far too much, too flippantly. Until you feel like your chest was cracked open, it has not happened. Someone took a surgical saw and just cut right down the middle. I do not feel like my heart was actually removed, but that it is open to the elements. Any piece of dust that may land in my chest causes a physical and emotional reverberation throughout my body. Each piece of dust is some emotion that has taken on totally new meaning. For me, it is mostly fear. Fear of what my husband experienced, and what and if he is experiencing anything now. Fear for my own future. Fear is then translated into nausea, panic, pain. It's a pain that surprises me that I can live through. It brings me to my knees so that I cannot breathe. And I cry, and it passes. And it comes again, sometimes immediately, sometimes in a couple days. And I know as more time elapses, these will happen less. But every widow has warned me, they never completely stop. Even after a lifetime, it never goes away.

I guess that is a testament to how much one can really love another person. Whether they can continue their life for that person, to honor that person. To be able to live through having their heart fully exposed with no anesthesia, having to have a full recollection of something you do not want to remember. I know my husband would want me to feel true joy again, and in time I hope I get there. I have the needle and thread in my hands, so I guess now it is a matter of learning to sew oneself together again.