I’m not who I was a year ago. There are parts that are healing. There are parts that still feel beyond repair but I know they will heal…they just won’t ever look or feel the same where the scar lies. There are parts that are wiser (about things I don’t really want to be wiser.) There are parts of me that still can’t figure things out. All I know is that change is the only constant in life. How ironic is that?

The one year “anniversary” of my nephew’s death is next Tuesday. It feels weird to call it an anniversary – those are supposed to be happy occasions, like birthdays…but those aren’t as happy either anymore. After we fumble our way through that day, it is only 16 days until it’s been a year for me, too. It’s like there is a convoluted countdown going on. Part of your brain unwittingly hopes that one year means “Whew! I made it through the firsts. Should be smooth sailing from now on…” while the part of your brain that contains intellect knows full well that an anniversary date is no longer the end of anything. It ended last year and once it’s ended there can be no other ending. There’s no reprise, no encore act. The bow has been taken and the theater long cleared out.

I’m different because I’ve made it this far. I have exercised my faith this year as if I were training for a double triathlon. God has come through every time. None of it has been easy – the exercising of my faith to what felt like the full limit part, or even the parts when He came to the rescue. It’s still all been really hard, but I am here. I am still living in our home and was not forced to move. I still have three amazing sons and three wonderful daughters-in-love plus a grandbaby. I was able to care for my granddaughter during my daughter-in-love’s entire nursing school program so that my son didn’t have to pay for daycare and so that my sweet grandbaby was exposed to as little illness as possible. My husband and I had agreed to do that for them and I was trying my best to hold true to that. The fact that I feel so much loss and brokenness but am still so blessed seems like a crazy paradox. An impossible coexistence.

I will be applying to jobs soon. The retirement my husband wanted and planned out for me was revoked once he was no longer here. I’m so thankful that the grace of God has provided ways to allow me time to grieve and to be with my granddaughter; He has provided hand over foot, over and over again, each time I even considered that the time may be coming when we’d be forced to look into daycare for the baby. Then suddenly a solution that would appear, in the natural, to be completely out of the blue, totally unexpected…they were solutions that were promised to me last year. He said “don’t worry; it’s already taken care of” and it was, right on time, every time.

I really didn’t want to go back to work but I am thankful that I was afforded this time to walk the brittle beginning of this journey with my granddaughter to light up the darkest days and without added stressors to keep me from processing all that I have been able to thus far. Now I will work on walking back into the work world and figuring out how that is going to look.

Money has been a sticking worry point for me throughout the last year. I’ve often felt guilty for worrying about it because figuring out how to deal with the money part isn’t nearly as difficult as figuring out to deal with the loss of my husband, my soulmate. Also because God tells us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear because the birds of the air do not sow or harvest but God provides food for them. And the lilies of the field are dressed in the most beautiful finery but need not worry about clothing. How much more does the Father love us? (Matthew 6:26-30) Every time I tried to stop worrying about money, another problem would pop up, making everything feel like a monetary house of cards all this time. And every time, He provided a way like He said He would.

I figured out this week one of the main and primary reasons that I’ve been so worried about the financial part. First off, my husband and I were both nurses but he was in a position to make a lot more money than me. As is typical, our bills grew to what we were able to afford and we bought a new home just four years ago, right before the onset of COVID-19. We bought a home together. For anyone who doesn’t know already, this was not either of our first marriage. He had a home and I had a home when we met. He eventually moved to the home I already lived in. Then his career path changed course and we were able to begin looking at houses together. We found one we loved for various reasons and we purchased it together. Then we made even more memories here.

I think it was in the first few days thay I said “I can’t lose our house; God, please don’t let me lose our house.“ This home represented so many of the dreams we had together. Things we wanted to do here for future grandchildren. Upgrades and even addition we dreamed of doing one day. Plans of what life would look like after all of the kids had moved out. I was terrified of an empty nest but he had a way of making it seem exciting and fun to be “on our own,” able to leave town at the drop of a hat and explore places we wanted to go. So one thing that has been at the tip top of my mind this whole time was “how am I going to afford to keep this house and all of the bills that go with it?” I was talking about how going back to work was the only choice but that I should be able to work it out to have the house paid off before retirement (hopefully and prayerfully.) Someone said “well, you could look into selling the house and moving into something smaller since you don’t need so much space.” That person meant no harm at all and was just trying to give a helpful potential solution, but my heart felt like it fell past my stomach and to my knees. Literally like the first downhill of a roller coaster. That same fear of not having this place where we planned our forever jumped right back into my throat while my heart tried to find its way back to my chest. It was all I could do to hold the grief break inside of me til later. It was only then that I fully realized that was the source of almost all of my money fears. Yes, I could survive if I had to sell our home. Yes, I could probably afford a tiny home more easily. Yes, I know many people end up not having a choice but, if there is anything I can do about it, I will have a choice about whether to keep or sell my house. And I will stay right here.

Now that I know part of my plan to do that means I have no choice but to return to work and that I know I will have gotten through my granddaughter’s first year and a half with no daycare, at least, I am able to build the resolve to step into it. I’m in the process now of figuring out how to plan for retirement without him here, too, but God still says it’s all going to be okay…the money part anyway.

So, things are still changing every day. Nursing school ends next month and then I go back to being one, too. It wasn’t the plan but things keep changing. But I was wrong about one thing. The only thing constant in life is not just change. It’s also God. He is never-changing.