May 27th, 2023
Healing loudly can also help heal others. Reading about others’ grief has helped me to know that I’m not crazy, or alone, or completely losing the plot while walking this road. I intend for others to receive the same from me. Not just on this road but on other paths I’ve walked, as well. The journey may be hard but it doesn’t have to be walked alone. God’s there, but other people are more tangible sometimes and help remind you that He is, too.
May 26th, 2023
I lost it today. Fully lost it.
The mail came. I got a notification that a package had been delivered and I didn’t order anything. But I’ve gotten a couple of things that someone has sent from Amazon in kindness over the last couple of weeks so I figured that’s what it was.
You’re guessing what happened because you’ve seen it in some movie somewhere. Because this kind of thing only happens on the Hallmark Channel. But it did.
He sent me a gift. 😭💔
I opened the package and there was an envelope inside. I opened it and that’s when it happened. The floodgates opened but so did the ache in my heart explode.
It said, “Love, Scott”
I can’t explain the plethora of feelings that overtook me then. I started hard, ugly-cry, sobbing, folding over into myself. This is it, the last gift ever. The last surprise. The last…the last…the last…. When I tell you I cried, I mean that it was a hurricane of emotion pouring out, felt like my soul was shaking, felt like an emptying of my spirit…felt like…loss. And beauty, all at one time. It was tumultuous.
Scott used to randomly go on Amazon and pick something out of my “saved for later” queue and have it sent to me. Sometimes he would be home when it came. Sometimes he would be in Miami or New Hampshire, or North Carolina. A cute pair of sandals. Earrings. Something I’d been wanting to get for Lillian before she was even here. A dress. An air fryer. There would be no occasion. He just wanted to literally spoil me. He just wanted to give to me. He just wanted to love me and make sure I knew it, all the time. And this is the last.
There was a cute wooden box inside. I had trouble opening it. Luke & Patrice were here so Luke had his arms wrapped around me as I tried to reel it in, the tidal wave of emotion that was drowning me. Patrice cried, holding Lillian, in the other chair. When I did get it open, a silver chain and charm were inside. The side I saw first was his fingerprint. He left a piece of himself for me. The flip side was engraved: “I love you more. 3/21/17,” our marriage anniversary.
I know it was from him. Not some well-meaning family member or friend. I know a lot of people say I love you more but it came from China or Thailand or something. That stuff always takes weeks and weeks to get here. No way someone ordered it a week ago. We didn’t even get his body back to the funeral home until last Saturday so there was no time for someone to get his fingerprint and have it sent. It was 100% from him.
I love that he was thinking of me. I love that he was so thoughtful in his choice of gifts, as he always was. He was always very sentimental. This present just shows exactly who Scott was. Exactly how he treated me and loved me. But, oh, how it still hurts. It hurts so much because it was the last one and my life will never be the same. I will find a way to pick up and carry on for my family but a part of my life is irrevocably changed in a way that I hate. I want him back so badly. He should be HERE, with ME. He should be here. And that just hurts. 💔💔💔
I swear my life with Scott WAS just like a movie on the Hallmark Channel, although now it feels like it should be on Lifetime. I always said we had our very own fairytale.
May 26th, 2023
GRIEF TRIGGER WARNING (This means to swipe past this post now if my pain right now is too much for you, especially if music is the trigger for you that it is for me – there’s nothing wrong with protecting your own heart and you should. This one is tough for me so it may be tough for you, too, especially if you’re an empath. Read ahead at your own risk.)
When I wake from nightmares in the middle of the night, praying as I reach for the clock that it will be 5 a.m.or later, that’s when it’s worst, I think. He isn’t laying beside me and I know it before my eyes open because I just saw his face again, not in the way that I wanted to.
It’s worse tonight because I don’t even have the release of tears, of a “good cry.” Sometimes the numb and the gravest sorrow intermingle and then it still hurts deeply because the tears refuse to come and help me let it out a little. I can’t sob over his loss so the anger comes back at some point. I’m not there now, just yet, but I’ve already learned the patterns. I know it’s coming.
Anger protects me even though I hate how it feels. I’ll want to scream. Not a “woe is me” scream but the blood-curdling kind. The kind that says I’m out of control because everything around me is. He was taken from me before we had a chance to finish this dance. He was ripped away when we were still in the prime of our beauty. But I think we would have always been in “the prime.”
I’m not angry at Scott. I’m not angry with God. This world is filled with evil all the way back to the serpent who slithered into the garden. Satan is the god of this world and that’s why I can’t wait to leave here one day, to have all of the people I love in one place, together again, where there is no sadness, no mourning, no loss, no pain. I am not meant to go now, understand me. He left me here because there is still work to do, and if I listen then He’ll show me what it is.
But right now the anger won’t come yet, either, so this numb is only the kind that is silencing but still painful. And so I turn to the only place, the only One, who still guards my heart.
He can handle my sadness. He can deal with my heart wrenching pain. He can bring peace, even though it’s temporary when it comes, for now. I go to the foot of the cross. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, Lord. Lift me above the raging waters that threaten to drown me. Rescue me.
“Take me to the King. I don’t have much to bring. My heart is torn in pieces; it’s my offering. Take me to the throne. Leave me there alone, to gaze upon your glory and sing to you this song….take me to the King.”
This chorus has been in my head all week. I haven’t had the strength to listen to it until now. I’ve heard it many times before all of this happened but never felt it so much, never experienced the raw emotion behind the lyrics until now.
The Bible is the same way. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover before (not always in the order it’s written) and have read many passages enough that I can lipsync them when someone starts to speak a verse. But sometimes God gives me new perspective on what a passage is saying when I am going through different joys or trials in my life. The Bible isn’t static. Oh, His word is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, but it isn’t always spoken in the same tone. Different seasons of life will alter the punctuation, the way it is spoken to your heart. If you haven’t read it in awhile, take it out. See what He’s trying to tell you today and, although He won’t say something “different,” you’ll read it in a new light with the changes you’ve experienced in your life since the last time you read it. Ask Him to take you where you need to be and don’t stop after reading one sentence, but let the story of that passage be revealed to you. For me, sometimes I read at first and cannot figure out why this pertains to me, to my situation, but it always comes to me later when that happens.
I know that, one day, this song won’t bring me pain anymore; it will bring me peace. Peace because I will know that even in my darkest hour, He was finding a way to speak to me. Finding a way to reveal Himself. Finding a way to remind me that He is still here and that all I have to do, when I feel empty and have nothing left to give, is to seek Him. To go to the throne of His glory. On that day, when it no longer hurts, this song will represent yet another promise that He always will.
He is here, hallelujah.
He is here, amen.
He is hear, holy, holy.
I will bless His name again.
He is here; listen closely.
Hear Him calling out your name.
He is here; you can touch Him.
You will never be the same.
May 25th, 2023
***GRIEF TRIGGER WARNING***
I had a panic attack today.
Not the “the teacher called on me and I didn’t know the answer so I had a panic attack” kind, or the “that car stopped in front of me so fast I had a panic attack” kind.
The “feel like you cannot get a breath in, heart palpitations and speeding up to feels-like-it’s-bursting, can’t feel your hands, whole body shakes” kind.
I know that I have to start making myself do things. By myself. I know that I have to find a way to go on. So, practice is what makes that happen, right? Face fear in the face, head on. Just do it. Insert better slogan here.
So I ran a few errands today in Lake City that have to do with what’s been going on: VA to discuss financial issues, bank, a couple of doctor’s offices to let them know he’s gone. For the most part, staying busy is like staying vigilant against the next oncoming slaught of “the overwhelm;” I don’t like the place I call the overwhelm. I had no idea I was headed straight for it. I went next to the place that sells monuments, otherwise known as gravestones or grave markers.
I looked through photographs, walked around and looked at the ones outside, considered options, and was given a folder full of photographs and catalog choices to take home and consider. I remember thinking that some of them were “pretty.” Isn’t it strange to think of something as “pretty” when it symbolizes the end of something beautiful?
I walked to my car. Felt a little wobbly in my legs on the way there but toughed that out. Unlocked and sat in the car and closed the door. Went to reach for the button to crank it. And then it hit.
This isn’t the first one. It was the worst one so far, though. I knew I couldn’t drive for a bit even though I wanted to get out of there, so I sat. I started trying to control my breathing, pushed my seat back and lowered my head toward my knees. I pulled my phone out and opened pictures of him, when he was here, when he was with me. I can’t tell you what I was trying to replace in my head with those photos but one day I will. But suffice it to say that it’s very difficult to get rid of and it has plagued me almost constantly.
I did it. I got it under control. I don’t know how long I was there but I began to lose the numbness in my hands and my knees stopped the shaking feeling. I stayed until I was back in the numb place again.
The numb place is where my brain takes me when I can’t handle anymore. I’m glad it’s smarter than the conscious me because it’s a lifesaver. I’ll feel guilty for not being 100% miserable for awhile, and it doesn’t make me forget anything. It just makes me feel…less.
I’ve felt these things almost come over me quite a few times since the 10th. And “attack” seems like an appropriate descriptive term. A lot of times I’ve realized that if I take some slow, deep breaths right when I feel it coming, and intentionally focus on something other than what is triggering it, I can recover before it overwhelms me. Like in the grocery store yesterday. But this one came so quickly, so out-of-the-blue, that there wasn’t time to head it off.
Yesterday’s almost “attack” was over pickles. I went down the condiments aisle and realized I never have to buy pickles again. I don’t like them, but Scott loved them. I wish I needed to buy pickles. That’s how insidious the emotional terrorism is. Most times it doesn’t even make sense that it would be something to cause such distress. But I took some deep breaths and focused hard on which ketchup bottle and what kind and size I wanted to get and whether generic would taste different and whether I needed mayonnaise at home, too. And then I still felt sad about the pickles but had averted the meltdown, the fear of how I can live when we don’t even need pickles…see how silly that sounds?
But silly doesn’t even enter the equation. It’s real, and raw, and threatening, and terrifying, and devastating. It feels like your heart is literally tearing, vessel from valve from chamber, inside your body. It feels like you’re dying because, inside, you already partially have.
I know that people who love me don’t want to hear descriptions of how much I’m hurting. I know it hurts them to know that I am. But this is something that doesn’t hide in the dark, even when I try my best to keep it out of sight. It’s lurking inside me every moment of every very long day. The last two weeks feels like it has taken two months to pass.
But somewhere, someday, someone will be trying to live through this and I HATE that for anyone else. And they may remember my writings and know to reach out to me, to ask how I did it, how I lived through it. Right now, I don’t even know what I would tell them yet. Every day of this is an unhappy surprise, but one day I’ll figure out how to get a hold of it. One day I can tell them what I did and that their journey may be different but I’ll walk beside them.
I understand now why people in the Bible, you know, in the “olden days”, wore sackcloth and covered themselves in ashes when they were grieving. I literally want to. I haven’t put a drop of makeup on and have barely brushed my hair since it happened because I just don’t want to. What’s the point? But if you poured ashes over me, maybe I would look how I feel. Burned down to nothing. Ash.
And yet one day I will still find a way to rise from them, by the strong, gentle grace of God.
May 24th, 2023
Normalize telling people what they mean to you.
By that, I don’t just mean your family, your best friends. I mean that you should make it a point to tell people that you think they are important and that they have made a difference in your life, or in this world.
As I read through many of the things people have written over the past couple of weeks about my sweet husband, I wish he could have known the impact he had made, was still making, in the lives of others. Scott always felt like he should do more, be more, help more. Many times he felt he just wasn’t “enough”. I’m betting a lot of you can relate. I can. We let the weight of the things we haven’t gotten right override the strength of the things we have done well.
I know that you have done so many things well. Scott loved well. He made people feel worthy, safe, heard, appreciated, and loved. He made people feel like family and he wanted to be that with everyone. You might be that person to others, too.
My nephew, Judah, needed to hear these things more, too. He was all noise, exuberance, light, color, joy, and fun. He needed to know that he was that, not just to his family, but to many around him.
So, I encourage you today to tell someone what they mean to you. Tell them of the impact they have had. Tell them that the world would lose a great source of light if they were not here. Tell someone that you have learned something from their life and that it has changed you. Tell someone why you think they are an amazing and inspirational human. Not just your family members and closest friends. Tell an aquaintance, tell a co-worker, tell a stranger.
Just tell them while they are still here. ♥️
May 23, 2023
Today has been hard. Funerals are hard but this…a whole different level.
I want to make something clear, though. I don’t grieve for Scott. I have no doubt that he is living the good life where he is now. I grieve for myself, for the future we had planned together. I grieve the loss of my very best friend in the world, for the person I wanted to be beside me all the time. For the man that he was and what that meant in my life.
Many who knew us may have wondered why we rarely did double dates or ever went on girls trips or guys trips separately. We both love other people, lots of them. But we were so content just being together. We were peas in a pod, peanut butter and jelly (or marshmallow cream, since Scott loved Fluffernutter sandwiches). We knew ten years ago what we had found in each other and didn’t want to miss out. When we were separated by Scott’s travel assignments, we talked a minimum of twice a day, usually several hours at night or off and on ALL day on the days he was off. We counted down the days to when I could go be with him for a week. Or when he could come home to see us.
And we did spend quite a bit of time physically away from each other, but that is because Scott had big dreams and plans for our future, for the time when we would be retired together. He didn’t want me to work anymore and he wanted us to be able to enjoy it together when it was time. We always thought there would be time. I grieve the loss of that time. Those plans.
I don’t regret those times now. Of course I wish we had more time, but being a provider and protector, both of which he was wonderful at, made Scott happy. He felt better about himself when he knew I was taken care of, even if that meant trimming the bushes I wanted done in our yard, bathing the dog, or helping with dishes. I told him once that, when he sat in the living room watching TV while I was cooking supper, I’d rather him come sit on a stool in there and talk to me. He never watched TV during my cooking again until he got hurt. He said he felt the same but didn’t want me to feel like he was hovering.
He spoiled me to no end. I tried to spoil him, too, in different ways. We had different love languages and yet figured out how to make the other feel special. I always felt like I didn’t deserve him and he always felt the same about me. We both always wanted to make sure that the other felt loved and appreciated. I think that says something about a relationship. Neither thinks they are higher than the other, both thinking their person makes them a better woman/man. And he definitely made me better.
So, I don’t grieve for him. I do grieve the way he went but he’s not there anymore. I’m just sad that I’m here trying to pick up the pieces and find a way to make just enough of them fit to make it to glory myself.
So, today was sad, but not for Scott. Scott’s somewhere on the outskirts of Heaven, waiting for me to get there. Then we really do get forever.
May 23, 2023
I never imagined that grief could feel like this.
I was sad when I lost my Granny. Very sad. I could tell myself that she lived a long life. She wasn’t sick anymore.
I was really sad when my stepdad died. So sad. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s for years and I could tell myself he was better off now, could picture how well he was in Heaven.
When my nephew died, I was heartbroken. I cannot explain the sad because he was healthy and way too young and full of life and beauty and color and noise. And the heartbreak of my sister and brother-in-law took my breath away. Scott was there to walk through it with me, to hold me when I sobbed. To take me to be with them. To join me in every small measure of help we could muster.
I still never imagined grief could feel like this. People keep saying “I can only imagine what this must be like for you.” I know you’re trying to imagine it but you can’t. As hard as you might try, you just can’t. A very precious few friends who have already walked in my shoes can feel it, I imagine all over again, by watching me go through it because they have lost soulmates. They have been where I am today.
I described it to someone as having been given a paralytic before surgery but someone forgets to give you the actual general anesthesia. Someone starts cutting, opens up your body and starts taking parts out, and you can’t even scream or move to tell them you’re feeling all of it. And since you can’t really imagine that in a way that you can feel it, I’m thankful most cannot feel this either.
My sister and I are close but we cannot really comfort each other now. We’ve texted but have only spoken on the phone a few times since it happened. The rawness of my pain and of hers intermingle and pour over us like white hot lava, but a mysterious kind that doesn’t consume anything in its path; it just solidifies and burns continuously, taking your breath once over and over. How did sixteen days steal so much from our family?
My mother-in-law is the strongest person I know right now. She has lost both of her children in less than a year and a half but still finds a way to comfort me and hold me up when my knees no longer want to. And we do not grieve as those who have no hope but, dear God, I don’t know how to wait on that day right now.
Today we do what they call “laying him to rest” but there is no rest for me and he has already been resting for almost two weeks. I doubt I have consumed what would normally be one day’s calories in two weeks and have slept three hours or less per night except one when I miraculously made it to almost five. Everyone keeps telling me to eat and sleep. But even when I eat it returns and sleeping brings no rest. I’m thankful Scott is not in any pain, that his heart doesn’t hurt like mine, but it doesn’t change the fact that my pain is so deep that I feel I cannot breathe. There are literally times when I feel like I have to think to take a breath, like my body doesn’t know how to do it on its own anymore without him.
All of our children and our granddaughter are what keeps me tethered here. Without our boys and our girls, I don’t think I’d bother getting out of our bed…it’s such a huge bed now. Scott’s body was always like a furnace; I used to tell him that he could keep me alive in a desert tundra just by staying/sleeping near me. I imagined yesterday that I would be comforted by being able to put my hands on his face one more time. It wasn’t comforting at all.
I don’t know how to walk through this day. Or all of the tomorrows. Why does this day feel like such a final goodbye when I already know he’s been gone for so long…how is it only two weeks? There will be people there who try to comfort me, people who want nothing more than to ease my suffering. I wish I could make them all feel better by acting like I do…but the life sentence of living without him beside me reaches so distantly into the future.
I will be okay one day; I know that I will although it doesn’t feel like it is possible right now. Like everything else in life, God will give beauty for ashes even in this, as unfathomable as that seems right now. He’ll find a way to use this thing He didn’t cause to bring cause for me to walk a dark path with someone else who hurts. And then He’ll give me the strength to do it.
But today feels like an ending, all over again.
I love you, Scott. I miss you insurmountably.
I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with you. But I realize now that you spent the rest of your life with me and I know that you loved me with your whole heart until the moment you had to go.
Until we meet again, my heart. ♥️
May 22nd, 2023
Today is the day I will see his face for the last time here on this earth. There is an earnest fear in this. I want to remember him the way he is supposed to look, with this beautiful smile on his face and the look that always told me that no matter who had come before, there would be none, ever after, and that really, I was always the only one, the one he’d been searching for all that time. He always knew the same of me and we talked about how we had discovered that, at one time, we were in the same football stadium at the same time and wished we had crossed paths then.
I don’t want to remember him the way he will look today. But 𝘩𝘰𝘸 can I 𝘯𝘰𝘵 see him one more time, knowing this is the last time I can ever look at him? How can it be the last time? I cannot understand how this happened, how my healthy, perfect husband’s soul is no longer in the same world as mine.
Sure, there are wonderful photographs. We took a lot of pictures together but I wish there were more. And yet the photographs cannot wrap his arms around me, cannot kiss me goodnight, or hello, or just because.
Tomorrow is the day we will “bring closure” with a memorial service. We will have a slide show to represent his life but you cannot properly represent Scott in 100 pictures. You can’t even truly represent him in photographs because he was larger than life but in a quiet way.
Now, Scott could talk your ear off. I sometimes would walk out to the yard after he had been talking to the lawn guy or the cable repair man, or the person walking their dog and gently suggest he come back inside because they probably had other things they needed to do and I didn’t want anyone to get into trouble. But then many times they’d still stand and talk longer because Scott never met a stranger. They were already fast friends and enjoying their chat.
But he still had a quiet thoughtfulness. He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders sometimes, never understanding how people could be ugly to one another because he was all kindness and soft-hearted. He was hurt so much more in this life than he would ever have given back because people would take advantage of his gentleness. Don’t ever forget that your candle will never glow brighter by the action of extinguishing the candle of someone else.
Scott isn’t here anymore. I keep trying to convince myself. At the same time I try to convince myself he is on a travel assignment and will FaceTime me soon. That doesn’t work for long. Yet even though he is not here, his light is here. His gentleness. His grace in all circumstances, even over and over again for those who did not deserve it. He lived like Jesus in that way, always believing that people could turn around and redeem themselves even though some constantly hurt him and never did change. It made me angry, not at him but for him.
Today will be the last time I see his face. I saw him after it was all over on the 10th and I know he doesn’t look the way he should because this didn’t happen the way it should have. Life turned on a dime and left me floundering in this abyss of grief and loss. But I will see him today for the last time until I see him again. And I know it will break open the hurt that keeps trying to hide underneath the beginnings of a scab, of scars that will keloid and never fade. I miss you, baby, so much. 💔
May 21st, 2023
I’m afraid of sleeping. Of what I’ll dream about, or that of what I might not dream about (haven’t dreamed his face or his voice yet and I ask him to come to me even in dreams every night). I’m also afraid that once I actually sleep more than a few hours a night, I’ll realize it’s an escape and it will be all I want to do.
I’m afraid of people seeing me in what I’m calling a “dry spell” and not understanding just how much I miss him and that I’m dying inside because I just don’t have tears at that point (until I do and they won’t stop) and because my brain is working hard to compartmentalize and shut the boxes so it doesn’t hurt so badly. Not because other people’s opinion of my grief matters but because it feels like it matters that they know how important he was. Scott was upset when I didn’t cry the day he asked me to marry him. I had been a single mom for years and learned to hold it all in tight to keep from scaring my boys. After trapping it for so long, it became difficult to express any of those kinds of feelings. Oh, but i was sooo happy on the day he asked me – and the rest of the day we had one of the best days ever. It’s actually hard to differentiate because I feel like we had soooo many best days ever. Now, when I am crying, it feels like I can’t hold it in to save my life. When I’m not crying I feel guilty for even being able to function because I still don’t know how I have survived this many days without him.
I’m afraid of so many other things. Things about how I 𝘢𝘮 going to live without him here. Scott would have told you I was fearless, that the only thing that scared me was losing one of our kids. And that was pretty much true because I never worried about losing him. He wore his seat belt. I used to tease him about driving like a grandma, but he was very safe. He was nervous about the surgery, as anyone would be when their spinal cord was involved, and I told him not to be afraid, that this would be like any other surgery he’d had and that he would come out feeling so much better (and he did…for awhile). And no other woman was ever going to take him away from me. I was never afraid of that because he couldn’t talk about anything but me when he was away from me and he only wanted to be in the same room I was when he was not working. Anyone we knew would tell you that. We were inseparable and I thought we always would be. We said “til death do us part” 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘵 when we got married. I thought we had until we were 80.
But there are three primary emotions with this grief: white hot anger, intense, devastating sorrow, and fear. Disbelief sneaks in there but then the anger takes over again and proves me wrong.
We didn’t take a wrong turn. We did everything we were supposed to do. We followed the rules for pre-op and post op. We did what insurance and doctors told us to do. And he was healthy, so healthy. This was not supposed to happen, under any circumstances, and yet it did, despite everything.
So I’m afraid a lot. I’m afraid of how long it is going to feel like for me before I see him face to face again and can tell him how much I love him and missed him. He wouldn’t have wanted to miss all of this, the goings on around here – the grandbabies, the graduations, the successes and accomplishments, the trips we had planned (we have a payment plan for our trip to Jamaica which was postponed due to his injury). And he wouldn’t have wanted me to miss this (although I never plan to ever go to Jamaica now, ever – we dreamed about this delayed honeymoon for over six years). He would want me to find a way to enjoy all of it but I just can’t see my way to that point right now.
The light and color is gone from my life and I feel like I’m watching a black & white movie with no sound or subtitles; it doesn’t make sense.
I’ll figure it out. No need to call for a welfare check. Scott also would have told you I was strong and for some reason he was really proud of that. I’ve lived through a lot and I’ll live through this. But before, he was always there 𝘪𝘯 the storm with me (ever since I’ve known him) 𝘢𝘯𝘥 on the other side of the storm. I know he will be this time but I have one hell of a hurricane to ride out. And so, I’m afraid of doing it alone.
Edited to add: Minutes after writing this post, my app alerted me to the verse of the day. Here is what it was today, because God is always on time. God is not the author of coincidence and, once you know Him, you’ll see that there are too many instances of “coincidence” to ever thing it was chance again.
“Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid.
John 14:27 GNT
May 19th, 2023
I want to say something to anyone out there who is jaded by difficult relationships, divorce, or just waiting so long to find “the One”.
Don’t give up. It’s out there, especially when God directs your steps. I’ve said that Scott was my fairytale from the day, yes, literally the day I met him. His sweet spirit was looking for mine while I had given up on looking. When we met, there was an electrical, spiritual connection that we couldn’t deny.
Oh we fussed and argued sometimes, mostly over things that are so trivial now; we’re humans and so emotions and stress and even hormones get in the way (TMI trigger warning: menopause is a beast). But he held on to me when I was in chaos and I held onto him when he was.
He told me to retire from nursing in February of 2021; I did so in April. There were a few reasons for this. The first was that he knew I had suffered through burnout for many years (nursing is not for the faint of heart) and that it wasn’t getting any better. He hated seeing me struggle as much as I was. Scott was on top of the world nursing at Jackson South in Miami so me crying over work every night broke his heart.
The second, a reason I loved with all my heart, was to have more time to spend with me. Scott was travel nursing and when I was working I had to rush down to Miami for a weekend or else ask for time off and see if it got approved and if I could get coverage. He said “then you can come see me anytime you want to and you can stay for a whole week or two”. And that’s what I did. The memories of all of those visits to him in Miami and New Hampshire and the memories of the road trip we made home together when he finished in NH and we took a slow ride home, stopping to stay in places with great food and enjoyable attractions, this will live inside me forever.
The third reason was this: I asked Scott when he said “just retire, we’ll be fine without your paycheck”. I asked, “but who will I be then? What is my purpose going to be?” My last baby was going to be graduating soon and, although I’m still a mom, I knew it soon would not be the same. And I loved being Scott’s wife so much but I feared I would feel useless and without direction. He said, in an almost prophetic way, honey, one day we’re going to have grandchildren. You always said that you wished you could have stayed home with the boys. Now you can be a stay-at-home grandma and it will save the kids tons of money in daycare so you’ll be helping them, too. (This was just over a year before we ever knew that Lillian Reese was coming into our lives). And so I agreed. I’m so very glad I did. Because if I had kept working we would have had more money…but I wouldn’t trade the last two years (or the last ten) for anything in the world, certainly not for money.
A love like that, so selfless and pure, I never believed existed. He wanted to take care of me. He wanted me to be happy. He was really enjoying travel nursing (especially in Miami) but he knew I was floundering so he came up with a solution. He stayed with me during one of the toughest battles of my life before that and then saved me from other tough ones. Because of who he was, I’ll never doubt that, every day since we met, he loved me with every beat of his heart. True love, fairytale love, unimaginable love does exist. I felt blessed and so grateful to have it every day, even when we fussed over things. It was the forever kind and I will cherish it forever, even though our time was far too short.
So DON’T GIVE UP. Don’t settle. Don’t stop believing in the miracle. Don’t expect it to always be easy but if it’s really a gift straight from God, it will almost all of the time.
I was twitterpated (ref. Bambi) since the day I met him. That never stopped.
God is in the Outcome 