The journey down this new road began in January 2002. I didn't know then just how radical the change of course was going to be, all I knew was that the love of my life was gone. While we were dating I had been unable to stand being away from him, I counted days until I saw him again. Our relationship was one of those that everyone knew would end up in marriage no doubt, and now I had to face life without him! I was numb, I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't even cry. I found myself consoling people, going out to shop for what I would wear for the burial. I was looking all put together while I was dying inside. Looking back now, I think the problem was that none of us knew how a young wife was supposed to mourn the loss of her husband. I mourned him like I was mourning a sibling, a father or a close friend. I didn't really mourn him like I was mourning the loss of a soul mate, a partner and the father of my children. I really do believe that if I had mourned him from that perspective it would have saved me a lot of the sorrow and pain that I had to go through for many, many years.
After the burial, I faced life squarely. I abandoned the care of my children to family and house helps. I felt the urgent and expected need to do something; the family head and bread winner had died and left the bread winning mantle for me. So I became busy, busy, busy, not stopping once to mourn the passing of my beloved husband, not stopping once to consider the effect of his absence on my life and the lives of our children. I think his passing made me selfish. I felt the world owed me something; it just had to be all about me. I didn't for once consider how the children's lives would be growing up without a father, how my parents felt having a daughter comeback home just a few years after giving her hand away in marriage, I didn't think about anyone or anything but me and what I needed to do to fill the gaping hole in my life. I know now that if I had stopped to think about all these things, I would have done a lot of things differently and saved myself a lot of pain these past few years.
Over the past 9 years, I have hit a lot of brick walls. I have almost lost my mind and gained it again. I have been strong and I have been miserably weak. Through the highs and the lows I have learned to trust God. I trust that he sees me and he knows what I am going through. He has promised never to leave or forsake me. His promises make it easy for me to go on and face the world. When my husband died, I knew for a fact that there was no way it was humanly possible for me to face the heartbreak without going insane or becoming a shadow of my former self. So I handed my fragile heart to God to take care of and he took that responsibility seriously. He has held my hand throughout the years, I knew I was in for bumpy ride but I didn't know just how hard or bumpy the journey was going to be, so the only option I had was to put my hand in the hand of a God that knows the end from the beginning and it has paid off. He took me to Isaiah 54 and that scripture has comforted me throughout this experience.
