Invisible Thread
I find myself in a place I never thought I would be- widowed at 33 and engaged 8 & half months later. I celebrated my first Valentine’s Day with my fiance Cory, and I mourned my first Valentine’s Day without Mike. There’s an invisible thread that ties all my new happiness and joy to the most painful experience of my life. Sometimes that thread pulls tightly against my heart, and sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s always there.
There’s probably always going to be a little pain in every new experience I share with Cory, but I couldn’t ask for a better man to love me. I’m happier than I ever thought I would be again, but all this new happiness came with a heavy price, and I never lose sight of that. I feel lucky though because I’m part of a widows group on Facebook, where they share their experiences with people who judge them for all sorts of things - moving on too slowly or too fast; mourning too much or too little; being too sad or not sad enough. I feel blessed because I feel I’ve escaped that kind of judgement and have instead been extremely well-supported, but a part of me still feels like I should explain a few things. Not that I really owe anyone an explanation, but there are some things I want to share:
I started dating again pretty shortly after I lost Mike. That is really a reflection of who I am, not how much I love Mike or our marriage. With all of his health issues, there was little doubt that I would lose Mike before he lost me, but I always thought it would be years from now, when I would be content to remain single for the rest of my life because the rest of my life wouldn’t be that much longer anyway.
My first date with Cory was meant to be a practice date. I put myself on a dating site to see if I was still cute enough for someone to want to go out on a date with me. I had made plans with a couple of different guys for the same weekend that I met Cory. I cancelled plans with one of them because I didn’t feel ready to meet anyone, but I had dinner with Cory because my first week back to work was worse than the week I lost Mike. The realization that Mike was really gone and that my job and my life was still going on and that I had to face the world without him was harder than I thought it would be. I thought I deserved for someone else to buy dinner and be nice to me for a night. I didn’t even think there would be a second date, but the turning point was when Cory whipped out his Eagle Scout card, and I found it to be so endearing that I knew I had to go out with this Boy Scout again. Plus, I thought it would be funny to say that I was dating a total Boy Scout. I cancelled plans with the other guy the next day to be with Cory.
Being with Cory does not take the pain of losing Mike away. That pain is always there under the surface, and I don’t think it will ever go away, but maybe it will become less prominent as time goes on.
I think about Mike every day. While he was unconscious in the hospital, I made him a final promise that I would always remember him. One of Mike’s biggest fears was being forgotten, so I keep his name in the universe by making donations in his name and remembering him every day. I will always love him, and he will always be a part of me and my story. His absence is the invisible thread that connects my past and my future.
I read in Brandon Webb’s book Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide that loss can either deepen your or it can make you bitter. I work hard to stay hopeful and to keep my loss from hardening my heart. I chose to be open and to let good things happen. This isn’t the life I chose or wanted, and I don’t understand why any of this happened, but I’m moving forward. It’s the only way to go.
Kimberly
