movie vows

I watched a movie tonight where one of the spouses died of cancer. After they knew the prognosis was not good, they spur of the moment decided to get married and went to a courthouse. The judge asked if he would love "as long as you both shall live". Of course he answered 'I do'.

It made me think about how we do love for the length of their life and then also for the rest of our life even if that person is no longer alive. My marriage vow to Steve was until "death do us part" and no matter what path I choose to take, I will always love him. I will love him as my first love, as my husband, as the father of my children and my best friend.

I am always amazed at how love works. How you can be in love with two totally different humans and want to be with them for the rest of your life, as long as you both shall live, and even after they're gone. 

knitted blanket

Last night I was working with Steve's mom on the potential of her knitting a temperature blanket. You sew a row everyday based on the temperature, whether you pick the high, the low or the average of the day. We were watching different videos and I was reading people's plans that they followed when they made their blanket.  In one of them the person explained that she went back and looked at the average temperatures for the year they got married. She was making it for her husband as a present to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. 

Funny how that was the same year that Steve and I got married. I had really thought we would go to Hawaii for our 25th. It also reminded me of how hot our wedding day was even though our average temperatures do not usually reach above 100. It's great to be able to look back on the memories and remember all the love that we shared. 

Preparation

13 years ago one of my very good friends passed away. We were a month apart in age and had been friends since middle school. Her second child and my oldest child were only a month apart. Her husband and my husband were great friends too. We often got together for dinner and for birthdays. 

I know exactly where I was when I got the call from her dad saying that she did not wake up from a nap. It made death such a reality and led to so many conversations between me and Steve about what we would do if it was one of us that died suddenly. I think her death really prepared me to grieve and accept and move forward with Steve's death.  It also let us to have some conversations about expectations revolving around grief.

Her husband was able to move forward and has now been married for many years. I think he was criticized by many people for moving forward in a time frame that they thought was too quick. But as I've learned and experienced, there are absolutely no rules or timelines in both grieving and moving forward. 

You can still love someone and be in love with someone else. You can grieve the loss of their part of your life and also make new memories with someone new.

Thank You

I went to the bank today with Brian and were talking about finances and really thinking about how I'm only where I am because of how much Steve did with planning in our budgeting and because of his death. I've been thinking a lot about him as we approach the 5-year mark on Monday.

Thank you Steve. Thank you for making sure we were all set. Thank you for teaching me to budget to spend what we've got and to save for future expenses and the unexpected. Thank you for always loving and being supportive of me. Thanks for being my amazing partner. I miss you. I love you. Thanks for being okay with me moving forward. I know you've always wanted me to be happy and Chris makes me happy. He's so loving allows me to grieve and share about my life with you. I know you believe so strongly in marriage and I thought I did too but I want to be with Chris until death do us part but because he's unsure about marriage, it's not on the table right now and I'm okay with that. Thank you for teaching me to love and accept myself. Thank you for protecting me and always being there for a hug. Thank you for always being around now and watching over all of us. I feel your presence and love. Please don't ever stop loving me.

Chris, I love you so much and I'm so happy you said yes to learning to pick agates. Thank you for letting me take my time to move forward in our relationship and for being so supportive. Thank you for letting me talk about Steve and our marriage. Thanks for letting me be a mom when that's who I need to be. Thank you for wanting a future with me. Thank you for finding me attractive and for accepting me for who I am. You've always said we each have a past and I'm so happy that my past has allowed me to be with you. I love you and want to be your partner for the rest of your life or mine. I accept that I might become a widow again. I accepted our lives will be what is meant to be. I believe God has a plan and it was for me to be Steve's wife first and then to be with you. I love you and I always will. 

bring it up

I was talking with a friend today and she asked if she could tell me something. She told me that she was working on some paperwork and came across Steve's name. She thought she was going to have to delete the information and felt weird about it but realized she could just uncheck his name. She wasn't sure she should have brought up the story or not. I'm really glad she did share it. We then talked about other memories and funny stories that we share. I personally think that anytime you think of somebody that's passed away especially if it's been awhile you should let the person that's still alive know that you're thinking about both of them. 

retirement is possible

I have decided to retire in June after 25 years of being in education and many people have questioned how it's possible at my age to be able to even do it. I explained that many things had to fall perfectly into place for this to be possible and one of those things was the fact that we had life insurance and a plan for our future. Because I was able to collect full pension for Steve and then will be able to receive mine and the fact that my debt ratio is very low will allow me to take advantage of retiring at a young age. 

Some of these things like retirement turn out to be the silver linings of having to lose him.

you did it once

I was talking with my youngest today about a comment my daughter-in-law made a few days ago. She told me how proud of me she was for moving forward and dating again and how she wasn't sure if she was to become a widow if she could do it. His response to this was something like, you got through it once so you know you can do it again. 

I feel deep down that I will again be a widow. I treasure the time I do have with Chris because I know it any moment it can end. But the love that we share makes whatever time we have together absolutely worth it.

Is it sometimes hard to hope that we'll make it 25 years when I didn't get that with Steve? Yes! But without hope and love, what do we have?