My husband has been gone for five years. I miss him every moment of every day. But the sadness of missing him is always taken over by beautiful memories.
When we were dating, I pushed him away because it felt too risky. My heart was too involved, too fast, I kept looking for reasons to let go. How could a person with such a large and wide circle of friends not have anything bad said about him? I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. But he held on tight until I accepted that he was worth the risk. And, as it turned out, there were no negative stories because he truly was honest and lovable, so I handed my heart over.
When we got engaged, I didn’t see the point in wasting time. He proposed in February, we pulled out the calendar and tried to gauge the best time to get all of our loved ones together for the event. Labor Day weekend made sense, so that was it. The months between were spent planning a party. And what a party it was!
I wore the dress that my grandmother wore to marry my grandfather in 1935. They were, in my eyes, the greatest measure of a couple to follow. My beloved told me there was no way he had 70 years left in him. He was a funny guy, so I laughed. And we went ahead and promised each other forever in front of a bunch of witnesses.
Moving forward, life happened. There were losses and sadness and moments of worry like every other human has. We went on, eyes looking ahead, and kept marching, hand in hand. I don’t know if we knew that our time together had an expiration date, but our unspoken agreement was that we’d LIVE every moment together – for and with eash other.
Certainly, we had our own activities and interests and gave each other freedom to do them, But we made the best of every moment we had. I’m sure it sounds cheesy to anyone else, but we made a decision to be happy. We didn’t fight – if we disagreed about something, we talked about it and let it go. When kids entered our equation, they were part of the equation – part of the team. That’s why people knew us, but they knew our children, too. I know that’s not typical, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Over time, I felt myself morphing into an annoyingly positive version of myself. I dropped all the pessimistic layers and sprouted genuine sunshine and rainbows that got me through the hard stuff. When we learned that he’d need a kidney transplant, I offered mine up. He worried, but I trusted. That bought us more time together. More adventures, more fun, more beautiful moments as a team. Life went on. Together.
When the pandemic came along, and took him away for us, we hung on and waited for him to come home. After nearly a year of being in and out of the hospital with little to no contact, I felt stripped of life as I knew it. Then when he came home for the last time, we we able to look into each other’s eyes and reconnect, It was a brief moment, but it gave me back the ME that had been missing. It restored my strength so I could keep moving on.
Life on the other side has been harder than I ever could have imagined. But I wake every day, grateful for a new day, and appreciate the life we built together, He is still a part of every decision I make. His sensible ,realistic buzzkill side always balanced my Pollyanna sunshine and rainbows side. I promised forever and meant it. I’m sure that at 21 and 18, our kids don’t fully appreciate the priceless gift they had but I hope that, one day, they’ll see it. We had quality over quantity.
I can’t know what the rest of my life will look like, but I know I made the most of it so far and that whatever tomorrow brings, my chosen teammate will be in my heart, holding my hand and guiding me through the scary parts. I will always save him a seat.
