Forever The Day

I’ve spent every day for the past month anticipating today, dreading the same  moment in time of that day, when I realized something wasn’t right and panic set in. I’ve worried, let the thoughts antagonize me. I’ve feared my heart will crumble and that I will become the paralyzed shell of a body that I lived in for months. Last night my daughter text me and asked if her and her friend could take me to dinner, I picked them up dinner instead and on my way home I promised myself I’d be okay, at least for her.

I feel like this year has lasted a lifetime but there are some days it seems like everything happened just yesterday. My memories haven’t faded, for brief moments my heart still hurts daily and my soul, well, it is tired. I pray for peace and contentment, I pray for forgiveness every time I wish it were me that had been taken and then I find myself apologizing to Troy out loud for wishing this life for him. I know he is in a better place, happier than this world could ever make him. That is where I find some peace.

Guilt is a fickle emotion that creeps up often, like fear, both make moving on feel like punishment at times. People ask  me often who I am dating, they say they heard I was out dancing or someone saw me at dinner with a guy. That’s when it really hits,  the guilt of building a new life, the fear of people’s judgment for it, and wondering if I am disappointing God, his family or our friends. Truth is, I have dated, told that no man would be okay with a photo of Troy hanging in my living room or reminders of my “ex” on his birthday. Maybe those things are true, maybe they were just made up to justify breaking what part of my heart I had put back together. In any event, I’m not sure it matters… there isn’t a guide that I’ve found to make my situation easier, no secret rule book for widows and no magic wand to change my past. Every night I pray for my future, not for someone to love me but that I’m prepared if by chance it were to ever find me again, prayers that God has prepared someone to have a heart like that of Jesus, that is just for someone like me and if that isn’t the case,  my daughter never forgets how Troy set the bar for her to know how a girl should be treated.

I know I have said this before but I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason. I find it so hard to believe that a God who loves me so much would essentially punish our family with tragedy and even harder to believe it has a purpose. Things happen. I guess the real test of our faith is how we choose to live afterwards. I don’t claim to be perfect or to know the next steps but I spend my time talking to God hoping my choices are good for us, good for Him.

Death has changed me, changed all of us. I’m not the same woman I once was, I love harder, forgive easily to avoid losing people I love and given the chance I’d take all the pieces of my broken heart to repair any one of them. I may never share the rest of my forever with someone and that’s okay, I was someone’s forever and that is good enough for me.

Today is the day. The first anniversary of the day our world was shattered, our lives turned upside down and our hearts torn apart. One year ago we woke up, left our home and went to work, just like every other Monday. One year ago, one of us never  returned and the other came home, but forever changed.