There is a lot to treasure about my first crack at love and marriage. The “story of us” with my late husband was an adventure. I can’t say there is nothing I would change. I can’t say it was all sunshine and roses. I would trade some of the naivety, some of the growing pains, some of the bending so far one or both of us broke at times. I would trade waiting so long to make it “official” and adding kids to the story. I would trade the dying and changing of my world. I would. But I can’t. I can’t change how we lived or how he died. I can remember it, laugh about it, cry at times, and carry the lessons from it. I cannot change it.

I have grown from it all. Taken what I learned from that life and transferred it into what I can be in this new life. This is a new life. The moment we went through this tragedy…was the moment we were given a new life. At first it seemed like the same life with a giant missing piece. With a dark spot sucking the light out of every room. It seemed like I needed to be his memory, continue hosting his life through me. But time marched on and it became more of a burden to be him and me, more of a struggle. And I realized it was time to allow our lives, my life, to be new. A world without him. Not a world without his memory. A world without him. He was already gone, for many months at this point. So this seems obvious, but holding on is a part of what we do when we grieve…we hold on to the illogical hope that we will not change, things will not change.

I do think as spouses we feel responsible to carry their personality on for those who loved them…and ourselves. When you marry someone and spend all your time together your lives become so intertwined you almost feel as if you are one person, one body. You do life together, share hobbies, watch the same tv shows, listen to the same music, drive the same car. The right arm responsible for trash, snow shoveling, rough housing. The left arm folding laundry, making beds and dinners, giving hugs. A well balanced person and parent…in two bodies. As we go on after one arm is lost, we pick up the responsibilities of that arm. Partly out of necessity and partly because it is natural to continue including this arm of our body in our daily routines. But slowly we find that the way we like to do the things the other side of us did, is a little different. Our strengths and weaknesses don’t quite match with the muscle memory of these things. Its maybe more organized, or less. A little lighter lifting, or perhaps along a different path. We don’t do it right, or it doesn’t feel right…so some of the things start to fade away. We notice them going, we feel bad, but we also feel relief we don’t have to continue being and doing things we aren’t and can’t. And slowly we become new. As we do that, there are moments we dare to think a new thought, have a new dream, open a new door.

In a new life, I could think about love again. I could think about what it would be like to share a life and a body, again. I thought a lot about what I would want in a life partner. How I would want to be different. How I would savor the things that made the person who they were from the moment we met. How I would embrace the quirks, laugh at my own, take life less seriously. I thought about how I would be the kind of person that loved myself. How I would look for someone who loved themselves. I thought about how short life can be and how little time we have for bickering and negativity. How little we should focus on what we don’t have and how much we should revel in what we do. I counted my three biggest blessings everyday, and prayed for more of that bursting heart kind of love. And then I grew some more in the waiting.

Today I read an article about Advent. It talked about our main responsibilities in this season. We are to participate and anticipate. (If we are being honest…isn’t that what we are always being called to do.)  We are to be the light reminding people of the reasons for this time of year, Christmas.  So much of today’s Christmas is about hustling and bustling around.  The ‘why’ of what we are doing can be so lost. We are to participate in making this season a reason to celebrate light, salvation, and reconciliation. And we are to anticipate what the coming of Christ will be like for us, as we would anticipate the birth of our own child.  That anticipation filled with joy and preparations, fears and excitement.

As I read this, it seemed as if this article was letting me know something, saying to me…you showed up for your life, you participated. You believed in what could be of your life, you anticipated.  What we are called to do in faith, show up and believe.

And I was blessed. Bursting heart kind of love, blessed.

My faith, my belief, my constant steps forward gave birth to my new life. My prayers were answered. The answers were not what I had planned. Yet, they were better than I could have planned…of course. And some of the answers were ‘no.’ But again, the no’s were yes’s in disguise. Yes to a bursting heart, yes to a loving home…just not quite the way I thought I wanted.

I have come to believe, the only thing we can have too little of in this life is faith. Even pain, can bring greatness.

My life is not easy, nor will it be. I haven’t found the one secret path to surviving and thriving through grief..unless you consider having confirmed the secret path through grief is the one blazed by each griever.

Even in finding new love, getting married, and moving to a new state…life is not easy.

I am frozen in my fears at times.

I still feel the stings of survivors guilt.

And my doubts can be like a hammer on my brain.

I allow the shadow of bad thoughts in sometimes. Especially when things seem really good…but I shoo them away like a swarm of annoying flies.

My new husband and I are not perfect. We still disagree. We still stress. I still make mistakes. I worry about failing as a mom, as a stepmom, as a wife. But we have a loose grip on worry and stress. We hold much tighter to love and joy. And everyday we grow closer to becoming a well balanced person…in two bodies.

Am I doing it all right this time around, in this new life? Definitely not. But I am living stronger, prouder, and with more love and compassion. I am living with the realization that we lose more than we know. We grieve more than we acknowledge. Sometimes we find ourselves grieving things that seem silly. Our thinner selves, our younger selves, our sense of humor, the youth of our children. We grieve seasons of the year and seasons of our lives.

And as this season, the season of Advent and Christmas is upon us, we can be reminded that it is great loss that binds us to one another. It is the life that was lived completely to die for us that gives us hope. We can expect great blessings to walk hand in hand with great hardship. For we are not promised an easy life. We are not given a free pass because we have suffered enough or because we are good enough. This is not a punch card situation. We are given more to lose everyday. And that, my friends, is the true blessing.