New Year’s Eve 2014, alone and not wanting to rehash a year
of tears I fell asleep watching a movie about 9 pm. It was a great escape route but alas…I awoke
at 11:45pm, still in 2014. I was so very
thirsty that I sat up and happily threw off the layers of blankets which was
surprising since it was 7 degrees outside. Warm inside, I made a mental note
to add that to my “count my many blessings list”. I slid into my worn but comfy slippers and
without turning on the light padded down the tile flooring of the hall leading
to the kitchen. I heard the fireworks
before I saw them, so on impulse I
pulled a black goblet from its rack and filled it with blue Gatorade from the
fridge. Still in the dark I was easily
drawn to the big windows of my living room and watched wave after wave of
brilliant fireworks filling the sky over the distant pine trees. From my vantage point it wasn’t a grand
display but I was able to raise my glass and say Happy New Year to Dale and my
mind meandered down the narrow streets of Florence to the New Year’s Eve we
spent together amid a crowd of reveling Italians in the Piazza della Signoria. I seemed to be able to feel the hug and kiss he gave me at midnight that night. To
my surprise the memory made me smile instead of cry. This new month of January 2015 will mark a year since he
died. I still miss him every minute of
every day and every second of each and every long, long night. I knew sleep would be impossible so I sat
back down in the leather chair and feeling a little chill in the air now, wrapped a
blanket around me and clicked the tv back on.
I held the remote and skimmed through the movie I’d rented trying to
locate the spot where I had fallen asleep earlier. At one point in this movie the main character
mused that “to truly feel loss one must lose someone they loved more than
themselves”. I truly feel loss.
This morning my heart aches as I realize that of the 365 days
of 2014 I cried on 364 of them! A true
year of tears. I didn’t want to! It was just that I would be hit each day with
something out of the blue as I worked hard to keep my mind busy and distracted that
would plunge me into the depth of emotion that I would then have to fight with
every fiber of my being to pull myself free through tears and prayers and
faith. The one day I was spared was one
week ago, Christmas Day. A day I feared
could be the worst day filled with memories of Christmas past spent with my
loving husband but I was at my sister and brother-in-law’s home by the lake,
with a large gathering of family. There
was joy and there was cooking and baking and presents and LOVE the whole day
through. We ate brunch, we told stories,
and as the turkey was roasting for our dinner, we watched the movie “White
Christmas” and all of the sister groups (4 sets) wore blue butterflies in our
hair as we crooned the “Sisters” song and took silly photos of us enjoying the
moment. My darling sister gave us each our
birthstones and a journal for recording our journey of discovering our
individual worth in 2015. A more thoughtful lady was never born for sure!! And at the end of the delightful day, I
tucked myself into the bed they had prepared for me, hearing all of the other
loved ones settling down to sleep in the other bedrooms and I realized I hadn’t
cried that day and felt that Dale was happy about that. I slept peacefully with
the hope that there might be more tearless days ahead.
A major factor that has been a gift to me this last year
that has pulled me through my most difficult times has been music. Music!
It has comforted me, instructed me, encouraged me and I feel Dale and
the Savior in every message. With music,
I am not alone.
I would like to share those songs in the next blog. But for now, Happy 2015! We can do this. I heard someone say “God didn’t go to all
that work for our lives to amount to nothing!”
There is a purpose and a plan for each one of us. Obviously not always the route we would like
to take on life’s journey but if we believe that Heavenly Father has a plan for
us and it is a plan for success we can relax and be held in His arms while doing
what we need to do as well as making sure that we don’t get in the way of our
own success! As one of the songs I love
says while talking to God: “I can’t wait
to stand beside You at the end of my life and see how all the pieces fit!”
