Friday, September 20, 2013

Five Days and Counting

It's been a while since I've posted here. I'd love to forget the fact that I'm a widow, but though it may submerge deep in my subconscious mind the reality of it is never that far away. It's funny what can trigger the memories. Tonight it was a little book about healing that I picked up out of my library. Oddly enough the book was a gift a friend had given me to give to someone else. Why it never got to that person escapes me. I guess I will see to it that it reaches its intended destination. The woman who gave it has also gone onto heaven. It was the memory of her death that triggered my memory of my husband's passing. She was one of our supporters, and a woman I spent a great deal of time with. She had very little in the way of material wealth, but she was the most generous woman I have ever met. She suffered from COPD, was pretty much home bound, but she believed in healing. She had been healed of lung cancer! She was on oxygen 24/7, but she passed out books on healing to anyone and everyone that she met who might need healing. She was precious to me. She loved me and she loved my husband.

I had a sort of flashback of memories about this dear woman as I read the little note she had scrawled in the front of the little book. I remembered praying with her when her son had been accused of a crime he truly had not committed. I remember praying for him when he was put in prison. He was angry, and understandably so. While in prison, he came to know the Lord. His mother and I prayed relentlessly for him and rejoiced when he found peace for his soul. We also rejoiced when he was released after doing his time.

Over and over my husband and I had interacted with this sweet woman. She was also a trial to my love walk. Her lack of oxygen to the brain and then subsequent overload of oxygen could make her aggressive and demanding. It didn't matter, we loved her and did our best to serve her.

All of the memories I have of her are intertwined with memories I have of my late husband. He was always there either helping her or encouraging me when I was headed to help her. He was so much more patient with people than I. My emotions flooded my mind and the tears began to flood my eyes. In five days he will have been gone two years. I still am amazed that he is gone. I never imagined myself as a widow. I refused to let those thoughts ever have a place in my imagination.

One of the things I've discovered since he passed is that I never know what will trigger memories. Things that seem so unrelated will have a tie to them. If I get quiet and really think about it I can eventually see the connection. There is no way to prevent it, I simply have to get through it. I'm thankful for God's word and glad I spend enough time in it to have comforting verses come up in my mind during the tsunamis of emotions that sometimes overtake me. In five days I'm likely to be a mess as the thought of his death still hurts. Thirty four years is a long time to be with someone. I miss him. I probably always will.

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