It’s been two years. Today.

What I never knew, what you can’t know until you’re here, is the large part of you that dies with your spouse. It can’t be helped. Through the years of togetherness your existence becomes so completely entangled and intertwined, you loose entire pieces of yourself when they’re gone. 

Not only do you suffer the loss of a person but also the unique history the two of you created. The glances, the personal jokes, the comfortable silence only you both understood. The way you often knew what the other wanted, liked or thought without even asking. The decisions made together that shaped the path of your life. The parts of your mind, soul and body only your loved one knew. All of the small nuances and intimate sharing that was just the two of you. These all have vanished and nothing or no one else can ever replace them. 

I lost so much when I lost him. 

Ironically one of the last sermons Mike preached was on how to handle loss. One statement he made that has stuck with me is this, “God is the God of all we’ve lost and the God of all we have left”.

For seven hundred and thirty days, I‘ve lived in the aftermath of stumbling, faltering attempts to move forward. My heart has been much slower to accept what my brain has known since the evening he left me, Mike is gone from this earth and he’s never coming back. And while the passing of two years has done nothing for the missing of him, I must continue to live. 

Discovering who I am without my husband is a daunting task. I still don’t know. But God does. 

“The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.” Psalm 32:8

He is the God of what is left of me. As year three begins, only He can show me where to go from here. I‘m Hoping. Trusting. Listening.