One Year of Blessings

One year of blessings.  One year ago today, my husband got his ticket to the VIP room in heaven, and I got my skin ripped off.  Well, metaphorically, at least.

I was completely dedicated and loyal to him, he was literally part of me.  We were having struggles in our family and we were off balance to put it nicely.  That didn’t stop us from loving each other, but we were not doing great.  Strike that, Adam had been doing great the few weeks before his death.  He was coming out of his depression and was happy.  I never really believed it, though, because I knew he wouldn’t be feeling better for long.  However, he died happy.  He died doing what he loved.

I remember thinking that it all made sense when he died.  I no longer was wondering what God’s plan was in everything, I now understood the plan.  I never doubted his plan, we are only on this earth a short time. We need to live life to the fullest, but getting mad at God when someone dies doesn’t make sense to me since we all die.

So many people came to help me.  Some of them strangers, some of them friends, family, my Church and what I consider my “extended Church family”.  I’ve never been so blessed in my life as I was after his death.  It’s as if God said, “I’m sorry, I have to take the most important thing away from you, but I’ll totally give you all this stuff to try to make you feel better”.  Obviously I’d rather have Adam than any of the blessings I received, but again, I believe God truly had a plan in this, and as Jesus said to the Father, “not my will, but yours be done”. I would much rather walk in God’s will than my own, as awful as it may seem at times!  I have not doubted for one second.

During this last year, it’s been a struggle, especially with my teenager.  One thing I keep thinking about is how I was a teenager and I know what he’s going through (mostly) and I think, “I was there, but believe me, it was not as big of a deal as it seemed at the time” and I truly believe that one day I’ll be in heaven, and will look back at this time and think, “That was not as bad as it felt at the time!”

So… blessings… here’s just a few of the blessings (many of which you may have heard me speak of already).

1.  About a week before he died, I won tickets to our favorite play (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), my boss gave me the night off of work (even though I was scheduled), and Adam let me get wine (that’s big).  It was the first date we’d been on in months and the perfect last date.
2. The night before he died we had a very long conversation, we talked for a couple hours.  We hadn’t done that in a very long time, either.  Even the part when he spoke of how he was going to die in the next few years was a blessing because it helped prepare me a little for what was going to happen.  He’d told me before that he was going to die young, but I would just roll my eyes, like I did that night, but I wasn’t completely shocked because of the preparation.
3. Also, he’d been so sick with bipolar the 2 years before he died.  He was miserable and I sometimes had to take care of a lot more of the household duties because he was trying so hard to make it through the day.  This was a good preparation of my life without him. Of course, it was still better to have him here since I still had the man I loved and a sounding board and a million other reasons, but at least it wasn’t from “happily ever after” to “nothing”.
4. The night he died, I couldn’t sleep (because I had no skin, metaphorically) and I had a vision that Adam’s body just dropped and he continued running into the arms of Jesus. I can’t believe a widow who had just lost her husband less than 24 hours before could come up with such a happy, wonderful, positive outlook on her husband’s death.  So I know for sure it came from God so I know for sure that is exactly what happened.
5. People from all over the community helped me out, with dinners, donations, gift cards, gift baskets, fixing stuff, painting, decluttering, grocery shopping, milk delivery, talking, lunches, and so much more.  Huge blessings.
6. My daughter needed Vision Training and it was going to be $3,000.  I just said yes because it was needed (and a long story of how we got there) but I didn’t know where the money would come from.  I just said yes on faith.  The next day I received a $2,000 check in the mail from some friends (who didn’t know the situation), and another $1,000 check from another friend (who did know the situation, but who didn’t know I needed that exact amount).
7. Of course all the stuff with the trip.  Read the first post again if you need to! (Beginning of a New Journey)
8. These are just a few of the hundreds of blessings I received and continue to receive.

So what do I miss?  I miss Adam.  Sure, he struggled those last few years, but he pushed through to be the best he could be during that time.  It’s amazing how hard he was trying when he could barely get up sometimes.  But I loved him deeply.  He was an amazing person.  He loved me, he worked hard, ran hard, and watched football hard! He put his best into everything he did, which is why he only had a few interests.  He was my college sweetheart and I’ve known him through good times and bad.  We were firm believers in never giving up on our marriage.  Things were rough but I miss his smile, his sense of humor (anyone who truly knew him understood his sense of humor), and again, I miss just him.  I am excited that I get to see him again in Heaven (I’m also 100% sure on that, a whole other story) but obviously things won’t be the same.  I’ve read so many books on Heaven when he first died. I’m pretty sure we won’t be going on road trips in Heaven together and listening to music.  I’m just guessing, of course.

We would go to concerts and movies together, and Church.  He watched football without me and I won’t miss that.  Plus I’m a little uneasy when I see people running, I’ve never enjoyed that either.  But I supported him with his running.  I loved to be his biggest cheerleader and drive to different spots on his run so we could cheer for him.  Or when the kids were younger and before he did Marathons, we would go to the Boulder Bolder and I’d push the stroller as fast as I could to get to different spots on that course so I could see him as often as possible and cheer.

I guess now he’s cheering for me.  I can only imagine he is.  Last year was the worst day of my life, but I’m tremendously blessed in my life to have gotten to where I am now.  I’m not healed.  I’ll never be healed, at least while I’m on Earth.  I keep telling people this is a path you don’t get off of.  Some parts of the path are easy, some are very very difficult, and at some parts you have to pitch a tent and ride out the storm, but this is the path I’m on and never getting off of.  I’m so thankful for the gifts I’ve received on this path, and maybe even the path itself.  I’m thankful that Adam isn’t miserable and that he lived a complete life.  His life wasn’t cut short.  He was never meant to live past 41, he even told me that (well, he thought it might be a little longer than that, but definitely in his 40’s).  People say that God allows these things to happen, which in many cases is probably true, but in this case, I truly believe that God orchestrated it to happen.  Adam lived his life, the whole life he was meant to have, and now I need to live my life knowing God has an end date for me, too.  I do not have a death wish by any means, but I am no longer afraid of death.  Paul says in the Bible “To live is Christ, but to die is gain”.  Yep, that’s pretty much my life motto now.