Mark

I have lived through a lot of dark days over the past several years.  Many of them have been spent alone, by design, because I couldn’t bear to be around people.  I was exhausted by grief.  Sometimes I didn’t feel like being social.  Sometimes I couldn’t stand the thought about being around happiness and laughter.  Sometimes I couldn’t handle being around couples or children.  Sometimes I didn’t want to have to put on a fake smile.  Sometimes I didn’t want people to see me continuously bawling, or have to explain why I would start to bawl again, seemingly out of nowhere.  In a nutshell, I despised the world, didn’t want to be part of it and it was excruciatingly exhausting to pretend that I cared about anything.

My loss has shaped who I am today.  I am not exactly that positive person who believes life somehow always works out.  I now know that bad things really do happen, and they can happen to me just as easily as they can happen to anyone else.  I am not untouchable.  I now know what grief and sadness really are.  I never knew how deeply tragedy could cut, and how hopeless life could be.  After losing Mike, I was content to live out the rest of my life alone and to just coast along, like running out the clock of a game that’s already been lost.  If I had to be here – and I prayed that I didn’t have to be – I would live my life in protest.  Today, I am not healed in the sense that I am without sadness.  I am forever changed.  But I no longer feel like the rest of my life is a cruel sentence.  The main reason for my new outlook is Mark.

I met Mark almost a year ago, when his father moved into the assisted living community where I work.  I was still a newbie on the job, and he was a friendly, smiling face whose devotion to his dad was heartfelt and sweet.  We would chat whenever he would come for a visit, and he was floored when I told him I was widowed.  When his dad moved out of assisted living less than two months after moving in, we lost touch for a little while, but reconnected in January.  We started to text each other and discuss life, loss (his marriage had recently ended), faith and how to keep going in this crazy, painful world.  We each had pain and sorrow we were both working through, but agreed there were aspects of this world still worth exploring and enjoying.  We started spending time together and realized it was possible to smile again, even while having our moments of sadness and shedding tears.

Mark has been unbelievably supportive of my situation.  He has shared tears with me.  He understands that I will always have scars and that I will have moments when my pain surfaces.  He is cognizant of particularly difficult days on the calendar, and always acknowledges those special times.  He hurts when I hurt and is always trying to make things better, and he realizes that sometimes what I need most is just to be heard and hugged.  He lets me talk about my sadness, and lets me talk about my happy memories, too.  He realizes that although Mike isn’t here, I still need to acknowledge him as part of who I am.  Mark knows the place Mike has in my heart, but also knows that he has a place there, too.  He respects my past, while embracing our future.  I try not to make Mark feel second, as I can imagine he’s in a difficult position.  I never want him to feel like he is competing with Mike.  Mark and I have begun making our own memories, laughing, traveling and exploring the world we once felt exiled from.  He is a gentle, loving soul and we both believe God has given us each a second chance.

I don’t have dread about the future anymore.  My pain isn’t gone, but I am able to face life with a better perspective because I now see a reason to get up every day.  I have found that while my broken heart has been mending, it has also grown, as now I am able to hold more love than I once thought possible.