Combining Lives.......

On the day that my world shattered into obscurity, I found myself sitting on the floor of my closet feeling as though it would be impossible to ever love anyone else again.  In honor of true transparency, I must admit that it took me a good 10 years to love Stevie the way that he should have been loved all along- totally and completely.  I had a hard time believing that someone this good could really love someone like me.  We all have that view of ourselves- don't we? The one where we struggle to accept that, knowing all that we do about ourselves, it must be impossible to love someone so broken.
This was not the case for Steve and I remember clearly one night, after treatments, when I vowed to learn how to love him as unconditionally as he had always loved me.  6 short months later and he was gone.

In March, I married another special someone.  Having known love like I have with Steve- it made it easy to recognize that goodness and unselfish nature in another.  I still cannot fathom how lightening has struck twice in my life, but am thankful every day that it has.  It truly is a gift.

When we combine both of our families we have a total of 7 children, I am officially a grandmother, and I delight in the aspect of fully embracing completion again.

None of this is without small (relatively step-overable) hurdles.  One of which being- I want to talk about our late spouses quite a lot.  I want to ask questions about his sweet wife and I want to tell stories about Stevie and am never quite sure what's okay and what's not.  Do you want to know something equally nuts? I could just ask- but I don't.  Not yet.  By the time I actually publish this I will have had that conversation, but in this moment.....I don't know how to even begin.

So I wait for someone else to bring up stories, or to talk about it and then I feel comfortable listening.  I feel like I am not only the witness of Steve's life in our short 14 years together, but I'm also the keeper of her legacy as I am blessed to be able to see her children grow and discover their lives as adults.  It is an honor and one that I hold dear.

Meanwhile, I step around small landmines of what to say, what to do, how to make a whole life out of two full halves and how to help the hearts of those around me to heal.  Prayer and time...those are the only answers that I keep getting: prayer and time.  With that being said, I'm off to pack another box, tape it shut and somehow move this menagerie north to begin again in this whirlwind that is life.

All my love - Kami