Today Would Have Been Our Tenth Anniversary

"Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fade less under all circumstances, and it endures everything (without weakening.)                                                                                                        

1 Corinthians 13:7  (Amplified Bible)                                                         

September 15, 2000 - The wedding day of Robert and Kim - At sunset, on the hill by the Fort in St. Augustine, Florida.  The weather was beautiful. It was a pretty day. Neither one of us knew what the future days would hold for us, but we were willing to step out on faith and take that walk together.                                              

Ten years ago, today. It seems like yesterday. It seems like a lifetime ago.

In the midst of saying our written vows to each other, we had the Pastor, my dear friend Don, read 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, known as the "Love Chapter" in the Bible. 
                                   

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.                                                

1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version)

Those words found in the Bible, sustained me and gave me strength through the seven and a half years of my marriage to Robert. It helped me to face whatever was in front of me, whatever the situation was. And in the end, during those final difficult months of Robert's life, those words gave me, not only the strength to endure, but the hope of what was yet to come.                      

Comments from Facebook Friends on 9.14.10

Paula Colleen Covart

I read your blog, Oct. 10 will be 19 yrs. since Cody died and my Dad 7 weeks later. That fog to me, I explain to others it's a kind of shock, a protective state that God put's us in. It is like you are standing outside your body looking at... everything going on but to you it doesn't seem real. When that passes you are totally dependent on God to get you through. The fog or shock is a gift from God to get us through the most difficult days of disbelief. After that, all I asked of God was the strenght to make it daily and he never let me down and still he blesses me daily with strenght to get through. We serve an awesome God. Kim I find journaling the best thing and still do it.

Kim Giana Ray Moody Thanks Paula for sharing a part of your story with me. God does get us through those difficult days of disbelief. I don't know how those without God in their life can deal with things. I can't imagine not having hope. My Dad passed away 5 months before Robert's death. We found out 2 days after his funeral that Robert was dying. Consequently, I never really got to grieve the loss of my Dad at the age of almost 91. But I KNOW we will be together again, one day, in God's perfect timing.

Melanie Henderson Erxleben You both know that I also know, and totally agree with, your explanation of how the death of someone so very close to you effects you. Almost 5 years for me, and I am doing better, but realize it's something I'll never get over. I too get comfort in writing down my thoughts and feelings. Love you both!

Paula Colleen Covart I love you Mel, losing your child is the hardest. I am happy you are doing better and I know you will never get over it and no one would expect you to. So we have our days we can cry one minute and laugh another, but the the hardest are the days that just get hold of us and we just can't seem to shake it off and nothing or no one can make it better. God is with us each and every minute and he knows and understands us when no one else seems to. You and Kim are so precious and I am so blessed to have reconnected with you two.

Kim Giana Ray Moody

Melanie, thanks for sharing your heart with us. Losing a child is a grief that I cannot fathom. Since 1995, I've had to say "goodbye" to 10 of the significant adults in my life - my grandmother & favorite aunt, 2 more aunts, my father-in-l...aw, my mother-in-law, my precious mother, my 2nd mother-in-law, then my wonderful, Godly father, and then my husband. But a child is a loss, so deep that it is uniquely different from all other losses, even the intimacy that comes from a spouse. I am glad that you write your thoughts, too. Expressing our feelings with words is a tremendously healthy and helpful thing to do. Love you. And I agree with Paula, we are indeed blessed to have reconnected with each other

Why "How I Said Goodbye"?

Losing someone you love is heartbreaking. One the day you lose your loved one, your own physical body becomes  almost like a stranger to you.  You feel a heaviness within yourself that is unimaginable. No one reading this will understand, unless they have themselves have felt the shearing pain of that heaviness.

Apart from that heaviness is a feeling of being in a fog. There is haziness in your perception of the reality you find yourself tossed into. You are somewhere that you don't want to be. And you can't get out. But, deep inside, you know that you are not alone in that fog. Not if you know and have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Insulation and consolation are both to be found within that first hazy layer of fog. Our Heavenly Father knows that before we can begin to process our grief, we need to be insulated and consoled. 

Insulation protects whatever it is around. Consolation is a person or thing that is a source of comfort in a time of suffering or grief.    

Both of them come along side of us and say,  "I will give you comfort and solace. We will be here for you as long as you need us... as long as it takes."  Isn't our Heavenly Father wonderful? Psalm 34:17 reminds us that "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and he saves those whose spirits have been crushed."

Tomorrow, September 15, 2010, would have been our Tenth Wedding Anniversary. Robert died on December 16, 2007. 

During the first year after his death, I journaled on the 16th of every month.  I wrote of what it was like for me, as his widow, to keep on living month after month, without him by my side. I also journaled on each holiday and special occasion. I coped with my own emotional pain by envisioning what I thought He might be experiencing in Heaven. I slowly found that as the calendar moved forward, so to, did I.

This blog is going to be a gift to anyone who loved him and to anyone who is dealing with their own personal journey of loss, whether they knew Robert or not. I invite you to join me as I take my year long journal of healing and share it with you here, month by month, holiday by holiday.

I found great comfort in Jeremiah 29:11 "I have good plans for you," says the Lord. I have good plans for you, not plans to hurt you.  I will give you hope and a good future." My prayer is that you will find comfort there, too.


And yes, the Lord did indeed give me that hope and good future.  By His hand and through His leading, in 2009, I married a wonderful man named Ken. Life is happy again.

I no longer live in that first fog of grief. Those days and months were indeed difficult, but I know God had purpose in each one of them.  Many, many days, I felt as if I were being tested. And I felt as if I were failing the test. But on those dark days, when I was at my lowest, He was at His Highest. He ALWAYS PROVIDED WHAT I NEEDED. ALWAYS.  GOD IS GOOD.