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In 2007, I began my original website, Sonshine's Haven. In 2007, it was turned into a blog and used to keep family updated on my first husband's fight with liver cancer. He passed away November of 2009. We were married for 34+ wonderful years and this journals some of that grief process I've gone through.
I have since remarried another widower, but Mike is missed dearly, and will always be a big part of my life.
At times, all of us will be called to act as witnesses to the suffering of another. We will be unable to affect the outcome physically. Words will fail us. Prayer will seem futile. And yet, the act of bearing witness to someone else's trials is a sacred sorrow that offers and astounding glimpse of eternal joy." by Ginger Garrett
"Being willing to stay with a loved one throughout their travail, can be difficult....YES! But offering yourselves as faithful companions on a dark and dreadful journey can be an unmeasured blessing." (paraphrased by me)
11.28.2010
Happy 3rd Birthday, Ethan!
Mike use to joke that I was the holiday patrol, ready to issue anyone citations for decorations going up too early, or not coming down too soon. Never would had I allowed Thanksgiving and Christmas to exist together.
In the midst of having a good time this week, I've managed to also pick up a sore throat. It's not a huge problem, except that I couldn't love on my granddaughters this evening! I allowed myself the pleasure of kissing the top of my grandson's heads, but I didn't dare get too close to the girls, being as young and fragile as they are. I would feel horrible causing them any distress....or their parents. So I'm praying there will be some extra time in the next few weeks that I can make up for lost time.
I recently wrote I was trying to move along in my grief journey, and I'm making good progress. I'm moving forward, which I think is a good thing, but I'm also struggling in a few areas.
Since passing the first anniversary of Mike's passing, I have had moments pop into my head, as if I was just waking up from a long winters nap. I have moments when the gravity of what has happened hits me hard. Three steps forward and two steps back!
I sort of imagine God placing me into some induced-state coma over the past 370 days, to protect me from the full impact of Mike's loss. At times, I feel I'm tip-toeing between present reality and acceptance, to a silent state of denial.
I'm amazed how I can be in a room full of people, and at times feel such loneliness without a spouse standing next to me. I had been so use to Mike being at my side, sharing life and family with me together. Yet I can shop or go to work some days, like life is plugging along as usual..as if being single has been my state all along.
Or I can press on, develop new friends and relationships, which are similar to the state I'm in....and be just fine with it---then following, have this overwhelming guilt that I'm doing something inappropriate, by not remaining the grieving widow. How I would love to get off of this confusing carousel!
I suppose one good thing about all of this, is that this road isn't easy to walk down, but I'm still trying! I haven't given up the fight. I'm still trying to go on for my children and grandchildren. It may not be the route others may choose, but we're all different, and each of us respond to grief differently.
I don't know if I'll ever get over losing Mike. I know I'll never stop missing him. And I'm ready to say, I've done the best I could, given the situation.
I praise God for giving my heart a hibernating state over the last 12 months, so the full impact of the blow, it's had in my life, didn't reduce me to a devastating state I couldn't come through. I'm still able to laugh, to praise God, and smile and press more love into my heart; not only for my new grandbabies...but for new friends I've made. Those relationships are very important to me. There is a sense of identifying, like nobody else can. I also know that if there has been any confusion in my reaction to this life blow; God will make it all right one day. He's all knowing. And He knows what loss feels like. It tests every fiber of your being. Some you pass.... Some you stand...only because you've fallen down and stood up, over and over again!
11.26.2010
Come, walk with me, my friend,
I'll hold your hand.
This journey is not one to understand.
There is no sorting out
Chaff from the wheat.
We have to take the bitter with the sweet.
Come, walk with me,
Along the trail of tears.
We'll share our heartbreak, and our hopes and fears.
This trail is not designed
To walk alone.
But we will make discoveries of our own.
Come, walk with me, my friend,
We'll share the load
Up every hill and down the rugged road.
No map to show the route
Or tell how far.
No compass points the way, or guiding star.
Come, walk with me,
And I will walk with you.
Perhaps we two will find a better view.
Perhaps the trail,
Though thorny on the feet,
Wll widen for two sorrowed hearts to meet.
Come, walk with me
Through brambled vine and thorn.
Step over stones that leave hearts ripped and torn.
The walk is never easy,
That is true.
But you will walk with me, and I with you.
My dinner guest and friend, Glenn, actually got on the floor with the boys to do a floor puzzle of 48 pieces of an ocean background. Glenn was amazed how bright the little ones were as they worked away on it.
Glenn lost his wife last winter, so it was nice to be able to include him in our family gathering.
Thanks, Jill and Matt, for hosting such a beautiful day together! You are all such a blessing to me!
11.21.2010
An Anniversary
Saturday was much like the other 364 days, but along with it, came this foreboding thought...this is really real! Not just some horrible nightmare I will eventually wake up from. I spent time the last few days thinking about where I'm at, and where I want to go. I came to realize I can either pull myself together, or allow this circumstance to cripple me for the remainder of my life, and constantly live in the past. I choose to live the remainder of my life doing whatever God's purpose is for me.
I have made tiny steps the last year, stepping out in faith, and surrounding myself with other friends in the same place, hoping to use any gift I may have, to help them, as well as myself. Most times, this has been a positive experience. In the least, it kept me busy some of the time, and I met some wonderful new friends.
What I would like to do with this blog, is to go forward from here. To move past the memory of the deep wound from the past 3 1/2 years; and to try and build a new future. There is nothing wrong with reminiscencing over a beautiful love story, or retelling the world about a wonderful man I use to know. But my prayer is that God will fill my days with new praises and new journeys I can share here.
Thank you to each family member or friend, who has prayed for me, and given me their shoulder to lean on. I am still standing because of God's grace and you.
Beverly
sonshineshaven@suddenlink.net
11.19.2010
Still By Your Side
11.16.2010
A Love That Will Never End!
Sifting Through the Sand
By Gwen Flowers
I sit among the scattered shells,
A shovel in my hand;
But use my fingers, gently curled,
For sifting through the sand.
I'm looking for something I've lost,
But don't expect to find.
The sand is something tangible,
But I'm sifting through my mind.
It's cluttered now with memories
And dreams that wouldn't die,
Like seagrass sometimes hides sandspurs
That make the tender cry.
Like broken glass or other trash,
Are bitterness and fear.
But buried deep within it all
Are treasures I hold dear.
So, deeper still, I plunge my hand
And probe the tender regions
Of an angry, broken heart
That knows so many seasons.
Somewhere in there are treasures
I still hope to find.
Buried in this broken heart
or in this troubled mind.
Somewhere is peace, and laughter.
A way to understand.
New hope, a kind of healing.
Somewhere. In the sand.
11.14.2010
11.13.2010
11.09.2010
This morning I had some cuddle time with Emma and she is just adorable! I'm so blessed God is giving me the opportunity to love on four little ones who call me Grandma....Nama; anything their little bitty hearts want to name me.
I would have given anything to have shared this experience with Mike. It was so special laughing together at the silly things the boys would do while in our care. There was just another level of cherishing and joy that I experienced in his presence with our grandchildren. That void is painful for me now. The shared energy allowed both of us to keep pace with them, and made being silly...okay.
I'll never forget Mike's laughter and smile, and the joy he brought to all of our lives. I hardly measure up to what impact he had. In some ways, it will be easier with Alyssa and Emma, not to have that longing in their hearts for someone they grew to love so deeply. Yet...they will be missing a true treasure. I can only pray God will lead me to be a blessing to them, in spite of myself.
11.07.2010
Grief
by Gwen Flowers
I had my own notion of grief.
I thought it was the sad time
That followed the death of someone you love.
And you had to push through it
To get to the other side.
But I'm learning there is no other side.
There is no pushing through.
But rather,
There is absorption.
Adjustment.
Acceptance.
And grief is not something you complete,
But rather, you endure.
Grief is not a task to finish
And move on,
But an element of yourself-
An alteration of your being.
A new way of seeing.
A new definition of self.