Surviving Loss

Ugh I am not sure how I feel about this. I love to blog and love to write and even get out my feelings like this but I have to be honest, I am scared. I am really scared. Writing about my cancer is one thing. Writing about my kids and motherhood is one thing as well but writing about what is happening now in my life. Oh this is hard. This is killing me. I just read my last blog post which was in December of 2012 and I had gone month by month about my life. Well I had written about my marriage in the post and how certain things happened last year and I began to sob.

You see last year I had no idea that I was going to be living the life I am living right now. Last year if someone told me that my life would be turned completely upside down I do not think I would have believed them. Last year if I would have been told that cancer would be the least of my worries I would have laughed in the person's face telling me all of this. But I hesitate to write this post and I want to explain why first. You see when my blog was about the cancer I had my critics, both good and bad, and well I have been told I do not need to go about advertising all that is in my life. But I need an outlet. I need to express myself and while I have amazing family and friends I have extremely vocal family and friends and I do not always get to release ALL that I need to. I do advise if you do not want to know all then stop reading now. I am not writing to get others opinions I am just writing to release my own feelings and as someone told me recently I am writing my story each minute of each day of my life. I want to leave a legacy behind for my daughters and my son and I want to be able to help others if they struggle with the same things I am going through.

So I am dealing with loss right now. The loss I am dealing is the mourning of 14 years of my life. I am dealing with the loss of my marriage. Something I have held dear to but is now slowly fading away. Again I am going to add a disclaimer here. If you are reading this and are looking for me to bash the man I have been married to for the past 14 years then you got another thing coming. Even though I mourn the loss of something that defined me, that made me happy, that gave me joy and love and right now utter pain and anguish I will not bash the man that I have loved for 14 years, the man that I have shared my secrets with, my dreams, my love. I will not degrade and demean the past 14 years of my life by becoming one of those women who can only be happy during a separation and a divorce unless they make him into the bad guy. I will not do it.

Am I in pain? Truth be told I am in agony. I try to cover up my emotions by smiling, by laughing, by taking my kids to Disney World, the Comic Book Store and surrounding them constantly with family but I feel the worse pain I have ever felt in my life every minute of every day. I wake up every morning praying, wishing and hoping that all of this was some nightmare I was trapped in. Hoping that when I wake up I am back home in my bed and he is lying beside me. I spend my days in my childhood home with my three children now, trying to put it out of my mind that I do not have my belongings, I do not have my own home, I do not have the life I built anymore. Back home I had a job that I LOVED. A job I felt I finally found where I was meant to be in this world. I loved working at the daycare even if it was one difficult and stressful job at times. I admired my boss and all my co-workers. I loved my babies and all the kids at the daycare. It felt like I was not a mother to just my three but to all who were in my care at the daycare. I hated saying goodbye. I hated leaving. I worked also as the youth leader at the church. I may be biased but I had the best group of teens ever! I love them so much and loved that most saw me as a second mom to them, especially those that practically lived in my home. Saying goodbye to them felt as if someone ripped a piece out of my heart. I had amazing friends who became family, after all Army Wives stick together and become family away from home. They are the family you chose not the one you are given. Leaving my amazing support system and all felt like a piece of me was dying. I had a church who was not just a church. They were and always will be my angels on earth. They took care of me when I felt no one else could. I had to leave them all behind too. So when asked am I in pain? All I can respond is I am in agony.

I will not however want to take back the last 14 years in order to erase this pain. If I were to do that I would not have my amazing three children. I love my kids. I love that they are funny and smart. I love that they are caring and independent. I love that they love each other, love their family and friends, love their father and love me. So the marriage might be over but the love that I have for them never will be and neither will the love their father has for them either. So what happened to make this time in my life the most agonizing it has ever been?

Honestly I can not fully answer that. I have my theories but no answers I feel. Army Wives wait diligently for their hero, their soldier to come home from war. They dream each and every night of the deployment about being reunited again. They long to feel their soldiers arms wrapped around them again, they long to hear him tell her he loves her. They long for the closeness and togetherness of their marriage again and for them to be just as anxious, just as excited for their return to their family as well. Unfortunately that is most of the time a fairy tale. He has spent 24/7 with his "battle buddies" and has been with them for at least 9 whole months. Now think about it ladies, those of you that are moms, you are usually pregnant for 9 months (I say usually cause with my second daughter I was pregnant 10 months and that was not fun!) and in these 9 months you develop a strong emotional bond with your baby. Soldiers do this as well with their battle buddies. Now they are back on American soil, dumped on you without counseling (they do not get the counseling until they come home and apparently as I have been informed unless they want the counseling) and the adjustment sometimes is too much to bare. Am I condoning that all this is ok for the soldier to up and leave? Absolutely not but divorce rates among military families is the highest its ever been. With such wars as The War on Terror and Enduring Freedom they take a toll on the soldier.

Now I am upset and I am hurt but truth of the matter is even though I am both I still love the man. I was asked just today if he were to come back and ask to re-join his family would I take him back. I would love to think that I would without reservation but I might need proof. I mean my heart is hurt. I stood by for 9 months waiting for a return only to be alone still but if I knew he truly wanted to come back and be with his kids and to have me as his wife again I believe I would. Marriage is sacred and I value it way too much.

"This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we should give our lives for each other as brothers and sisters." 1 John 3:16. A soldier lays his life on the line for his country but comes home and leaves the ones who love him the most. I know a soldier's first duty is to country but God has commanded a husband's first duty to his family. Can he lay his life on the line for them? Can he be there for them both mentally and physically? I love my husband even if right now he chooses to be away and I will always love him. "Love never gives up on people. It never stops trusting, never loses hope, and never quits." 1 Corinthians 13:7. I will continue to pray for his heart, his peace of mind, his love. I will continue to hold him up in the eyes of my children and when they chose to talk about him or to him I will only speak good things of him and encourage their relationship with one another. I will always trust in God to do his perfect will in the life and heart of the man I stood with in front of my family, my friends, my church and my God and vowed to love and cherish for as long as I live and I will always pray for him as I did throughout our 14 years of marriage.

I may be mourning the loss of my marriage because he feels he wants a divorce. But I will also pray for a resurrection of that love again. Do I believe my God is greater than this? Yes. Do I believe my God can overcome anything? Yes. Do I believe that my God can still give me my miracle and my happily ever after? YES. I will continue to pray and I will continue my faith and I will pray for my hope to come shining through.

As always readers,

Be BLESSED IN HIM!