Before and After

So lately I've been having a lot more realizations coming at me.  Not ones I purposely think about.  Not ones I purposely talk about.  Just ones that randomly cross my mind.  One that happened to cross my mind while talking with my dad a couple of weeks ago was my happiness.  My dad and I always have very good, long talks about just me.  How I am doing, what I am doing and what my future plans are.  What I love about these talks is that they never center on what happened to me.  We both know its there and that it always will be, but that is never a topic of conversation unless it is brought up by something else we are talking about.  And the other day, that just so happened to happen.

So as we were talking and he told me that I seem to be really happy right now, I stopped and thought for a few moments in time.  As I thought I remembered how I've been feeling a separation lately.  One between the life I had with Dustin and the one I have now.  They are two totally separate lives.  Completely intertwined but very separate.  And that got me thinking about my happiness and after my mind had those few moments to process what he said and what I had thought about, I told him that I feel the happiest I've ever felt.  But in my after life.

I was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life in the several months and year right before Dustin died.  We had done it.  We had finally figured out life.  We knew each other like no one else.  We knew our kids like no one else.  We knew how to handle our life the way it needed to be handled.  We had learned each others love languages and did everything we could to show love in the way each other needed.  We were so incredibly happy and in such a good place.  Spiritually, physically and emotionally.  But then that was ripped away from me in a moment of time.

I didn't know how to handle it.  I didn't know how to put one foot in front of the other.  I didn't know how to go on without him.  And it has taken a lot of trial and error.  A lot of starting completely over with new routines because the old ones hurt too bad to continue.  It has taken lots of time and patience with myself, finding who I am as an individual again.  It has taken much faith and prayer, crying out to my Heavenly Father to just get me through the day so I can cross another one off my calendar.

Through all of this, though, I have been able to handle it.  I have been able to put one foot in front of the other and go on without him.  I have been able to find out who I am and make a life for our kids and I.  And show them that we can live and have fun still.  I have made my after life.  And I have accepted this after life.

I think there are many different parts of acceptance when you loose someone you love.  I think its different for each individual and the relationship you had with the deceased.  I think it's one of the biggest steps in the healing journey as well.  Once you've been able to accept, truly accept, that they are gone and that you have to continue on without them, you find more peace and solace.  You are able to think a little more clearly.  You are able to find your happiness like I have found mine.