Life Goes On ™️

Can sadness and happiness coexist?  When Mark was diagnosed with a terminal illness, it was during one of the happiest times of our lives. It felt as if I was living a nightmare that I could not wake up from. I was overwhelmed with panic. I had never had anything so devastating happen to me. A little ominous voice in my head was saying over and over again, “well, looks like your luck ran out.”  Two years ago, my life was full of joy and dreams realized. We were on a cruise with our whole family celebrating my retirement, Lindsay’s 40th birthday and Kim and Dave’s engagement. We were also planning Kim’s wedding, five months away, which I wanted to make spectacular because we were so ecstatic that she found the love of her life.  As a mother, I never leave anything up to fate; I always feel that I need to put something out into the universe that will push things along. Coincidentally, when I was working in Las Vegas, I saw these beautiful trees of life made out of crystals ...

I think I may have “turned a corner” on my grief journey.  Somehow I feel lighter and retrospective, and then, introspective. I have been re-reading the letters in my journal that I had written to Mark and it's as if I'm looking at a version of myself that I no longer am. I want to go back and embrace her (me) and say, “You’re going to be alright. You will find strength that you never knew you had and you will be a whole new person nine months from now. Trust me.”   At one stage in my “Letters to Mark”, I was watching love stories every night. This pastime not only took my mind off my sadness, but also helped me reminisce about our love story, which became very therapeutic.  Here’s the first Love Story entry:  5/9/24 Hi Babe,  I started to do a thing today, well yesterday, really.  I am watching LOVE STORIES every night and they all have the word ‘LOVE’ in them.  They make me feel warm and hopeful.  They remind me of us, especially when there...