17 years gone by

My mind works in strange and interesting ways.

17 years ago today, my life utterly changed forever.  At about 7:00am on a bright and sunny Wednesday morning, February 8th, 2006, my first wife, Kim, took her final breath and slowly, quietly, seemingly peacefully died in our living room on a hospital bed we'd just arranged to have delivered as she ended her 14-month ordeal with breast cancer.  Aged 39.  I was 36.

17 years prior to that, I was barely out of high school; in fact, just in my freshman year of college.  That thought sort of blew my mind.  How much life had changed from 1989 to 2006 for me!

And so it goes.  

And 17 years after Kim has died, my life has indeed changed greater still.  I'm reminded of those changes, subconsciously or consciously, every day of my life.  My wife, Erika, our two lovely children, our critters, our fears, our hopes, our lives...all our own.

And yet, I couldn't have conceived of any of that 17 years ago today -- just like that 19-year-old college freshman would have no way of knowing where life would lead him 17 year later.

----------------

Without going into much detail or depth on the subject, I will simply state that, mercifully, my grief over my experience with becoming a widower at a relatively young age - though it will never fully be extinguished - is now but a dim light on the horizon now; oh sure, a song, a date, a smell, a something will creep in from time to time to remind me of that day long ago, and tears will burst out, but most of my day to day these days are consumed with, well, life as it is now.  And my choices to effect it as best I can.

Still, there will always remain in my heart and in my thoughts the treasure of being with Kim for the 4 years and 2 months we were together -- and a mere 2.5 months as husband and wife.  

I hope that if you have experienced, or area experiencing grief over the death of a loved one - and especially if you too are/were a young widower/widow - know that, as hard as it can be, you have it within you to build a new life.  I leaned on then, and still lean upon heavily, my faith in Christ and His promises to this broken world, even to sinners like me.  Even to young widowers like me.

But in short, I would simply say:  do what you want to do, so long as it does no harm to you or others.  

Do not wait, or more precisely, do not hope for the right time to effect change in your life.

That time is now.

Do it.

Life will be over before you think it will.

Get moving.  Plant those rose bushes. 

We're not guaranteed another 17 seconds, much less 17 years.  

-Ryan




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