It’s been over seven months since I lost my husband. I never imagined just how painful missing him would be. Just when I think I’m handling my grief okay, days like today knock me right back down. The tears wouldn’t stop on my way home for lunch. I sat in the backyard with the dogs who tried to comfort me, but the tears continued all the way back to work.

It’s as if I am living in some sort of time-space continuum. I’m still a married woman who is madly in love with her husband. That didn’t change the day Joe died. If anything, all of that love is magnified and intensified. And with him gone, that love has no place to go, so it finds its way out of me through relentless tears at any given moment. Tears I have zero control over.

It feels like my life is sitting still. I go through the motions of everyday life, but nothing ever changes. I’m hanging on by a thread most days. I know I’m the only person who can change things. I honestly don’t know how, and it scares me, but I know I need to find a way.

Joe & I used to leave notes around the house for each other all the time. I saved some of them, tucked away for safekeeping. One of my favorites from him was this one.

And that is my problem now. Because without my Joe, I’m not sure how to shine again. I know if he could speak to me, he would say the same thing this song is saying.

“Be still my love. Open up your heart, let the light shine in.”

I desperately want to let the light shine in. I am patiently waiting for my new life to begin.