One Step

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 Life got busy as it often does. Today is such a good day. I am a mother and a widow, and I feel like I have been traveling a road of significant difficulties since my loving husband passed away. There's no other way to put it, but his death truly devastated me in ways I could not imagine. I met Keith during my senior year of college; he was twenty-eight, and I was twenty-two. He seemed to have it all together: he had a full-time job, was retired from the Air Force due to a medical discharge, and had a fancy car. Not an old, beat-up Toyota that most of my college friends drove. I didn't even have my own car yet. And together we made a beautiful life. 

In 2019, when Keith's leukemia came back, I went through a lot of anxiety and fear of losing him. Then, over the next four years, as he fought different flare-ups, it sort of became "normal" to me. By the time the leukemia recurred the last time, it seemed like just another battle to fight. At that point, I convinced myself he would be okay, that this was our life now, and that we had to make the best of it. Never during the month and a half of that final recurrence did I think this was it. But the chemo really took the wind out of his sails this time. I worried about how weak he had become, but his mind was still as sharp as ever. 

And yet his body finally gave out, and it was like someone had taken a bomb to my life and blown everything I knew up. My deepest fear during that time was that I couldn't possibly live without him. I almost didn't. But in just the last few months, I have moved into this new mindset that not only can I live a good life despite my loss, grief, and changes that have completely diverted the trajectory of my life, but I can do it. Now, I would much rather live a life with Keith, but for whatever reason, God seems to want me here, and I have to take care of Liam. In the past two years, Liam and I have come together and through the worst of times to a very blessed life. 

I am employed, we have healthcare through Keith's retirement, and two goofy dogs. We go out and do things. Liam's excelling at school, in Taekwondo, and with his drumming, and another basketball season is just about to start. I started back to school for my second master's, this time in Counseling. I have dreams and purpose in my life again. Life is good. This season of our lives is not free of our Grief, but flows despite our grief. I'm very thankful for everything we have, our materialistic things, but more importantly,  the promise that we will see Keith again in Glory. 


The key to this has been taking life one step, one moment, one minute at a time.

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