The day after Justin died, I felt like the past ten years of my life were for all for nothing. I was angry that I’d invested so much energy into my marriage, and just like that, it disappeared.

Everything was a waste: every kiss we shared, every gift we exchanged, every vacation we went on, every song we wrote, and every single memory we created was all for nothing.

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I didn’t understand why God would give me ten years to build a marriage, prepare for motherhood, grant me a child, and then take away my husband. It was like I’d been given the worst backhanded compliment in history.

For a very long time, I locked away my past. I told myself it was best if I just turned my back on my memories. All they did was make me sad.

 

When happy memories turn to sad

When you lose your greatest love, it turns all of your happy moments sad. I never thought I’d find any shred of happiness again or any content in this terrible life I was now living. 

But as time moved forward, so did I. And slowly but surely, I started letting the bits and pieces of my splintered life back in. I decided that I could either let those years be for nothing or make them stand for something. Something more extensive than a typical marriage. Something bigger than I could have ever envisioned.

Instead of viewing my life as a loss, I began viewing it as a gift. Justin was the unlucky one in our partnership. He only lived 33 years, and it pains me as I type those words now. It distresses me when I think of his smile, laughs, and swagger. I’ll never experience his magnificent presence on this earth again, and no words can describe how crappy that feels.

 

Living his legacy

But unlike him, I was not gone, and I still had so much living to do. To shackle myself to his grave would solve nothing and I owed him more than my pain.

I owed him and our son our memories.

If you feel like your life was a waste or just thrown out like yesterday’s trash, your feelings are justified. It’s natural to feel this way when we’ve lost the one thing in life we were sure of — love.

 



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But, I also want you to know that your love and your relationship were there for a reason. They gave you love and happiness during a specific time in life. Even though that time doesn’t seem like enough, unfortunately, for you, it will have to be.

We all have to find our purpose in the loss. I will never justify mine. I will never say, “it was meant to be, or I’m happy with Don now, so it was all okay.” NOPE, you will never hear me speak those words.

Finding happiness again is possible, even if it means never finding love again. I had to find joy in myself before finding Don. I had to appreciate my journey and realize that mine is just a little bumpier than some.