MY VALENTINE REMEMBERED

ROBERT my VALENTINE and TRUE SOUL MATE

Our oldest, Robert, and Me (He was always laughing.)



               I don’t really remember much about that night.  As a matter of fact, I have learned that the things I thought I remembered, I have remembered wrong.  The one thing I remember from the moment I found my husband’s lifeless body on the floor at the foot of our king-sized , four-poster bed, until weeks, if not months later, is my mind racing, like NASCAR on speed (the drugs).  I don’t know if my mind refused to accept what I was seeing or, as my oldest daughter, Heather, said over a year later, we were all in shock and couldn’t accept that we had lost our beloved husband and father.

 From the moment I called 911 until after Robert’s funeral, I can’t remember much; except the need to be strong and to be in control of my emotions.  I thought I was in control of my emotions.  I thought I was strong and stoic like I was supposed to be.  I do remember my mind spinning like a top, never stopping, never slowing.  I thought my mind was alert, focused serene.  I thought my head was going to explode from the thoughts and emotions and confusion racing through it.  I was walking.  I was talking.  I was functioning.  Now I realize I was none of those things.  I was a living, breathing zombie.  Inside my head I was screaming at the top of my lungs.  Begging God not to take Bob.  Begging God to help me.  Days like today, I feel those screams, which I never let out lest I fall completely apart, and hold tighter to God to help me through them.

I was breathing.  But I wasn’t alive.  I was functioning.  I wasn’t cognizant of what I was doing but when I did nothing I had time to think, to feel, to hurt, to want to die. 

From the moment I found my husband and later learned that he had passed away; that his heart had just quit, stopped, given out, seized to function, I felt the first true loss of my life and I lost the one human being that made life bearable.  God gave me the love of my life, as my middle daughter, Rachel told everyone after her father died (and I denied because we fought like cats and dogs) and I didn’t even realize it until months and months after I lost him.  God had given me a precious gift and I was so busy feeling guilty because I didn’t think I had God’s blessing because we were unequally yoked (in Christian terms that means I was a practicing Christian.  He was not.) and I had told God I wasn't going to ask for His blessing because I knew He would say "no."  Yet He told me over and over that Bob and I were meant to be together.  Childish me, hanging on to guilt and shame at dishonoring God, instead of going to Him and healing in His love and forgiveness.  God showed me daily Bob and I were meant to be, I just didn't believe Him, until it was too late to live in the joy and peace He had for us.

When I got home that night, I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.  But Bob and I had three children who I needed to continue living for.  Because of a promise I had made to God years ago, and because of my children, whom I love dearly, I knew I couldn’t take my own life.  I still feel lost without Robert.  God is helping me every day to cope and continue on living without him.  He wasn’t perfect.  But he was mine.  I am lost without my Valentine. 

Until next time, my Friends, follow your dreams