A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like A Medicine...

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 day, a week, a month. Why do we keep track of time when it really all just rolls up on top of itself and folds back over into one giant experience? Does it help or hinder us to mark stretches of time? As the first day of a new month rolls around yet again, I feel the pit of anxiousness swell up inside me. With the beginning of a new month and season, it's a reminder of the ending of the life I once had and loved. The 1st marks 8 months since Jared’s spirit was finally able to leap up and run. And oh, how I miss him! 

Sometimes I still count back to add up the number of days since his passing, although it always just makes me feel sad. Some hours it feels as if just yesterday we were talking and holding hands, living our beautiful life. Other times it seems light years away. Time is so warped to me now and seems to stretch on and on, and on and on. Yet, while each day is one more added to our length of separation, it also means one day closer to our reunion. 

When I first started this blog with Jared's encouragement, and then didn't really start it, my intention was to keep everyone updated on my husband's health, and how he was doing so great. And mainly, how his merry heart was what I felt was keeping him so healthy and happy. 

I anticipated creating a blog full of heart healthy recipes I had tried for Jared, ways I would make our home cute and crafty to reflect our family's love, and all about how Jared was defying the doctors' predictions. We both knew his merry heart was doing more than medical treatments could ever do. But now, none of that is valid and I have anything but a merry heart of my own. 

I feel I am being held together by sloppy yet faithful stitches, yet they can't seem to hold closed the tender wound in my own aching heart. I'm sure if doctors were to open my chest, they'd find an actual gaping hole where all my emotions, abilities, and confidence are pouring out. 

A few days ago I found myself gripping my steering wheel while I cried the kind of crying that makes your body ache and your head numb. Maybe it was the gloomy clouds or the rain pouring down that day, the same as on the morning we laid my husband to rest. Or maybe it was how the clouds lingered lower over the foothills above where I live; where we lived. But the tears began to fall as I drove back from a simple run to the post office. Sometimes the emotions fill up inside and have no where to go but overflow. They tumble out of my eyes and down my face. 

As I parked along the curb in front of my parents' house, I stared out the window. Everything was blurry; the neighbor's leafy trees, the black pavement, the late summer flowers. Even if I wasn't crying, the rain streaking across the window pane blurred all the greens of summer together into a sort of new gray hue. There have been times like this that I cry so hard I can't catch my breath. I continued to grip the steering wheel, seeing my knuckles turn white and almost shake. The emotional pain becomes physical and I have no particular thoughts, just everything rolling together through my mind. And then almost as sudden as it began, the tears stopped. I took out the keys, and I went inside. 

Moments of anguish come and then they go. Life goes on. The mail gets delivered each day, the phone rings with sales pitches, breaking news still gets reported by 5 o'clock each evening. Even though my own world has come to a screeching halt, a continuous halt that has lasted 8 months now, the rest of the world carries on. 

I know I need to get back to that place, to have a merry heart. This blog is my journey back to that now. The truth is that my grief, while more than skin deep, isn't all-encompassing. There is happiness. At first those moments of gladness seemed fleeting and spread far apart. Or was it just me keeping them from coming and not opening my eyes to know happiness is truly there constantly just waiting for me to grab on and hold tight? Within my soul past that wounded heart of mine, my spirit is happy and has reason to rejoice! 

I've heard others ask to those who have been traveling this journey of grief how long until the hurt goes away. Some same "In time," some say "Never." The truth is, I don't want it to go away. At least not completely. I feel my grief is only as equal as my love for Jared, and I fear if I feel less sad it would mean I feel less love for him. And that will never happen. I love Jared with all my heart, broken or not. While part of me has gone with him, I think I can still have a merry heart and happiness. There is happiness for the life we shared, the life I have and will still need to live for our daughter Liberty and her eyes full of light. There is happiness for that eternal bond I share with Jared, one that began eons ago and continues even now. Most importantly, there is happiness in the Atonement of the Son of God that enables me to have hope for a merry heart once again.