Broken

I visit the cemetery sometimes, where my first husband was laid to rest. It brings me peace to run my fingertips along the cool granite surface. To sit in the lush grass where almost 6 years ago, in this exact spot, I cried as a broken widow. A Mother of two fatherless children. A golf ball sized lump rises in my throat and hot tears sting my eyes. But not because I’m sad, more because I’m grateful. I comb my fingers through the cool grass, letting the tight stitches on my mending heart unravel. 

 “He’s gone, he’s..dead.” 

I heard the intensive care unit doctor say in a cracked whisper.
 He’s gone, he’s..dead. Those words would be on repeat, etched in my mind for the next 5 years. I would live by them. They would become a crushing truth. One that was always there. Even when another man put another ring on my finger and asked me to be his. Even when I moved away from the town where the ache originated. Even when a new perfect baby was placed in my arms. After the temporary highs of joy I felt left, those words floated gently down like a spec of dust, landing softly on my heart. 

He’s gone, he’s dead. 

When he died, I lost me, too. But I didn't know that then. No one ever tells you that part about grief. I’ve spent the last 5 ½ years trying to find the me I used to know. Endlessly searching for her, but she’s gone. She sloughed off me long ago. Buried in the same earth that now surrounds his cold casket. It’s a weird phenomenon trying to find yourself again in the wake of loss. The person you love is gone, but you’re still alive. The world around you ever churns ahead, but it leaves you behind, standing on a pile of rubble that was your life. You're shivering and disoriented. You don’t recognize this place. You’re cowering and savagely clinging to the broken pieces of rubble around you that are left like it’s all you have, because reality is, it is all you have left. Slowly, you stand. You get your footing in this new place and the sun warms your face again. I was that girl, cowering in the rubble of my shattered life, scared and broken. I salvaged all the pieces I could, and even found new ones. I carefully pieced them together forming a makeshift shelter against the storms that tossed me up inside. From behind this carefully crafted wall my heart morphed and ripped open. I peeked from behind my shelter. I saw beautiful things. I could absorb how beautiful everything simple really is. Like the contrast of deep purple mountains against a blue sky. Or the clean wonder of fresh rain drops scattered on a vibrant spring leaf. Or how warm your children's soft kisses feel against your cheek. I stepped out from behind the walls so I feel the beauty again, and see myself. Even a broken shard of glass is beautiful if you hold it to the light. 



 Sitting beside his stone, I feel the cool grass between my fingers again. It's fresh and continually growing up toward the sun. I turn my face upward, to feel it's warmth. Who I am now is undoubtedly different that who I was before, and I accept this. I’m kicking down that shelter I built. I’m tearing it up, piece by piece. I’m going to scratch and claw at it until it’s dust. The words, He’s gone, he’s dead, have been replaced. You’re alive, you're here. I close my eyes and let the heaviness of just being me, rest deep within my bones and I realize something. In these broken places, there is still light, there is still beauty, there is still me. 

And I want to be broken. 

 Xo , Stacie