I watched a woman say good-bye...

I watched a woman say good-bye to her husband. It was quiet as the music played and they walked down the aisle. I wonder if she felt all of our eyes on her? She looked so elegant yet there was a sense of fragility surrounding her as she walked toward the casket and took her seat in the pew with her two children. As the service started I couldn't help but watch her. She was dressed in black, dark sunglasses hid her eyes that had cried many tears; she was stoic yet heartbroken. It all came back so clearly.

I was standing next to Hamid where he lay in the casket at the front of the chapel. I had felt alone. I shouldn't have been alone. He was leaving much too soon. I could imagine me there with white hair, Ariyana and Afshin beside me, giving me strength as they looked at their own loved ones. But to be there alone, knowing that Ariyana and Afshin didn't understand all that had happened...it wasn't supposed to be like that.

My heart ached for her and what she has to go through. No one can really help her; she has to do it herself. She has to find her own way. I remember being there will all of those feelings and questions, and then letting the numbness wash over me, protecting me from that unbearable pain. I remember facing that pain and crying at the realization of life and that I had to go on without him. I hope and pray that she finds strength in her children as I did in Ariyana and Afshin.

There was music and speakers. Someone shared an email from a friend who talked about this as being a time that another woman would wake in the night and reach for her husband only to find an empty space. That moment is an opportunity to call to God. In the midnight hours when she cries filled with pain and fear, it too, is an opportunity to reach out to God. It is so hard to understand why things happen and how we will ever be complete again. Days without your loved one feel like years. There are so many ups and downs on the journey and there is no one way to get through it.

Just the other day I talked to another friend whose huband died one year ago. She said she is doing alright and as she looks back on the year she doesn't know how she made it. I told her it was God. She misses her husband but has found a way to start lving again; to have hope. It reminded me of something I read tonight about how hard life is when we lose someone too soon.

It is life that surrounds me. Life. Life that is meant to be lived, its riches to be extracted. No the Lord's promise is not for those who give up, but for those who forge ahead...

-Leonora Wood

I send a prayer out tonight for those who have lost loved ones much too soon. May they find peace and the gift to love and live again.