MARRIAGE AFTER LOSS

Most of the time, when I battled with missing my husband, I would choose to be on my own.  I knew I could talk to God and He’d understand exactly where I was at without me having to explain.  I always had friends willing to offer a hug if I needed one so that was enough.  One night, during a concert, I became overwhelmed with my own sense of loss.  For the first time I wanted to tell someone and I didn’t want to be alone.  My friend (who is now my new husband) had been a great support at work and had been popping in for coffee now and then, so we had talked a lot.  He lost his best friend in Matric and battled with his own process of mourning, so always seemed to “get it” when I talked about how I felt.  That night I just wanted to talk to him.  I called him and we chatted for awhile and afterwards I just thanked God for such a good friend.

I knew when he started coming round for coffee more regularly that I had to decide in my own mind that either I wanted to pursue a relationship with him and possibly even marry him someday (which may seem over-dramatic, but I really didn’t want to mess around and get hurt or hurt him), or I needed to ask him to stop coming around.  I thought about it and prayed about it and wrote lists and asked him pointed questions, and eventually I knew that I already loved him and definitely didn’t want him to stop coming around.

A good friend said I wasn’t over my late husband when my new husband came along.  I don’t think I’ll ever be “over” my late husband.  I will always miss him.  He was my first love and my best friend from the age of 13.  We battled through dozens of struggles together and eventually beat them all.  I never really knew myself without him, nor would I have ever wanted to while he was alive.But he’s not alive and he is never coming back.  No matter how much I wanted him to, he will never walk through my door and take me in his arms again.  Never.  That is a very hard and final reality to accept.  But I have to accept it.  And I have to believe that God still has good things to give me even though he took my first husband.

While I was on a trip overseas I realized that one of my greatest fears was that God would take away more good things in my life.  Some of the horrible things I feared would happen to me, actually did.  And part of my trip overseas involved coming to trust God and that He still had good things for me and he won’t necessarily take away everything that’s good in my life.  And the things I fear won’t all happen.  God really loves me, and it’s not that I didn’t believe that before, but during the hard times God’s love was my anchor – it felt like I had a desperate grip on the anchor’s rope while being tossed around by storm waves.  It was a matter of holding tight to the promise that God does love me regardless of what my circumstances may have indicated to the contrary.  What I learnt while I was away overseas was that God’s love is also a gentle, comforting sense of being enveloped in light and joy.  When my new husband came along it felt like God had blown me a kiss from Heaven.  Here was joy and a lightness I hadn’t felt in years, and I sensed God saying, “Here is a gift for you, enjoy”.  And I made the choice to accept the relationship as a gift from God.

My new husband can’t replace my first husband and I really don’t want him to.  I really like the analogy a grief counselor gave me:  Our lives are like a piano keyboard.  My first husband played a beautiful tune on my keyboard.  There were notes he played often and there were notes he never touched, they just weren’t his kind of notes.  But the tune was beautiful.  That tune will never be played again.  My new husband is playing a different but beautiful tune on my keyboard.  There are notes that my first husband used to play that my new husband never will, they just aren’t his kind of notes.  But there are notes that have never been played before that my new husband plays now.  And the tune is beautiful.

The season in my life changed.  Shortly after my new husband and I got engaged, a friend said to me, “You see, I told you spring would come”.  God had been showing me the picture of seasons through a few people.  I lived in summer with my first husband for almost all of our going out and married life.  Then we hit Fall/Autumn when things in our marriage weren’t good.  Our relationship was difficult, maybe even dying.  God taught me so much in that time and I saw the rich colours of his love.  Winter was harsh with cancer trying to drain the life out of us, but there came a precious beauty with it as well.  Have you ever seen a White Christmas in America?  It was kind of like that.  And then my husband was gone.  And I still had to finish out winter which was cold and lonely (although God's love was always there).  But then Spring began to bloom and everything became fresh and new and wonderful.  I'll never forget Summer and I'll even thank God for Fall and Winter... But I was SO glad when Spring came!