The Elephant in the Room

Well, I think I only have two options here:  either scrap this blog altogether and shut it down, or acknowledge the elephant in the room and write about it.  So here goes.

My husband died last month on February 25th.  My joined-at-the-hip best friend husband.  He had been feeling poorly but I really thought he'd go to the doctor, find out what was going on, and get it fixed.  But no.  It was cancer.  Again. And this time it attacked with a vengeance and took him fast.  One week in the hospital, that's all.  Of course, I must quickly add that this is exactly the way he would have wanted it.  In fact he said it many times.  When a friend died last year and we were told that he had been feeling perfectly all right, then felt bad, then went into the hospital on a Friday and died the next Friday, Buddy said "He's my hero."  In other words, no hanging on with tubes and treatments, just shuffle on out of here.  And that's the exact thing that happened to Buddy.  We performed a show on a Tuesday, he went in the hospital that Friday, and died the next Friday.   My hero.

God was very good to him.  Merciful.  Took him Home quickly.  Although that hell-week in the hospital seemed like an eternity to me, it was really just the blink of an eye.  So thank you God.  And I mean that.

So for a little over a month I have been living day to day in a new reality.  Friends, neighbors and family are absolutely wonderful to me.  And they are keeping my head above water.  Of course I must add to this that I am lifted up in a most miraculous way by the Presence of God.  Even in my worst pain and my biggest ugly cry, I know He is here with me, holding me.  I admit I can't always feel it.  But still I know it.  And this is the meaning of faith.  "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."  God is here, and miracles are everywhere.

I have been talking on the phone with my old college roomie (sorry about the 'old'), who also lost her husband to cancer just a little over six months ago.  This is kind of crazy.  The two of us both lost our husbands within six months of each other.  How did we go from talking about our wild and crazy sworn-to-secrecy college days, to talking about how we're coping without our husbands?  I think there may be a novel or a movie in there, but that's for another time.

So I just had to get it out there.  I had to write that it happened.  I won't always write about it, but probably will write about it sometimes.  Maybe the 'Widows Club' is another whole blog. I don't know. 

But I do know that I will also still write about things that strike me funny, or stuff that strikes me as odd or ironic.  Because I'm still me, and I still laugh, and I still like to write, and I still find humor in life. 

And I still know that God is good, and this life isn't the end of it all.  So why not poke fun at it. 
Hey, you gotta laugh.

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