My Journey Without

During the first couple of years I found that a great source of strength for me came from reading blogs that I can relate to. I laughed with them. Cried with them. Hurt with them. Rejoiced with them. I'm glad that we can all connect through our losses in a way that helps us all. These are the blogs that helped me find my own voice on this journey.

These are the blogs that gave me inspiration, support, and most importantly - hope.

Widow's Voice

Fresh Widow

Young, Widowed, & Rebuilding

Crash Course Widow

Widows Wear Stilettos'


These are a few books that have helped me through my grief:
Poor Widow Me - I think this is good for a new widow. Very short sections - perfect if you're not able to sit down and read a lot at one time.
Healing Grief, Finding Peace - 101 Ways To Cope With The Death OF Your Loved One - Honestly, I don't know if it'd recommend this one for someone who is grieving really hard. You have to have a pretty open mind if you want to read this book, and you have to be ready and willing to try and move forward. But I think it's an excellent guide to continuing on with life
Healing A Spouse's Grieving Heart -I think this gives excellent suggestions on how to get through some of the darker days
Finding Daylight After Loss Shatter Your World - Seven Choices - WONDERFUL book, it was one of my favorites.
Heaven Is For Real - Gives one a lot to think about.

My Story
I met Spencer in 2006 and I married this fun, quirky, and loving guy on June 3rd, 2011.

I was 20 and he was 22. We got married at quite a young age and this is because Spencer had cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that causes the buildup of very thick and sticky mucus primarily in the lungs and pancreas. This mucus causes frequent lung infections requiring many treatments and hospitalizations. The average life expectancy for a person with CF is only in the mid 30's.

Marrying Spencer at a young age was the best decision that I have ever made. I knew that if I didn't marry him while we were young I would never get to experience being married to my best friend. Even knowing that I would be widowed at a very young age, I knew that any time spent married to him would be worth so much more than time spent apart from him. I was right.

After becoming husband and wife we were met with a series of very unfortunate and complicated happenings. One week after our wedding date, Spencer's dad passed away from cancer and not long after that, we discovered that his mom had stage 4 breast cancer. The stress and grief was a lot for Spencer to handle and he was hospitalized several times within a 3 month period due to lung infections and his kidneys flaring up.

When we finally thought that we were getting over this 3 month bump in the road, Spencer got very critically ill in September, a moment that changed my life forever. We spent the next 3 excruciatingly long months in the ICU where Spence tried to regain his health, strength, weight, and nutrition for a life-saving double lung transplant. It was such a hard few months filled with progress yet many, many set backs. In December, we reached a point where we were told that there was just nothing else that could be done to help Spencer - his body was shutting down.

My Pea earned his angel wings on December 11th, 2011 at 3:30PM - 6 months after we got married. Our time as husband and wife may have been so short, but we had a very fulfilling and wonderful relationship and I wouldn't go back and change anything.


Each year, month, and week it gets better. Slowly but surely this has gotten easier. I don't know that there has been any specific turning point, I don't know that I necessarily made any major discovery or anything like that... but as each year slowly (and quickly) turns into the next I find myself in the best place I feel like I can be. I am filled with love, passion, and joy again. I am so overwhelmingly happy.

I can finally see a future starting to come together with him in my heart rather than by my side. I hope that those of you who are going through similar experiences are able to do the same.

1 comment:

  1. Confraternity but at the same time, sorry for your loss..

    --Sue

    ReplyDelete