Reflections of the Past and on the Future

Well, as most of you know, this has been a pretty truamatic year for me. Losing my beloved husband of over 50 years last March made the rest of this past year pretty unbearable. Overcome by grief, I struggled to get through each day. And special occasions, like his birthday, our anniversary, and the holidays were even worse.

I have 4 wonderful children and their spouses and my seven adorable grandchildren who did everything they could to help me survive. But they, too, were mourning the loss of their father and wonderful grandpa. There were days when I just wanted to leave this world too.

Doing this time of grieving, my appetite dropped to zero. I had to force myself to eat - which I did because I knew I had to do for my health. But the portions I ate were very small. And I could not eat in the mornings.....so most of my meals were between 12:30 PM and 7:00 PM. I still would jog some mornings, and ran 3 5K's, as I usually did in previous years.....and I lost over 20 pounds.

I truly believe the smaller portions and the longer periods of going without food were the cause of the weight loss because my exercise habits did not change. I did start going to yoga classes 3 times a week instead of working out on the free weights. I tried to do the weight room exercises, but it was too emotionally taxing on me as my darling husband and I used to do them together and he would help me. I just missed him too much in that venue.

But here is the thing I want to share with you all - I would take that 20 pounds back in a nanosecond if I could only have my husband back. Dropping from a size 8 to a size 2 means nothing to me now, except that none of my clothes fit me. Yes, I mean that. I realize now how unimportant somethings are in life compared with the major things. My grief is so an intense because I loved him so much. He loved me the way I was, even though I wanted to lose 10 or 15 pounds. My victory over weight loss is insignificant in comparison to what I lost in love.

So here it is 2020 - a new year, and a new decade. My only resolution is to try to live this new year along side of my grief, not in my grief as I was in 2019. Surely I can learn to live alone and not be overwhelmed by my lonliness. I shall look for new ways to fill my days and hopefully my faith in God will guide me in getting along in this new year.

Peace and prosperity to you all!