Life Goes On...Make the Best of It!

"If I kill myself, then I can be with Daddy forever," Jessica said.

I felt exactly the same...wanting to die.

"I understand how much you miss Daddy, but you can't kill yourself." I sadly looked my 7 year old's wishful face.

She quietly stared ahead as if in deep thought. "Well... what if someone else kills me? That would be a good idea."

Her attempt to scheme such an outlandish plot startled me.

"No," Nicole, my six year old, firmly stated. "You can't do that either, because if you want to die and you make that happen, it's still a very bad sin."

My heart ached for Jessica, understanding her yearning to leave this world and go on to the next.

 It's hard to imagine, in your first year of widowhood, that you'll ever feel truly happy again. One day at a time. Life goes on. It never stops. Then one day you wake up and you don't want to die anymore. You want to live. It's time to make the best of this situation because it's never going to go back to the way it was. It's time to go forward. It's time to make something good out of something tragic.

I finally realized that it wasn't all about me. It was about my children and finding compassion to help others.

As the years unfolded, we found our happy days again. I started college at the age of 37 to become a social worker. It took me another 13 years to complete my master's degree, but I did it. I also found another wonderful man to remarry 3 years ago. My children are now adults. They are happy and pursuing their own dreams. I'm just as happy now than I ever was. And when I think of my first husband...I smile. He made me very happy in the 17 years that I knew him and feel blessed that we had that time together.