This is the time of the year that really gets to me. I am far away from home, my family and the people whom I love and not to mention the anniversary date of my dead fiancee is approaching. This is the time of the year that Rex and I met and swore to each other we would spend every holiday together since the first day we fell in love. In hopes of one day, he would be ending his military career and we could enjoy a normal life. Well, that really never happened. The army life: You are never home for the important life events, such as birthday’s, graduations or holidays . . . Even in our dating life we missed a few of these special moments. Flowers were a big part of our relationship, as him not being able to attend important moments in my life, sending me flowers was his way of letting me know, he was thinking of me, that he cared, and that he wished more than anything to be by my side to support me. However, at that point in life… Holidays didn’t mean much to us, because everyday we spent together was special, it didn’t matter if it was a holiday, or a birthday as long as we had each other and we made the best out of every day we had.
I like to think I do a good job at hiding the pain on normal days.
Most day’s I just seem like a grumpy girl with a frown more so than a smile, however most of the time I like to think I am extremely positive and deal with the pain of loss in a good way. Sometimes I am proud of myself, and sometimes I hate myself for it. Today, I felt sad. This is why I choose to write. Write down my feelings. Today, I opened the memory box, in that memory box, I have keepsakes, photographs, love letters; he sent to me overseas and ones I sent to him and some that never made it to me as well as some that never made it to him, funeral memorabilia, and just memories. I rarely ever open this box as it lays in my room in a corner. Most of the days, I don’t think about it because it hurts and blocking the past tends to help me heal. However, there are days that the past is more real than the day before. These are the days I have a frown on my face. These are the days, I feel the loneliest. I sat today and I opened that box. I read some of the letters, just to hear his words again. Just to know, this event in my life happened and that it was real. Just to remind myself, I have to be strong for him. To remind myself, that the love I once experienced was in fact REAL. As I sit in my room, and open the box, my heart starts getting heavy, I feel stomach pains, I feel my throat starting to close up, I swallow to get pass the lump in my throat. I pick up bits and pieces of memory. I first look at pictures, I realize how important pictures are. How important letters are, how important words are… because when we are gone, and all that is left is that faint memory of something that was once beautiful. As I feel, these bits and pieces of memory through my finger tips, the photos have dust from the sand and dirt of afghanistan … these photos were photos Rex and I interchanged, Photos we hung in our home together once, and when he deployed I mailed them to him and he hung them up in his room in Afghanistan. We would mail these photographs back and forth to each other. Served as a reminder of our memories. After Rex passed away, his personal belongings were shipped back home and his mother gave me all the items that he and I had interchanged while he was overseas. Meaning, everything I had sent to him, from cards, books, pictures, a sterling silver cross I had purchased for him before deployment whom he taped across his dog tags. Within this exchange, I also got letters Rex didn’t get a chance to mail… So as I read through these letters, and these words, I see key words “strength” “love” “forever” “pray” “death” “life” “always” “home” “safety” and it’s interesting how these words in these letters come to play. . . As I sit and read, these words… the epiphany of these words is the most intense factor within my life at the moment. I once fell in love with a beautiful heart and a beautiful man who loved me more than anything in the world, and these letters are a reminder and written fact truth that this experience of love was indeed real. Rex’s unconditional love, strength, motivation, belief in me is what made me a better person and still lingers on my mind to be the best version of me. A lot of my strength comes from him…
My life has changed in so many ways and it hasn’t been easy. Dealing with death, dealing through unemployment from emotional disability, dealing through late payments and bills, dealing through loneliness…I don’t think many people can relate to what I’ve been through unless they have experienced something similar. It’s different from losing a grandfather, or grandmother, or mother or father. It’s a different type of loss. It’s losing your future. When, I lost Rex, I not only lost him, I lost everything.
I find myself growing up an immense amount in such little time… I am only 24 years old and yet I feel like I’ve lived many lives and I carry such pain in my heart, it is such a heavy burden to carry that at times I feel exhausted. 2013 was the toughest year of my life, and I hope 2014 brings better light.
The hardest part for today and tomorrow is learning to open my heart once again, towards new love. This is my biggest struggle and also the brave man who can support me within my struggle. The man who is strong enough, to know that I carry a heavy heart. Only a real man, will be able to love me for me. To understand me; fully and completely. I am a better, stronger, more loving woman because of this experience. It will take a strong man, to let me fall in love all over again. Only love can heal the pain that love caused.
I have hope.
I pray to god to give me strength to get through these holidays, and lucky enough I have some delightful plans on spending the holidays with a beautiful family and man whom has always been a part of my heart. (this is where I am blessed and very thankful)
I once read this quote by Frida Kahlo and I thought the words were so exquisitely beautiful…
You; suffer, rejoice, love, rage, kiss, laugh. We were born for the same thing. to discover and love what has been discovered. hidden. With grief of always losing it. You are beautiful. I endow you with your beauty. Arms you against what does not free you, Love me as your center. Me as yourself. It won’t achieve a prodigious memory of you passing through my life scattering jewels i’ll only collect after you’re gone. There is no distance. only time. – Frida Kahlo
TheLionHeartedGirl 