Haven't been on the blog for several days. I have just been very busy trying to do things around the house. Because of my fibromyalgia, there are many days that I can't attend to household tasks. The pain and fatigue hinder my efforts to work around the house on a regular basis. It is worse during the winter. The past few days have been fairly good, so I have been taking advantage of the opportunity to catch up on things at home. I say catch up, but it almost looks impossible to catch up. Things accummulated over the many weeks that we can't do a lot. Those of us with fibromyalgia have to make the best of our good days, as they are few and far between.

I was writing about death the other day and said that I would share some things that I have experienced with death of loved ones. Today, I wanted to write about one of the losses that I will talk about the next few days. It was the loss of my young husband of 28. I was 22 years old with a 9 month old daughter when he died. It's sometimes so hard to understand and deal with the loss of our loved ones through death. We feel lost, angry, hopeless and helpless. I know this feeling very well. My husband died of a brain aneurysm suddenly. We both worked together. He went to work and passed out on the floor. When he was rushed to the emergency room, he was found to be brain dead. Just like that...like Natasha Richardson. Only the cause of his internal brain hemorraging was not a fall. It was a blot clot that had been in his head as a misconfigured blood vein since birth. The day he died, it exploded and flooded his brain. The result brain dead. No hope for him. Just like that within the blink of an eye. 17 hours after he passed out, he died.

It was heartbreaking when Mike died. When he passed, it crushed me on the inside beyond anything that I had ever known...beyond anything that I can even describe fully. After his death and as a result of intense grief, my personality changed dramatically. There were people that didn't think I loved my husband because of my change of lifestyle after his death. It was quite the opposite. Although it has been almost 30 years, I remember like it was yesterday screaming and collapsing at the hospital, when I was told Mike was going to die. I loved him with all my heart and didn't even want to live any more when he died. But, I knew I had to go on for my children.

When Mike died, I wasn't much of a drinker. After his death, I started staying out every night drinking to dull the pain. I couldn't stand the pain...I couldn't sleep...I didn't want to face the despair, so I numbed myself with alcohol. Before Mike passed, I was not a promiscuous person nor approved of that type of behavior. But when Mike died, I felt like I died. I lost my way. I was so utterly lonely and I kept trying to fill my loneliness with many superficial relationships. I couldn't stand the loneliness, so I was always looking for someone to fill that void that Mike's passing left in me. I didn't like not being married. Pardon the old cliche, but it fits very well. I was looking for love in all the wrong places... I couldn't see clearly enough to know it at the time. When I look back on that time, I despise my own behavior. The Christian Rock Band, DC Talk has a song with the words, "I despise my own behavior". When I first wrote that I despise my own behavior, I wasn't even thinking of the song. It was just something that sprang forth in my heart when looking back. I turned to worldly things to help give me comfort, when I should have been turning to Christ. If I could do it all over again, I would erase my mistakes. Problem is that I can't. Reminders of it ended up making me a better mother and a better human being later. God can turn our worst sins and mistakes to work for good...whether it be a help to others in times of trouble by sharing or making us become a better person. I only pray that he continues to use my dark times for both.

When my husband died, my behavior didn't appear to others to be that of a grieving widow. Everyone handles grief differently...how I handled it wasn't the right way. It's just that I didn't know how to cope. Having very little family support and my lack of faith in God at the time, I didn't know how to handle it such a traumatic even. In retrospect, I wish that I would have reached out more for help...I wish that I would have turned to God during that time, but I didn't..... It took me many more years of heartache and pain, before I was ready to turn my life over to Christ. When I became broken enough and unable to continue on my own, I then cried out to the Lord for help. God was there for me. He guided me to Church and guided me to begin reading my Bible. I began to feel peace for the first time in my life. His word breathed life into my troubled soul. (Psalms 12:6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times., Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord., Peter 1:25 25But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you., I believe the Bible to wholly be the word of God without error. (Psalms 18:30 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him., Isaiah 40:8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.) According to his world, he has forgiven me and washed me clean of my sins. Sometimes, I have a hard time forgiving myself, but he has forgiven me. He will forgive anyone who asks for forgiveness. He that believes in Christ with all their heart will be saved. (Acts 2:21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.) That means a life in heaven. (Philippians 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ) That means reunion with our loved ones. Death is not permanant. (2 Corinthians 5:8 "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.") Death is only temporary. Problem is that when you are on earth, it sometimes feels permanant. Even those of us as believers lose sight of that. I will be the first to confess that I often lose sight of that.

Will continue soon....