When my husband passed, I swore up and down that there would be no other. I fervently believed that my heart had died with him. People would say “you’re so young, there will be somebody else.” A very few said “move on”, while treasured friends who had walked my journey before said “maybe you’ll move FORWARD.”
I spent a year after Vince’s death wearing my rings, working on myself and honoring his memory and on the day of the one year anniversary took them off. In just a couple of weeks will be two years of my beloved’s death anniversary and I now find myself dating someone- a lieutenant in law enforcement, no less. I still stand the chances of him dying due to his profession but at least I know he won’t overdose. Does it make the reality of death any better? It does not. I’m still terrified; I still make my new partner text me, at the end of every shift even when he knows I’m asleep, saying that he made it home safe. This way, I know when I wake up that I won’t be called on by strangers to witness a doctor calling the time and that I know the new day will not bring tragedy.
I’ve been doing trauma therapy for over a year now and we’re STILL working on that memory of the moments of Vince dying. It’s a deep rooted memory that I don’t think will ever leave me. But today I’ve met someone that makes sure i wake up for that therapy appt…he even asks how it went and makes sure I’m emotionally ok. When I mention Vince’s name, he doesn’t flinch anymore because he has taken the time to search videos of how to love a grieving widow and he listens to the stories, quietly and understandingly.
I still have my moments of thinking, it was always Vince and Nicole; everyone has said it. It should still be Vince and Nicole. But in the midst of that, my healing and understanding of that are changing – I now love two men; my before and my after. And right now I’m caught in the middle. But that proves that time heals all because whereas before I swore there would be no other, I believe that Vince has sent me someone with enough heart and strength to go through my ebbs and flows with me.
Life has a strange way of proving you wrong. You just have to have the courage to be open to it. At the end of the day, our loved ones would not want us to roll over and join them, but to take what they have taught us and to create something just as special with someone else. Lasting chapter twos are a rare breed and if you’re lucky enough to come across them, treat them as gently as they treat you because they are going through something with you that they themselves did not experience. And at the end of the day, that might be the most healing factor of it all.
I’m saying this to myself just as much as a general statement…don’t be afraid to love again, for our angels are always looking over us and helping to place people in our lives exactly when we need them the most.
Nicole D’Andrea
