32. Mini Premonitions

"Life ends. Love doesn't." 

~Unknown

It's funny how the mind works sometimes. Although they may mean little to us at the time, we subconsciously notice tiny details that capture our attention for some unfathomable reason and later come back to haunt us with a force we could not have imagined. When Jon was first assigned to Fort Bragg after his tour in Korea, his very first day of work was memorable for reasons that now haunt me in that very way. Jon was an incredibly careful driver. Maybe it was just that he always felt the need to protect me and ensure my safety while I was a passenger, but I never once felt the need to perch nervously on the edge of my seat as I do with other drivers prone to road rage. Imagine, then, my surprise when he returned home only an hour or so after leaving for what we expected to be a full day of work and told me he'd been in an accident. I woke up, groggy and confused, to see him standing there at the foot of the bed - had I accidentally slept through the entire day? No, as it turned out, Jon had been trying to drive onto Fort Bragg during the morning rush via the access gate everyone is required to pass through before entering any military installation. A lady in front of him had realized at the last moment that she'd forgotten her ID card and promptly pulled a U-turn into multiple oncoming lanes of traffic. It caused Jon to swerve out of her way and into a guard rail at the side of the road, which was then compounded by the fact that another driver in the immediately vicinity also swerved to avoid the chaos and ended up rear-ending the car in front of him. It took forever, of course, to clean up the mess and caused Jon to miss several hours of mandatory training on his very first day of work. His new car was a wreck, but thankfully, he was just fine. It seemed like a rather auspicious beginning at the infamous Fort Bragg - just how auspicious, however, I would not truly appreciate until almost two years later.

On the day of our wedding, I woke up to gray skies and an incredibly painful cut inside my lip that made smiling rather difficult and uncomfortable. Great, I thought, on the one day when I already expect to smile so much that it hurts! I still recall the tiny sliver of doubt that permeated my thoughts due to that seemingly insignificant cut - I worried incessantly that it meant something. I wondered if it was a bad omen or, as I hoped was the case, if I was maybe just being overly analytical and jumpy on what would ultimately be the happiest day of my life. Later that day, despite hoping for an outdoor wedding, we had to abandon that plan when it poured down with rain so hard that the raindrops bounced off the pavement and ricocheted off window panes. They say rain on your wedding day is lucky...but I wonder how much is too much. I didn't see rain like that again until I celebrated our first wedding anniversary without my husband at the restaurant where we had brought in the New Year together back in 2006. When I walked into the restaurant at the beginning of the night, it was beautiful and sunny and there was not a cloud in the sky. When I left only a couple of hours later, however, the heavens opened up and it poured with a fury that brought back memories of that same day just one year earlier. I've always thought it was like Jon's tears telling me he wished so much he could have been there to hold me and toast to one incredible year using the beautiful engraved glass from which we took our first drink as husband and wife on our wedding day.

When I lost Jon ten months after our beautiful wedding, I was still in that giddy stage of excitement whenever I introduced myself as his wife. The term “husband” was so shiny and new; although it had been almost five years since I first met the man who would become the love of my life, the ink had barely dried on the paper consecrating our vows before the future we were promised was suddenly and inexplicably snatched away. Some days I feel like I’m just treading water here, like I’m just barely making it through the day versus actually living. Living…we do it every second of every day, but what does it really mean anyway? How can I truly live without my heart and my soul? Sometimes I try to comfort myself with the thought that Jon is at peace in heaven, though I can’t help but dwell simultaneously on how long it might be before I can join him there. At the lowest of my lows, I plead with God to just take me now in the place of some other poor person who would otherwise be forced to leave this world much too soon due to some unforeseeable, tragic event. I'm already living my worst nightmare, the one thing I said I'd never want to do, so I try to bargain with Him and ask Him to please give that other person a little more time with their loved ones before shattering their world in the way mine has already been forever changed. When I was fourteen years old and fell in love with the movie Titanic (okay, maybe “became obsessed” is a more accurate description), I was always brought to tears by the final scene in which a very elderly Kate is finally reunited with her beloved Jack in the afterlife many, many years after they were forced to say goodbye to each other at sea. It strikes me as ironic now. Did I know when I was fourteen that that would be me one day? No, of course not, how could I? Oh to be young and blissfully ignorant again! But when I look back now with the benefit of hindsight, do I wish more than anything that I could still indulge in the luxury of shedding a few distant tears rather than experiencing first-hand the searing pain of living out the reality? Yes. Yes times a million.

I’ve always thought it somewhat pretentious and a little ridiculous when people wear sunglasses inside. It’s never really bright enough to justify the need to make such a flashy fashion statement. But as I made my way home from Washington, D.C. after spending this past Memorial Day weekend with my husband at Arlington National Cemetery, I had to make an exception…for myself. The tears would not stop, no matter what I did to try and distract myself. Everything served as a reminder of the fact that my love, my sweetheart, my soul friend could not come with me. That night, as I lay awake in my empty bed back in Columbus, exhausted but searching for sleep, I was reminded for the millionth time of a night many moons ago when I lay in my usual position (my head on Jon’s chest, his arm wrapped around me) while he slept peacefully. It was as I listened to the steady thump of his heartbeat that the possibility of losing that comforting sound first crept into my mind – this is just too good to be true, I thought, and life is so fragile...what will I do if the bubble ever bursts? As quickly as it came, I pushed the thought away, convinced that it would never happen to us. His heart will always beat, I told myself, he’s too good of a man for God to take him away anytime soon. We had so much still to do together in this life - a good and just God would never punish us for simply being happy and in love...right?  Little did I know that my mini premonition would later come back to haunt me on many nights of yearning desperately for the beautiful sound of his heartbeat. Although I can hear it perfectly in my mind, to experience it in real time would be joy to my heart and food to my soul.

One of my close friends in college once told me that I should try living in the present a little more often since I was always so excited about what the future would hold for Jon and I; I couldn't wait to be able to wake up with him every single morning, to buy that little house with the white picket fence, and to have the children we dreamed of raising together. Ironically, you might say I now live for the past...and the farther away we get from it, the more I tend to panic that I'll forget the details that made it all so magical. Jon once told me that no matter what difficulties we faced in life, we could always smile at the end of each day because we had each other. I didn't realize at the time how often I'd think back on his words and wish with every fiber of my being that he was here to remind me of the strength I once drew from those sentiments. To say that we don't realize how lucky we are until we have lost what matters most is an understatement. I've asked God many times over the past few years the dreaded question of why - why Jon? why us? - and so far, there is no answer. Maybe there never will be.  I ask now for another one of those mini premonitions - from Jon or from God - to tell me what I should do next with the life I have left.  I need a little guidance, a little helping hand to make it through the days, however many there may be, until I am reunited with him again in a world without all these tears and without all this pain.  When that premonition comes, I'll be ready. Just like I sensed within weeks after we started dating that Jon was the man I would marry, I'm trusting I'll know what I'm supposed to do in the here and now when the time is right.  This I hope and pray.

31. Technology and Titles

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." 

~Maya Angelou

Jon was always a huge technology geek.  He loved every fancy, state-of-the-art, up-to-date device out there and took great pride in demonstrating his skills with all his toys.  One of my favorite pictures from our travels during his R&R is of him and his dad showing off their Christmas gifts to each other; Jon and I gave his parents a digital picture frame (which was still a pretty new and fascinating invention back in 2006) and his parents gave him the latest and greatest 80GB iPod.  Back then, the 80GB iPod weighed a couple of pounds and was a far cry from the slimmer, sleeker versions that have been released since then.  But it was the best thing Apple had to offer at the time, and, therefore, Jon loved it.  His parents used to send him the weekly Best Buy circulars in Iraq, even though he had no intention of actually buying anything while overseas.  Best Buy - a man's version of a woman's shoe heaven (DSW, anyone?).  

Ironically, another technological favorite from the last decade or so (besides Facebook, of course) is Google.  It's now a household name and a verb in and of itself - "oh, just Google it!"  Everything you could ever want to know about a person is now available at the click of a button and at the mercy of a search box.  It’s a little scary when you Google my name, not to mention my husband’s.  The number of positive hits is mind-boggling; I guess it’s a good thing I’m going into law and don’t plan to try and get hired as some kind of a secret under-cover agent anytime soon.  Like any smart employer, first they'd Google me.  Then, just to confirm their suspicions, they'd set up a meeting with me in person.  They'd take one look at me and say, “oh, no.  You ooze “widow.”   You might as well have it tatooed across your forehead.”  Not that there’s anything wrong with that as far as I’m concerned.  Baby steps towards being just as proud to be his widow as I was to be his wife, right?

Speaking of which, I think I’m finally making progress in that area, as I hoped might be the case after months of trying to write my way through the web of very mixed emotions that accompanies my widow identity.  “URW” (Un-Remarried Widow) is what the dependent military ID cards call us for the first few years.  During my recent visit to Fort Bragg, my widow friends showed me that their updated IDs now read “DB” (Deceased Beneficiary).  I, thankfully, have my own active duty ID, which means I don’t have to carry around a separate dependent card.  But even if I did, I'd still think of myself as far more than a URW whose husband is now a DB or whatever other acronym they want to use to title me.  My title isn’t any of these things.  My name is Jenna Carolyn Grassbaugh.  I am Jon’s wife, his widow, and he is my soul mate – in this life and the next.  I am a Captain in the U.S. Army's Military Police Corps and in two years, God willing, I will be a lawyer.  These are all titles I’m okay with – forget the URW and DB crap.  When I first started law school last fall, I thought it was best not to mention the details of my story and my status to my classmates for fear of scaring them away or making them uncomfortable.  Now I realize how foolish it was to feel that sense of shame in what makes me the person I've become today.  This is who I am.  There's no reason to hide it.  If anyone wants to know more, all they have to do is ask (or, alternatively, Google me).  And if they have a problem with me being so open and candid, they're free to walk away.  This is me, and if the people in my life are going to stick by me, they have to accept all of me, to include the parts that make them squirm a little.


I had one of those "light bulb" moments a few days ago when I realized that there's a difference between being lonely and missing Jon when I'm alone.  I think I always confused the two in the past and chalked up all my issues to pure loneliness...but if that was really the case, a half-way decent (or even mediocre) relationship should have solved that problem, right?  The thing is, even when I thought I was finally happy in the context of a relationship, I'd still have these God-awful, miserable episodes where a tiny trigger would escalate into a night of inconsolable sobbing.  I'd drink too much wine, pore over photos and videos of Jon and I, and, ultimately, cry myself to sleep from exhaustion.  Do these sound like the signs of a happy widow (ha, such a funny phrase...no pun intended) who has successfully tackled the demons surrounding her husband's death?  I think not.  In fact, I think I was generally more unhappy when I quickly began to sense that the confines and restrictions of those past relationships were sucking the life out of me and keeping me away from the things that really matter, like honoring Jon's memory.  It always felt slightly awkward to try and do both at the same time - the best of both worlds didn't really apply.  Plus, being in a relationship shouldn't be as hard as it's been every time I've given it a try since losing Jon - even with long distance, things with Jon were practically effortless.  When it's right, there can be challenges and speed bumps along the way, but your relationship shouldn't be one of the stressors in life - it should be your soft landing, something that makes the other inherent difficulties in life melt away.  I got spoiled with Jon, I suppose, and it very well may have ruined me for life...in the best of all possible ways.  At the same time, I'm not so naive as to think that this is a process I can just work my way through from start to end, beginning now (hey, better late than never, right?), earn the t-shirt, and then go home a graduate of grief.  No, this is a life-long process, and after trying and failing to invent the cliff notes version over the last few years, I'm finally realizing that I should probably just dig in for the long haul.  


When it comes to that dreaded long haul, I'm grateful for the fact that technology makes it a little easier to share all my stories and pictures of the man who made me the happiest I've ever been.  It's what allows me to write this blog, to document my journey, and to stay in touch with all the wonderful people who knew and loved Jon and those who never knew him but live to honor his memory, like the couple I rode with in Operation Rolling Thunder this past Memorial Day weekend.  At the same time, it makes me a little sad - well, maybe more than a little sad on some days.  Jon would have delighted in the iPhone, the iPad, the ability to share photos with friends and family on Facebook seconds after they're taken, and navigating via GPS to an unfamiliar location without ever unfolding a map (okay, maybe not that last one - Jon loved maps in the same way I love old books, so I think he'd probably always prefer the old-fashioned feel of a map in his hands).  What makes me sad is the fact that Jon's life was too short to allow him to enjoy all the technological comforts we now take for granted.  I can just imagine the child-like joy on his face as he opened the cellophane wrapping on a new MacBook Pro laptop or unpacked a digital camera with three times the pixels and optical zoom capacity of the Canon Digital Elph he took with him to Iraq.  His brother always said Jon was like an overeager tourist when it came to taking pictures -  it drove us all a little crazy at the time, but thank goodness we have as many of those photos as we do now.  


Despite always thinking of how much he'd love it as soon as I see that a new and improved device has hit the stores, I can no longer give my sweet husband any of these fancy toys as gifts on his birthday or at Christmas (though I did fulfill his wish of buying a big, high-quality, flat screen TV as his "coming home from Iraq" present).  What I can do, however, is to promise that for as long as I have a keyboard at my fingertips and a touchscreen device of some kind in my pocket, I will continue to utilize the wonders of technology to keep his memory alive and well.  A friend once questioned the fact that I continue to display pictures and mementos of Jon in every room of my house, as if to suggest that I shouldn't remain so fixated on the past.  Well, I'm afraid this is just another one of those things about me that people will just have to accept - if my house were on fire, my photographs, videos, and reminders of my husband are the first things I'd try to save over anything of any kind of monetary value.  Everyone has to figure out their own way in surviving the unimaginable, and this is mine.  Just as I'm proud to call myself Jon's widow, I'm proud to pledge, with a little help from the technology he so loved, that Jon will never be forgotten.

Pure happiness

30. Kind of Amazing

“…[A] part of me – a dark or light part I’m not certain – hungers for death’s sleep, perhaps to wake in the brightness and warmth of [my beloved’s] arms.  This might seem a fool’s hope – to seek love in death – but truthfully I do not know where [he] is but death." 

~Richard Paul Stevens, The Road to Grace

The morning after I published my last blog entry, I was asked if I’d like to share Jon and I’s story in an interview with CBS at Arlington National Cemetery over the Memorial Day weekend.  Having just written about how much it helps me to talk about what made Jon so special, the timing seemed more than a little ironic.  It’s yet another example how I feel like he’s always looking out for me.  I guess I’m pretty lucky to have such an attentive guardian angel husband!  When there are long stretches of time with little to no sign of him and then he suddenly pops up again to remind me he’s still here, it’s like my soul gets a little jump start – enough to last me until the next sign of him, at least.  

What's even crazier (in a good, slightly eerie kind of way) is what happened at Arlington in the middle of the interview.  Over the past several years, I've stood in countless formations at parade rest without issue, jumped out of airplanes in the middle of the summer with 50 pounds of gear, and conducted combat foot patrols in Iraq in 100+ degree heat.  It was a hot day out there in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, though far from the worse I've experienced.  Yet, at the moment the reporter asked me to tell her about Jon died, I literally felt as if I wanted to die too.  The belted dress I was wearing suddenly constricted my airflow.  A sickening nausea washed over me.  I reached out to his headstone to steady myself as my vision started to blur and sweat beaded on my forehead.  I tried to continue with my story but knew that if I didn't take a break, I would probably pass out.  A moment or two after I sat down, a group of Soldiers practicing the 21-gun salute fired their shots in the distance.  A little water and a douse of air conditioning and I felt fine again - more than fine - but the timing of it all still struck me as more than a little odd.  In almost ten years of Army training, I've never been treated for dehydration or anything close to it, and yet when I've been standing in the sun for only 20 minutes by my husband's headstone and get asked a question about how he died, that's when I go down for the count?  Odd doesn't even begin to describe it.  When the reporter and cameraman left and Jon and I were alone again, I felt a wonderful sense of peace as I lay there on the grass above him, separated by only a few feet of earth.  It was as if I was finally at home.  I felt like I could just lie there all day, and if I could have guaranteed that people wouldn't bother me, I very well might have done just that.  Like I said, the whole experience was kind of amazing and kind of eerie all at once.  

As I walked out of Arlington past the hoards of people in matching brightly colored t-shirts, I thought for a moment of how much I wished I was among them.  Oh to be a tourist!  To not have a personal reason to be visiting Arlington over the Memorial Day weekend...how nice would that be?  I thought about the young couple I'd seen at the airport when I'd arrived in Baltimore the night before - they reminded me of Jon and I when we were that age.  The young man pulled his car up to the curb and handed a small but beautiful bouquet of flowers to the girl eagerly awaiting his arrival.  She looked like she couldn't possibly have been happier than she was in that very moment.  I wondered if people could tell as they passed me at Arlington that I was there to visit the man who once made me smile like that.  

Jon visits the grave of General Pershing at Arlington National Cemetery (March, 2002)

29. Where is Home?

"As real as it may seem, 

It was only in my dreams." 

~Debbie Gibson, Only in My Dreams

It's funny how we do different things over time to keep someone we love alive.  For a long time, it was all about the physical things - Jon's things.  I refused to give up anything he had ever used, touched, or worn because it felt like I'd be letting go of who he was.  Recently, it's been talking about him as often as I can with whomever will listen that provides me with a sliver of comfort.  Sometimes people seem to get a little uncomfortable; other times, they're happy to let me babble away.  Either way, it doesn't really matter too much - I can't change the reality of life without my beloved husband and I can't change all the parts of my future that are now shrouded in mystery.  What I can do is to promise that for as long as I live, Jon's memory will live on through me.  


Over the past few weeks, I've been having all these incredibly stressful dreams recently about everything you can imagine – school, my to-do list, work, etc.  I wake up exhausted and increasingly more tired than I was before I went to bed, which ultimately makes the days seem even longer and the nights that much harder.  But last night for a few wonderful moments, I dreamed about Jon.  He was alive (alive - such a beautiful word.  If someone asked me to pick my favorite word, it would be, without question, this one).  He had been wounded, not killed, and he had pulled through.  I realized I’d been writing for these past few these months about my worst nightmare, rather than reality.  As tentative relief washed over me, I felt lighter than I've felt in over five years.  And then I woke up.  I woke up to a blessed minute of confusion and hope...and then, with crushing disappointment, discovered that it was all just a dream.  Just another dream – the closest I will get to him again in this world.  The weight of the last five years suddenly felt even heavier than when I'd fallen asleep only a few hours earlier with tears streaming down my face.  I had tried to sprawl out over the bed to fill up the space Jon should have occupied beside me, but his absence is a void that, try as I might, I simply cannot fill.


It probably sounds ridiculous, but from time to time, I search for Jon's name in one of the many online databases of fallen heroes.  I already know, of course, what the search results will yield, but in the seconds before the results generate, I hold my breath and tell myself that if his name isn't there, things turned out differently.  It's like a game I play with my own mind to trick it into an alternate form of reality.  You hear and read about these crazy conspiracy schemes where people believe what they're told about who they are for years until finally someone magically comes along and blows the cover off their whole concocted life story.  Sometimes I wish my life were like one of those schemes.  I wish someone would call me out of the blue tomorrow and tell me that they made a terrible mistake and that it wasn't my Jon who died on that fateful day five years ago.  I'd probably be furious - "so you're telling me I've spent the last five years believing my husband is dead but he's actually alive and well?!" - but the anger would be short-lived.  Realistically, I'd want to kiss the feet of the person who brought me such miraculous news.  Or better yet, I wish Jon would call me himself.  I can I almost hear his sweet voice through the phone line telling me, "get ready, baby, I'm coming home." 


Home.  Without Jon, I'm not sure where that is for me.  It was always wherever we made it together.  I'd venture to say it's still wherever Jon is physically, but I don't think he'd want me to think of home in connection with a cemetery, beautiful though it might be.  And although his spirit is always with me, it's only in my dreams that I see his beaming smile and touch his beautiful face.  So that is our home.  Home is, as they say, wherever we choose to make it.  So, if dreams are the window to the soul and home is where the heart is, I guess that's my answer.  Home...is only in my dreams.

28. Gone

"You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you will never completely get over the loss of your beloved.  But this is also the good news.  They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up...It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly - that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp." 

~Anne Lamott

Gone.  Such a sad word.  It's a word we can't really comprehend until it's staring us straight in the face and we have no where left to go to hide from its finality.  Gone doesn't mean "absent for a little while" or "I'll be back - just be patient."  Gone is gone.  When the cold, hard reality of "gone" hits me on some days, I physically have to stop in my tracks because the gravity of it takes my breath away.

Recently, there have been a few precious moments where Jon almost hasn't seemed quite so gone.  While sitting in church the other day, I went to reach for his hand...until seconds later when I realized I couldn't.  And as I sat alone and awake the other night hours after the rest of the family had gone to bed, I picked up the phone to call him.  It's been a while since I last did that.  I don't know how many different phones I've had over the past few years, but every time I go through the tedious process of transferring over my address book from one phone to the next, "My Babes" is always among the names of my contacts.  You would think I'd realize by now that he's not going to answer.  ("But why not!  What good is all this technology if you can't call a deceased loved one?  Who cares if you can buy movie tickets and bid for antiques online if you can't dial up your dead husband?" - Good Grief, by Lolly Winston).  It took me back to several years ago when I finally terminated Jon's phone line after happily paying the extra charges just so I could call his voice mail and hear his voice as often as I wanted.  A month or two later, I called the number I knew and still know so well to see if it still belonged to him.  It didn't.  The realization that someone else now had my baby's number was another one of those crushing moments.  Breathe in, I told myself.  Breathe out.  Sometimes that's all we can do.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been here at Fort Bragg where Jon and I spent many happy months together.  It's the place we got engaged, where I said goodbye to him before he left for Iraq...and where I was notified of his death.  Truth be told, it makes me a little nervous to be here on an installation again - I guess I should have remembered what it's like when tens of thousands of military families are all crammed into too small of a space with too much to think about and too much to worry about on a daily basis.  They complain about military life, talk incessantly about their kids, and there's always a reminder of the fact that so many families are fortunate enough to have what I'd do anything to get back.  I can't seem to win here - when I'm isolated and far from a widow-support network, I feel very alone.   But in order to be surrounded by that support, I have to return to where it hits home the most.  Heck, in two years, I'll have to go back to working day in and day out on an installation as an Army lawyer.  Sometimes I question if I can do it.  I can't take the complaining and the whining and the women who openly express their dismay at the fact that they "accidentally" got pregnant again while their husbands aren't home to help.  I want to grab women like that by the shoulders and look them in the eye and ask them to please imagine how they would feel if it was physically impossible for them to ever have children by their husband.  Realistically, which option would they really prefer?  Which one???  And does the fact that Jon and I didn't have kids because we never had the chance make his death any less tragic?  Good Lord, forgive us for trying to plan our future and being so ridiculously responsible!!


This evening I heard back from my Soldier who lost her husband last weekend - she thanked me for reaching out and expressed her gratitude at my willingness to offer my help whenever she feels ready to talk.  At the time of his death, she was also deployed to Afghanistan and just arrived stateside after accompanying his casket home from overseas.  As I read through the encouraging messages friends and family sent her over this past week, my heart sank.  The truth is that I have no idea what to tell her.  That it doesn't get easier, even after five years, because you still reach for his hand and pick up the phone to call him until you realize with heartbreaking finality for the millionth time that you can't?  That you lie in bed alone each night and wish with every fiber of your being that you could feel his arms around you just one more time?  That the tears still come and won't stop whenever anyone mentions his name or when you hear of another poor woman who has just lost her husband because you know all too intimately of her inconsolable pain?  That he's still gone and that no matter what you do or how hard you pray or wish for it not to be so, it's the one thing you can't change?  It literally makes me sick to my stomach as I think of how she must be feeling at this moment; I live and breathe it, and yet I can't take away her burden or ease her sorrow.  Only she can walk along this path that every one of us hopes to avoid at all costs.  Only she can figure out how to wake up each morning and find some peace each night and reconcile her current reality with the fact that the world without her husband is a less meaningful and far emptier place.  "Gone" is simply one of those few exceptions to the all-clouds-have-a-silver-lining rule:  the loss of a good man and a beloved husband, son, and/or father doesn't magically morph into a "good" experience from which you glean oodles of life lessons and endless wisdom.  Does it make you grow up awfully fast before you're ready?  Yes.  Does it hurt like hell in a way that nothing can possibly prepare you for?  Hell yes.  So when it comes to what to tell her, I don't want to lead her astray or put a big bow on something that can't be neatly packaged and made to look pretty.  I don't want to sugar coat reality and I don't want to do the very thing I resented when people would try to look for the "positives" in my situation, like "well, at least you have lots of happy memories" or "at least you are young enough to rebuild the life you lost."  I guess I'll tell just tell her what a fellow widow told me:  that you must find a reason to smile, that being a widow is a title you should be proud of, that you must make mistakes and forgive yourself, that you are simultaneously imperfect and amazing and shouldn't worry so much about what other people think.  And last but not least, that life is short...but love is eternal.

27. Card Dealer

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.  These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.  Beautiful people do not just happen." 

~Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

There are some days when I look at myself in the mirror and want to scream.  I look for the big sticker I think must be plastered across my forehead that says, "take advantage of me!  I'm vulnerable!"  It's not there...though for all intents and purposes, it might as well be.  What I do see, however, is the physical toll of the past few years in the deepening wrinkles that appeared across my forehead one day without warning or invitation.  I try to smile encouragingly at my reflection, but the smile falls flat and never quite reaches my eyes.  The longer I look, the more I want to smash my fists into the glass of the mirror and yell, "no!!!!  I don't want to be a widow!!"  But even if I gave into temptation and smashed that mirror, I'd still be a widow - a widow surrounded by broken shards of glass, like the broken pieces of my heart.


The latest and greatest thing that's really been getting to me is when I see photographs of my friends and their children and I can't help but think about how that should have been us.  As I stare at their happy faces, I reflect wistfully on how much I wish I could insert Jon and I's image into the silhouette of their beautiful life.  I guess the traditional happy family picture just isn't in the cards for us.  This is the hand we got dealt, but I swear there are some days when I'd do just about anything to throw caution to the wind and gamble on trading a card or two for the chance at a better ending.  Or maybe we could just go back and restart the last round so I could change a few things and beg Jon not to go out on patrol that day in April of 2007.  If only...


Another thing that drives me crazy is listening to couples fight.  I literally have to get up and walk away.  The more I listen, the more I want to yell right back at them and demand to know if they have any idea how lucky they are.  I get it - life, kids, work, stress - it all piles on and catches up to you and people end up fighting about stupid things.  But I just want to ask them if they know what I'd do to have a fight with my husband.  In our four years together, Jon and I never had a single door-slamming, glass-shattering, no-holds-barred screaming match...or anything even close to it.  But when I hear couples argue, I wish so much that I could bite his head off for something ridiculously mundane and then hold him in my arms and laugh at how pointless it was to fight about whatever it was in the first place.  Oh, to have the ability to kiss and make up - or, better yet...well, I'll let you figure out how the rest of that one ends.  


When it comes to picking on the most vulnerable and unsuspecting of players, the card dealer of life certainly seems to know how to select his targets.  Yesterday I learned that one of my Soldiers from my old unit at Fort Bragg - a sweet, selfless young woman, not to mention an outstanding Paratrooper -  lost her beloved husband to an IED in Afghanistan.  They were, from what I understand, deployed together at the time.  Until a few days ago, she was happily married to the man that represented her whole world.  Today she finds herself a widow.  I didn't know her husband, but as I looked through the photographs of their beaming smiles, the love they shared emanated from the images that will now be more precious and invaluable to her than anything money can buy.  Tears rolled down my cheeks as I realized she is exactly the same age I was when I lost Jon - twenty-two, about to turn twenty-three - and, sadly, life as she knows it will never be the same.  I pray she finds strength and comfort in the fact that she was lucky enough to find that can't-stand-to-be-apart, don't-ever-want-to-live-without-each-other kind of love - it's rare, and on the worst of days, I try to remind myself that many people never find it, much less experience it for a lifetime.  Sometimes that thought provides me with comfort; on other days, it takes everything I've got to refrain from smashing my fists into the mirror.  Five years later and I'm still reeling from the loss of my last round; I can't imagine how it would feel to only just be starting the long journey of recovery that inevitably follows such a devastating blow.  


So please, card dealer, consider this my plea:  for her sake and for mine, please give the deck a good shuffle and go a little easier on both of us in the next round...

26. The Period.

"It has been said that time heals all wounds.  The truth is that time does not heal anything.  It merely passes.  It is what we do during the passage of time that helps or hinders the healing process." 

~Jay Marshall

I'm done - done with my first year of law school.  It's strange, though - I don't have that euphoric feeling I expected to feel after finally completing something I originally started six long years ago.  Now that it's over, the hustle and bustle of the semester when I always had too much to do and not enough time to do it almost seems preferable to what remains in the sudden silence at the end of the day.  As I celebrated with the rest of my classmates, I silently raised my glass in honor of the man who got me through this past year and who represents the single source of inspiration for everything I do.  I wanted more than anything to be able to look across the table into Jon's eyes and clink my glass with his...but instead, I dug deep, put a smile on my face, and drank a toast to completing two more years of law school.  When, God willing, I finally earn my degree at what they call "hooding ceremony," Jon had better make sure he gives me a little push to walk across that stage because I have no idea how I'm going to be able do it without him.


At church last week, my pastor spoke about punctuation.  It probably sounds like a pretty unconventional topic for a sermon, but he, ingeniously, found a way to connect six different kinds of punctuation to the various ways in which religion plays a part in our day-to-day lives...if we let it.  He spoke about the asterisk and how it signifies that, even after a bad chapter, there is more to our story.  There is hope for a better future.  He spoke about the carrot and how it points up towards God to remind us of where to seek guidance when we are confronted with challenges that test our will and our patience.  And he spoke about the period, which signifies forgiveness.  He said it means putting an end to the anger we carry around inside us towards those who have caused us unnecessary pain.  When I looked at that period up there on the big screen, all I could think about was the end - the end of life, the end of happiness. It's just a tiny dot on a piece of paper, but it looks so final, so ominous.  It suddenly seemed like a very appropriate symbol for how my life has often felt since I lost Jon.  In Scotland, where I was born, they call the period a "full stop."  That's exactly what it's like, I thought:  a full stop to the life I thought I'd live, a full stop to all my hopes and dreams for the future that died with Jon.  On the day Jon left this world, it was as if someone put a full stop to my blissful ignorance and naivete and, in one fell swoop, dumped the harsh realities of life on me in the worst of all possible ways.


I know deep down in my heart, though, that Jon would never have wanted his death to represent a period in mine.  He told me that if the unthinkable ever happened, he would want me to go on in life and find love again.  Well, after the last few years, I'm not sure that I can contemplate venturing down that road again.  But maybe, just maybe, there's still more to my story.  Maybe my period is really more like an asterisk and I just have to be patient for when I'm allowed to jump to the bottom of the page to find out what happens next.  Maybe I need to remind myself to look up, like the carrot, and ask for help a little more often when the days are hard, the nights are long, and reality starts to weigh heavily on my shoulders.  Maybe the period represents a full stop to some things, but not to everything.  And maybe, for now at least, I can add a couple of dots...and make my period into an ellipsis.  

25. What is Love?

"Love - of family, of spouse, of God - is the conscious and autonomous decision to commit to someone other than self (which makes marriage a sacriment) and not merely something to produce a temporary emotional high for one's own benefit." 

~An old friend

I know what you're probably thinking - what is love? Seriously? Such a cliche question, right? I read an article with that very title this morning and had to fight the urge to roll my eyes; my first thought was, "oh, God, what could this person possibly have to say that hasn't already been said a million times before? And why would you title your article something like "what is love?" when, no matter what the most well-intentioned person may say about it, there will always be people who continue to butcher its meaning without ever really understanding it?"

So. What is it?? I think the easier question is "what is love not?" It's not a selfish, narcissistic endeavor in which one person is the center of attention and the other sticks around to make him/her feel good by stoking his/her over-inflated ego. It's not a fall-back guarantee of physical gratification when other sources run dry. It's not, as the last guy I dated apparently thinks, just a meaningless word you throw around with multiple women while insisting you're not like those "other guys" who use it to get what they want. Looking back, I have to wonder if the trips we took together, the money I spent on DS's kids, and the attention I provided were worth the effort it took for him for perpetuate the facade for so long. To garner my sympathy, he went so far as to paint himself out to be this "poor guy" who represented too much of a burden for me to bear; he'd say, "I just don't know sometimes why a girl like you would want to be with a guy like me - I'm going through a divorce, I've got kids, and I'm thousands of dollars in debt thanks to my ex's shopping habit." He'd then send me all kinds of sweet text messages and cards thanking me for continuing to stick by him in spite of all the challenges (though his cards often sounded like he copied and pasted the words from a cheesy Hallmark website). He'd tell me I was the most beautiful woman in the world while emphasizing how he'd never be able to get through everything without my love and support. Hmm, interesting. If he truly cared, is that why he said he was coming by to apologize to me for all the lies but then made some half-hearted excuse and didn't bother to show up? I never heard from him again after that.

I can only imagine the way he justifies his actions to himself and those of his friends and family who met and knew me - "oh, maybe I took it a little too far with her, but I was just being nice. She needed a friend. I actually did her a favor by spending all the time with her that I did." Um, well if I just needed a friend, why bother to spout off all that crap about me being "the one" and wanting to marry me? Why ask me when I wanted to start trying to have children together? Because that's what I wanted to hear? Newsflash: I want (and deserve) to hear the truth, however harsh it might be. He was one of those people who always seemed to have an explanation for everything (and yet, according to him, I was the one who could never be wrong) - it made me feel like even my most legitimate concerns and questions weren't worthy of his time or consideration. For example, I'd half-joke around with him that he received an awful lot of flirtatious messages from various other girls - first names only. He would respond with, "come on, Jenna. When would I have time for another girlfriend between you and the time I spend with my kids?" I let it go at that. But, as it turns out, he somehow managed to have plenty of time for a wife and a girlfriend and his kids at the same time. What's one or two more girlfriends to add to the mix? The following words of wisdom ring all too true in this sad situation: "A real man treats his lady the same way he wants another man to treat his daughter."

A few days ago, I spoke with a friend who stayed in touch with him until recently, but who has now reached her limit with his utter lack of compassion for anyone but himself. I could have lived without hearing the details of their last conversation, but as I let her vent, the one comment that did strike a chord was what he told her about his thoughts on his marriage: "I really do love my wife...but I gotta do what I gotta do." Translation: I only give a crap about her when it suits me and when it's convenient to keep up the image of the perfect, happy family, but otherwise, I do what I want with whom I want. In the words of a character from one of my favorite book series, "I [don't] like a definition of love that include[s] trysts with someone else while you [are] living with your "beloved" spouse!" Regrettably, thanks to the shining example being set by his father (or lack thereof), DS's young and impressionable son will probably grow up to treat the women in his life exactly the same way. In fact, I recall several occasions on which DS referred to his son as a "pimp." I guess it's not that surprising coming from a guy who bragged about his performance "between the sheets" and losing his virginity at the age of 13. He also used to tell me that he was "just like a chameleon - I can get along with everyone and fit in anywhere." Hmm, well maybe he should have worried less about fitting in and more about his actions revealing his true colors. Actions speak louder than words, right?

In retrospect, I should have recognized DS's M.O. much earlier on when he confessed that he and his wife had separated once before to "figure things out," and, within less than two weeks of their supposed separation, he was already sleeping with someone else (a mutual friend, no less). If he was willing to admit to that one instance of infidelity, God knows how many others there were, both before, during, and after me. But I, of course, gave him the benefit of the doubt and defended him to my friends and family when they questioned his motives. And as for his wife...well, I can't even begin to imagine how she puts up with his behavior, unless she's somehow okay with it, which is equally, if not more, alarming. What I did learn from the one and only conversation I had with her after I found out about all his lies (via Facebook) is that she's well-aware of his pattern of behavior, and yet she maintains that she loves him and will continue to take him back for as long as he'll still have her. That would not be okay with me - no way, no how (though, according to our mutual friend, he also says she "let's him get away with it," so I guess that's just the way they choose to operate).

It makes me mad when I think about the women out there who complain about men treating them badly but do nothing to change their situation; by allowing their men to come crawling back consequence-free, these women ultimately just facilitate and even encourage the very behavior they despise. I don't even want to envision what life is like in a household like that - the mere mental image of it makes me shudder. And if that's what DS calls "love," I guess I should feel sorry for him. You don't do that to someone you love; in fact, the mere thought of it should make you sick to your stomach. You don't put yourself and your needs first and you don't risk a marriage that means something - anything - to you for the sake of a cheap thrill. You don't live a double life purely for the bragging rights while scrambling to keep the details of your various stories straight. That, in my humble opinion, is the epitome of what love is not. That is also why it should come as no surprise that I've about had it with dating - why put myself through more unnecessary pain for someone who can't begin to compare to the incredible man I'm lucky enough to call my husband? In the words of my one of my fellow widow friends, I married a mountain - why would I settle for a molehill? The man I married had morals and values, and when he vowed to love me and only me forever, his promise meant nothing less than just that. Maybe this sounds a little harsh, but I'm fairly certain they save an extra-special place for people like my ex in the afterlife, if you catch my drift. Karma may never catch up to him on earth...but he can't hide forever.

I never thought I'd quote the friend whose words appear at the beginning of this entry on the topic of love, but I have to say, I think he's onto something here. What is love? Despite my initial skepticism, the article had some very profound words of wisdom to offer: "Love is action. Love is tolerance...Love is giving. Love is receiving. Love is plodding through the slow eddies of a relationship without jumping ship into another's churning rapids." Love is being able to say that you would not hesitate before giving up everything for the sake of someone whose life and happiness mean more to you than your own. Love endures the test of time, and, at the end of the day, it remains in spite of the obstacles that threaten its demise. Love, for me, is the only thing that keeps me in the here and the now, despite the fact that my beloved Jon is long gone. What do I mean by that? I mean - literally - that I would not be here if it weren't for the love that I carry in my heart for a man I know I will only ever see again in another life. I love him more every day for everything he was and everything he wanted to become. I've finally reached a point where I can take just as much pride in introducing myself as his widow as I did in introducing myself as his wife...because I love him. I loved him as his wife, I love him as his widow, and I will love him always and forever. What is love? Love...is forever.

24. Don't Cry

"Don't be so hard on yourself, 

Those tears are for someone else. 

I hear your voice on the phone. 

I hear you feel so alone, my baby. 

Oh, my baby..." 

~Seal, Don't Cry

So one of the side-effects they don't warn you about when you're recovering from surgery is how much it hurts to feel...and I don't mean "feel" in the physical sense.  Emotions like happiness and the laughter that accompanies it are to be avoided at all costs because any movement in the vicinity of my three abdominal incisions ratchets up my discomfort from bearable to torture.  I literally have to hold onto my side to reduce the pain caused by the vibrations when I laugh.  


Crying, as I discovered, is even worse.  While lying in bed the other night trying (and failing) to find some sort of position that didn't involve putting pressure on my midsection, I talked to Jon about how much I wished he was lying there next to me and found myself in tears for the first time since the doctor told me I would need surgery.  Over the past week, I've been so exhausted from the recovery process and so stressed with these ongoing exams that it's as if I've been living in a small, compartmentalized box where I don't allow myself to venture down the road of all the deep, dark, and more permanent scary emotions associated with Jon's death for fear of what will happen if I add them to the pile.  It's strange - besides having just had surgery, I can't put my finger on exactly what's going on in my head and in my heart right now.  My focus and concentration are all off, I feel panicked - almost frantic - and like I can't sit still for more than about 10 minutes at a time, and (silly though it probably sounds) I've become almost obsessed with shopping for the "perfect" summer wardrobe as if retail therapy is going to fix the other issues that I'm avoiding dealing with instead.  I suddenly don't seem to be taking any of my own advice when it comes to not bottling things up and pretending on the surface like everything is okay...maybe it's in response to the last few months of being constantly on the verge of tears and feeling every single emotion so deeply and intensely every hour of every day.  Maybe I'm just tired in every sense I can possibly be - tired from school, tired from surgery, tired from always being tired, and, most of all, tired from the thoughts that constantly cross my mind about what I'm going to do when I suddenly find myself with all the time in the world this summer - not to mention the rest of my life - and no Jon to share it all with.  Whenever friends and family talk about their husbands and wives or current relationships, I feel this uncharacteristic surge of jealousy when I sense their happiness and yearn more than ever to have what they have here on earth with Jon.  I don't know what happened to all my well-founded commitment to remaining patient until the time when I know I will see and be reunited with Jon again.  It's as if the gravity of how much time that may very well end up being is finally beginning to sink in...


I've finally planned a trip to visit Jon at Arlington later this month over the Memorial Day weekend - I'm hoping that will help.  After fearing the sight of the headstone I already know all too well for the last 6 months or so, I figured it's time to face that fear and not let it consume me.  One thing I can guarantee on this trip:  there will be much laughter as I reminisce with our old friends about the good times and there will be many tears as I sit with Jon and run my hands down his headstone because I can no longer run my hands down his face the way I wish to.  The tears will run, the laughter will flow...and maybe, just maybe, it won't hurt quite so much to feel.