68. Who Are You?

"I will love you - and only you - until death do us part."

If you think about it, this is really a pretty crappy wedding vow. "Until death do us part" is awfully vague. What happens when death does do us part? Love transcends the grave. Life ends; love doesn't. So what happens to the person with so much love left to give and no love of their life to give it to?


If there's one thing I've learned throughout this process, it's that people have an overwhelming desire to fix me and tell me that I'll be happy again. They tell me that the happiness will be "different," but it will happen one day. Being happy again, in society's eyes, means "finding someone else." But why? What is so wrong with loving one person forever, even when they are no longer here? Even when I ventured into the dating world, my heart always belonged to Jon. You don't tell a parent who has lost a child that they'll find another child, so why do we tell widows and widowers that they'll find another spouse? It's not like shopping for new pair of shoes when the old ones wear out.


This tendency to assume that happiness - or, at least, satisfaction - has to come from another relationship is something I've certainly been guilty of myself. As I've discovered, I do have a lot of love left to give. But maybe it's just not in the cards for me to have that love come in the form of another amazing man. I already had my one great love - the love of my life. I've been a lot of things, but I've never been selfish enough to assume that I deserve two in one lifetime. Does that make me sad? Yeah, it does. But maybe I can prove to society that adopting a child and channeling my energy into philanthropic outreach projects will sustain me until the day that Jon and I are reunited. Love doesn't really conquer all - death ultimately wins every hand in the game called life. And yet this in and of itself is a double-edged sword, for it wouldn't be this hard or hurt this badly if I didn't love him this much. You don't just get rid of the symptoms of true love and expel it from your system like some temporary illness.


I hope the book I read this summer titled "Heaven is For Real" is right. It tells us that this life is just a drop in the bucket. There's so much more waiting for us on the other side of the sorrows in this world. I think that sometimes when I voice these sentiments, people get all worried and assume I only believe those things because I want to see Jon again. Obviously I want to see him again. But it's more than that. In order to survive life here on earth, I need to believe there's something more. A friend once told me that although he can't understand exactly how I feel, he can certainly appreciate how different my perspective must be when the person I love is already waiting for me on the other side. And that's exactly it right there. Like I've said before, I'll see him again. Just not yet.


In church today, the title of the sermon was "Who Are You?" In the back of my Bible, the glossary of terms defines widow as "a woman whose husband has died." As I read those words over and over, I consciously told myself that I am so much more than this. I am a dedicated wife, a heart-broken lover, a passionate advocate for our nation's heroes, and a proud Soldier. Not one of these things defines me. All of these things define me. I am not just a woman whose husband has died. I am a woman who has seen more in twenty-eight years than many people experience in a lifetime, and I am a woman whose love for my husband lives beyond the grave. My love for him is endless, timeless. To feel this way is truly a gift, though a bittersweet one. No one can take this away from me because it's not just what defines me - it is me. And although it might not fit with popular sentiment, I won't apologize for it. I want to scream it from the rooftops. No, make that the mountaintops. I am me! I am in love with a man who is gone but never forgotten!


"Jonathan" is defined as "God's gift." That gift is unconditional and without equal - a real version of the kind of gift that keeps on giving. I can't imagine my life - or my identity - without the wonders of this gift. For I am here. Here I am! And he is always with me.