102. "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!"

"This is the start of our sweet little story, the part where your page meets mine.  No matter where our tale takes us tomorrow, our story will always read love."
~Unknown

I am getting married.  Such beautiful little words, ones I never thought I would be lucky enough to see.  And yet there they are, bringing light to the life I thought had gone dark.  I am the luckiest.  With those simple words, my bubble is again restored to a place of infinite love and joy.  It is a changed place, but it is a better place.  As I embark on this new future, my heart overflows with gratitude and awe for what was and what can still be.  If this last year and a half has taught me anything, it's that it's never too late to cling to that last seemingly pitiful sliver of hope.  It's there for a reason.  Ignore it, and all is truly lost.  Hang on, and what was only a sliver can grow to become a starry universe of possibilities.

In all of our lives, we will each experience a few moments of tremendous clarity.  For me, joining the Army ROTC program after 9/11 was one.  Leaving law school to serve on active duty after Jon died was another.  Hearing a fellow soldier tell me right before we left for Afghanistan that she met her husband on a prior deployment was also one of those moments.  At the time, I didn't know why her words stuck with me, but after I met Pete in Afghanistan, they seemed to hold the promise of a life-changing premonition.  And again, just days before Pete's proposal, I felt that same sense of peaceful clarity.  I couldn't possibly have guessed what he had planned, but as I glanced across at the man I love, it was as though I could see the transition occurring right there before my eyes.  I didn't understand it at the time, and it was just a moment...but it was quite a moment.  In fact, if there's such a thing as a sign, I have to believe that was it, captured instantaneously in a few tiny, remarkable seconds.  And now here we are - embarking on a new journey of adventure and continued self-discovery that will take us a lifetime and a half to complete.  Quite simply, I couldn't be happier.

They say every story has an end, but in life, every end is a new beginning . . .

     Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end . . .

          We cannot start over, but we can begin now and create a new ending. . .

               And just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly . . .

However I choose to say it, it's time to trust in the magic of beginnings.  For too long, I focused only on what might have been, rather than on all that might still be.  Poet Robert Browning once said that the best is yet to be.  A few years ago, I would have told him he was an idiot.  Now, however, I'm more than willing to give credit where credit is due.  Mr. Browning, you are indeed a wise man.   We may never know exactly how long we have here in this world, but if we live every precious moment as though it will be better than the last, no moment will ever be wasted.  Thank you for reminding me that it's never too late for this butterfly to spread her wings and fly.

101. Who I Am

"I sometimes wish I'd never gone through this...and then I realize that if that happened, I wouldn't be who I am." 

~ Esther Grace Earl, age 16, on fighting thyroid cancer (from a YouTube video blog posted on August 8th, 2010, just a few short weeks before she lost her battle with cancer on August 25th, 2010)

As I enter the final week of my life as a law student, I find myself unusually emotional.  And no, I'm not going to be "that girl" who cries at graduation or screams "OMG I LOVE YOU!!!" to my friends at inappropriate moments, but the journey to obtain this degree began for me almost eight years ago, and so much has happened in the interim that those eight years often feel like eight lifetimes.  I'm beyond happy at having reached this point, but now, having reached it, I also find myself a little like a nervous teenager on a first date who can't quite figure out how to sit still or what to do with my hands.  I guess that's the grown-up way of saying that these next few months of momentous change prompt me to take pause and reflect on where I've been and where I'm going.

I think I should start off by stating the obvious:  when someone you love dies and your whole life implodes, it really sucks.  You lose your sense of self, of equilibrium.  Wrapping your mind around the concept of tomorrow (not to mention the dreaded future) seems blasphemous.  Nothing feels right, and although things stop moving (well, for you, at least), regaining your sense of balance seems far-fetched - impossible, even.  Funnily enough, one of the hardest parts is the fact that you have no point of comparison because there is literally no one in the exact same situation to tell you what to do next.  Yes, there are other widows, friends, and family members who understand your general emotional plight - too many, really - but there is no one else with the same history, the same relationship, and the same plans for the future.  And unlike law school (or any other linear event), there's no numerical scale on which you can somehow quantify your "progress," despite everyone else's ideas about how they think you should be doing.  There's also no magic book that will give you all the answers (especially when people say stupid things), and there's no checklist you can slog through before being done with the five interminable stages of grief.  If anything, it becomes easy to feel stunted or even handicapped when you look around and see that other women have already gone on to get remarried or have children, and here you are, stuck at stage three (bargaining) because you'd rather just skip the inherent unpleasantness of stage four (depression).

Maybe that's why you feel so out of place and so abnormal.  For some people, normal is being "healthy" because they've sick for as long as they can remember.  For other people, it's being able to pay the bills or afford a new car or find friends with the same interests.  For me, it's been the ability to fit in with the other twenty-and-thirty-something-year-olds that make up my peer group.  I've often felt so different, so old and emotionally exhausted compared to most others my age, and that's not a roundabout way of trying to claim I'm somehow wiser or more mature.  I mean that I've felt different in an outcast, pariah-like kind of way.  I just don't quite fit because I make people uncomfortable, and I make them have to contemplate the kind of worst-case scenario no one really wants to acknowledge.  I've noticed I go out of my way in certain situations to hide the things that, on the outside, will give away the parts of my story that I don't want to have to reveal to strangers because I just don't have the energy to deal with the long awkward silence that always seems to follow the revelation of my reality.

I think this is something I'll just have to keep working on because what it really means is that, despite my best efforts, I'm still a bit too much of a people-pleaser.  Leaving out the difficult parts of my story to spare others the discomfort of having to articulate a response really isn't fair - to anyone.  I understand that not everyone feels ready or equipped to handle this kind of stuff (I certainly didn't!), but maybe it's my job to help them do that.  Over the past seven years, I've noticed that we as a society are generally pretty bad at handling death and all other scary, traumatic events, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad to force people to confront their fears.  On the other hand, I also don't want to fuel any unspoken perception that I'm somehow capitalizing on what happened to me, and I don't want to be the recipient of the sympathetic "I-feel-bad-for-you-favors" often associated with being in this position (kids with various forms of childhood cancer call these "cancer perks," as I recently learned from reading John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars").  Achieving things based on my own merit and personality matters to me immensely, and I often wonder if people only see me in the context of this one very sad thing that happened to me when I was twenty-two years old - a girl whose past has the potential to become the sole defining feature of her future.

I'd like to think that who I really am (and who I continue to strive to be) is the sum of countless grueling challenges, some of which I've tackled head on, others of which I had to patiently endure until finally achieving a sense of inner peace.  Establishing the Grassbaugh Veterans Project has helped immensely to this end; in addition to providing assistance to those in need, it's taken some of the pressure of single-handedly maintaining Jon's legacy off my shoulders.  I've also lessened my grip on certain absolute ways of thinking, particularly when it comes to my happiness and my attitude towards savoring (versus just "living") one day at a time.  I accept that achieving perfect balance in my life is something I may never fully master, but I'm trying, I really am.  And when I compare where I am at this point to where I was at this same time a couple of years ago, I feel like I've been given a second chance at, well, pretty much everything.  The richness and beauty of my life as it stands today I attribute fully to my love, Pete, to whom I am eternally grateful for his acceptance of me as this person with this history.  Although I can't change it, it's what makes me "me."  I've often insisted that one person has the ability to make a world of difference, and you, Pete, are that one person in my little world.  Thank you, baby.  I know you'll read this at some point, and when you do, I want you know how much I love you with all my heart for not trying to make me anything other than the sum of my many imperfect parts.

I don't know if I'll ever truly "fit in," but the good news is that, as I prepare to embark on this new chapter of my life, I feel much less like a pariah and more like a girl to whom bad things happened but who ultimately chose life and all the good things that are still possible over a pitiful existence devoid of joy.  I think, despite searching aimlessly for what felt like forever, I've finally regained that equilibrium I lost many years ago.  It feels slightly different this time - a more informed, more appreciative, and less naive sense of self.  Or at least, that's what I'd like to think.  I'd also like to think I understand that we are all fragile:  the time we have to bask in that worldly fragility is finite and not to be wasted.  Who I am...well, that's a book with what I hope will be many more chapters.  But I'm excited to write them.  And it's been a long time since I've been able to say that.

100. Letting Go

"Cry.  Forgive.  Learn.  Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness." 

~Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Today I spoke at a very special event that included some very special individuals.  The Neil Legacy Society recognizes Planner Givers to The Ohio State University whose gifts will only be realized upon the donor's passing.  Essentially, these donors entrust all, or part, of their estate to the university without being able to witness for themselves the full impact of their contribution on future generations of students.

Today's luncheon event was designed to thank this generous group of donors.  Many of the men in attendance served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and many of the women were (or still are) spouses of former service members.  When the event coordinator reached out to me several months ago to ask if I'd be willing to attend as the guest speaker,  I was, of course, more than happy to accept the invitation.

Although some of the content of today's speech mirrored the things I've talked about at prior events, there was one very important difference.  In the past, I've often felt a sense of pressure to end my story on a happy note because I think that's generally what people want to hear.  They don't always want to confront the reality of the sad and lonely nights I spent wondering how I'd make it through to the next day, but, rather, would prefer some assurance that despite what I've been through, I'm still "ok."  I always worried that despite my best efforts, the happy ending would come across as contrived because, deep down, I doubted my ability to experience true joy again.  Now, however, I can end on a happy note.  No matter what happens, I know will be ok.  I've been through the worst of the worst, and I survived, albeit with some emotional scars.  And, as was very evident to me after I spoke this afternoon, people could not be happier to hear I have been lucky enough to find love again.  Ironically, ending on a happy note is now an effortless task because I am happy.  It's taken seven years, but gratitude and peace have finally conquered grief and loss.

Neil Legacy Society Speech

At some point in each of our lives, there is, or will be, at least one event of such magnitude that no matter what we might do in the future, we will always look back and say, “I remember where I was at that moment, and I remember exactly how I felt.  I couldn’t forget it if I tried.”  And afterwards, nothing is ever quite the same.

In my life, there are two events like this.  The first occurred when I was a senior in high school, and that event will be relatively familiar to many of you here today.  It was early September of 2001, and I was sitting in Environmental Science class when a teacher opened the door and interrupted our lecture to tell us that “something” was going on in New York City.  That was a Tuesday.  Later that same week, our nation’s leaders designated Friday, September 14th, as a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance.  That evening, I vividly recall standing outside on my parents’ porch, lighting a candle for those who had died, and feeling so affected by those tragic events, despite not knowing anyone personally who had been involved in what transpired on 9/11.

I didn’t understand my feelings at the time, but joining the Army ROTC program when I began college a few months later seemed like the least I could do.  At the time, I was not yet a citizen of this country, having moved to the United States from Scotland when I was ten years old.  Also, in September of 2002, we had not yet contemplated the invasion of Iraq, but I barely thought twice about my decision to serve.  It was the right thing to do.  It also led to more wonderful things than I could have imagined, to include meeting the man I would later marry.  His name was Jonathan Grassbaugh, and we began dating when I was just eighteen years old.  Some thought we were too young to settle down together when we did, but as many of you here know, the military forces you to grow up fast.  And as they say, when you know, you know.  I knew, and I could not have been happier.  Jon and I were married on June 9th, 2006, just a few short weeks after I became a commissioned officer in the United States Army.  It was a proud and hopeful time, and Jon and I shared many beautiful dreams for our future life together.

The second event of considerable magnitude occurred seven years ago yesterday.  At that time, I was a twenty-two year-old student at William & Mary Law School.  I deferred my active duty service time to earn my law degree and become a military attorney, but in April of 2007, I’d been having a hard time – law school is stressful, and Jon was deployed to Iraq in an area that had recently erupted in a spate of violence.  I’d received numerous casualty notification letters from his unit’s leadership informing me of the deaths of friends and fellow Soldiers, and to say that I was worried doesn’t even come close.  To make matters worse, my husband and I were still, by all accounts, newlyweds.  Whenever he got the chance, Jon would call me from a pay phone in Iraq to assure me that everything was fine and to remind me that as difficult as it was to spend our first months of marriage separated by thousands of miles, all that really mattered in the end was that we had each other.  I smiled with this knowledge but still couldn’t shake that nagging feeling that kept me awake at night, and, on April 7th, 2007, my worst nightmares became a reality.  On that day, at approximately 5:30 in the evening, two uniformed officers showed up at my door and informed me that my twenty-five year-old husband had been killed in action.  The truck he was riding in along a supply route in Zaganiyah, Iraq, had been hit by a massive improvised explosive device.  Of the five men in the vehicle, four did not survive.    

The bomb that ended Jon’s life came very close to shattering, if not completely destroying, mine.  It’s rather disconcerting to go from planning the details of your wedding one minute to planning the details of your husband’s funeral only ten months later.  I tried many different things to overcome this tragedy, though I don't think you ever truly “get over” the loss of someone who made this world a better and brighter place.  After withdrawing from my first year of law school at William & Mary, I threw myself into my Army career.  Although some people disagreed with my decision, it just seemed like the right thing to do.  I deployed to Iraq in 2008 as a Military Police Platoon Leader.  I ran races to raise money for organizations that help the families of fallen soldiers.  Eventually, I realized I still wanted to serve in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, and I applied to the Army’s Funded Legal Education Program.  I began law school again – this time here at Ohio State.  It wasn’t until the fall of 2012, however, that I realized there might still be more I could do to turn my worst nightmare into a positive good.  I realized I had the power to ensure that Jon’s personal motto of non sibi—not for one’s self—would live on into perpetuity and that I could help others in need in the process.

Here in the state of Ohio, we have a population of more than 900,000 veterans.  As I’ve discovered, few can appreciate the kind of unique legal issues these veterans often face after returning home from what might be their first, second, or even fifth deployment.  The more research I did, the more the problems facing veterans caused me serious concern.  The Legal Aid Society of Columbus is overwhelmed by a caseload that requires specialized knowledge and expertise, and, at the time of my research, there was no central location to which Ohio's veterans could go for help.

With this knowledge, I started brainstorming ideas for how to go about providing free legal services for veterans.  I quickly realized that Ohio State did not have a clinic dedicated to tackling veterans’ issues, and I decided it was time to change that reality.  I'd also reached a rough point personally in dealing with some of the issues associated with Jon's death, many of which I think I'd more or less suppressed up until that point.  My own hopelessness at how to deal with things beyond my control gave me the motivation I needed to do something more tangible with the time and resources I had at my disposal.  

On October 26, 2012, I attended a Veterans Wraparound Summit hosted by former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Stratton.  This eye-opening experience provided me with the tools I needed to understand the complexities of veterans’ legal issues.  From there, I used the models of pro bono clinics at other law schools around the country to approach the faculty at Ohio State with a proposal for a similar project.  After much discussion and compromise, we agreed on a basic structure for the program:  the Captain Jonathan Grassbaugh Veterans Project would pair veterans with law students to help them sort through their legal issues and find solutions.  Practicing attorneys – many current JAG lawyers in the Ohio National Guard – would volunteer to supervise the student work.

I donated the seed money, endowing the project with $250,000 of the insurance funds I received upon Jon's death, and the law school is currently engaged in a fundraising drive to match that amount.  Over this past year, we’ve raised almost $100,000, which means we’re now well on our way towards achieving our ultimate goal.  This money will enable us to provide a total of 2,000 hours of free legal services to veterans annually.  The Captain Jonathan Grassbaugh Veterans Project was officially launched on April 5, 2013, just two days before the sixth anniversary of Jon's death.  Four law students were selected to serve the veteran population during the project’s pilot year, and those students continue to assist veterans with landlord tenant disputes, debt crises, and default judgment issues as we speak.  Suzanne Van Horn is one of those students, and she’s here with me today.  With proactive people like her taking the lead on these cases, I know I’m leaving the project in more than capable hands, especially as we continue to pursue the goal of taking on veterans’ disability claims and appeals. 

Quite frankly, I never second-guessed my decision to pursue this vision or doubted the need see it through to completion.  I was touched by the university’s support for the concept once I was able to demonstrate how we might make it happen.  And once we got the ball in motion, it didn’t stop.  I would have been happy to see this project become a reality by the time I graduate next month.  Instead, when I walk across the stage at graduation, something I once doubted would ever be possible, I will do so with the knowledge that we’ve already started to help those who deserve it most.  We still have a lot of work to do, but the important thing is that we now have a way to ensure it will happen.  Much like my decision to join the Army well over a decade ago now, creating this project was undoubtedly the right to do.  

So, despite being cautioned against doing anything too drastic or giving away too much money, my determination to make the Grassbaugh Veterans Project a reality will, I hope, make a meaningful difference in the lives of others – others who have already given so much and sacrificed time away from their families to fight for our freedom.  This project is my attempt to identify and address veterans’ legal issues at a time when we can still prevent nightmare realities from befalling our nation’s heroes.  This is also Jon’s legacy and it’s one that will go on long after I’m gone too.  It means that my other worst nightmare will not come true – that being that, in time, he’ll be forgotten.

I’ll be honest, after I lost Jon, I thought my life was over and that I’d never be happy again.  Bad things would happen, some of which had nothing to do with Jon, and I crumbled because I thought I had been through enough and couldn't take any more heartache or adversity.  I sometimes used what happened to Jon and I as an excuse to fall apart in situations where I probably could have been stronger or made better decisions because everything just seemed so inherently unfair.  Even when things finally started to get a little better, I was still, at best, treading water.  I fought just to keep my head above the surface, and I'd resigned myself to getting by for the rest of my days without true love in my life.

But that was then.  This is now.  Finally, there is something to live for, something greater than myself.  My friends and family were right - I can be happy again, and it doesn't have to look the same as it did before for it to be just as good.  In fact, it might even be better now that I have a far deeper and more informed appreciation for what matters most in this life.  It's not as simple as "I'm a good person and, therefore, only good things happen to me."  It's taken me seven years to realize that, but I think I finally understand that it's true.

I mentioned earlier that Jon was one of four men who died on April 7th, 2007.  In that same truck, however, was one man who, by some miracle, lived to see another day.  His name is Staff Sergeant Bobby Henline, and despite being in a comma for two weeks, undergoing over fifty surgeries to treat his injuries, and sustaining countless scars from third-degree burns, Bobby’s approach to life since that terrible day has served to remind me that it’s never too late to take the plunge and do the right thing.  I am proud to call him a good friend, and I’d be remiss if I failed to emphasize today how much Bobby gave me hope at those times when I felt incredibly sad and defeated.  As the sole survivor of such a horrific event, Bobby could have given up and accepted his lot in life, but he didn’t.  He could have resigned himself to a life of being different, and he could have withdrawn from the stares of the rest of the world, but he didn’t.  Instead, he puts himself out there in front of people every day, and he makes them laugh.  He’s now part of a small and very special group of veterans who tour the county and perform in comedy shows that use humor to tackle the complex issues survivors face.  For veterans like Bobby, it’s like a unique form of therapy.   What’s more, Bobby does it with such grace and humility.  When I ask him why he fights so hard to remain positive, he says he does it for the men who didn’t make it that day, including Jon.  In moments of weakness, I often tell myself that if he can do it, I can do it too.

Today I take my lead from inspiring individuals like Bobby Henline.  I take comfort in the fact that I live in a great country with people who believe in things like freedom and equality.  I'm healthy, and I have a promising career as a Judge Advocate with the 82nd Airborne Division ahead of me.  I have a supportive family and wonderful friends who put up with me, even when I feel like I'm too busy to breathe.  I'm almost done with the law degree that's now taken nearly eight years to complete from start to finish.  The Grassbaugh Veterans Project officially has clients.  People seem to want to hear the story of how I got to this point, and when I tell them that story, I feel a kind of peace that I once doubted I’d ever feel again.

Also, on a more personal note, I’m happy to say that I’m in love with a wonderful man who treats me like the most important person in the world.  We met, of all places, in Afghanistan.  It’s funny, last year when we officially launched the Grassbaugh Veterans Project, I gave a speech much like this one, and in it I said that I did hope at some point, albeit selfishly, to find love again.  I said I think we all deserve to be with someone who would happily move heaven and earth just to see us smile.  And I also said I doubted it would ever happen again for me.  Luckily, however, I was wrong about that.  I literally get chills when I think about how fortunate I am.  I've never been so happy to say that I'm glad I was wrong - happiness after heartache is possible.  In fact, this kind of happiness is perhaps the best kind because it's the result of slogging through a lot of bad to get back to what's good.

Last week, I was in Washington, D.C. for a national conference on law schools serving veterans.  I met many wonderful people, all of whom are, in many ways, just like me – they believe it helping those individuals who have put everything on the line to serve us.  While I was in DC, I visited Arlington National Cemetery where those who paid the ultimate sacrifice are laid to rest – including Jon.  At Arlington, Jon rests among many heroes who believed in the importance of selfless service and gave their lives to that end.  Each of these heroes represents just one person, but one person who meant the whole world to their loved ones and left a lasting impact during their short lifetime.  President Abraham Lincoln said that it’s not the years in a life – it’s the life in the years.  Jon didn’t have the luxury of many years, but he was one person who managed to achieve so much and represented so many wonderful things:  he was an Army Ranger.  A Patriot.  Leader.  Friend.  A loving husband and brother.  He made me a better person – and he still does.

I won’t ever forget those two events of great magnitude that brought me here today, and I won’t ever stop fighting the good fight for those deserve it most.  I thank each and every one of you for helping me in that fight, because I cannot go at it alone.  This is something that requires all of us.  To all of you who have committed yourself to answering our nation’s call, thank you – these are uncertain times, and we all owe you a debt of gratitude for your willingness to bear the burden of that uncertainty.  To be a part of that group – here at this great university, in the state of Ohio, and beyond – is a privilege for which I will be always be grateful.  Thank you.

99. Christmas: Once Again, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

"It's the most wonderful time of the year.
There'll be much mistletoeing,
And hearts will be glowing
When loved ones are near . . . "

Until December 25, 2006, Christmas was always my favorite holiday.  I loved the music, the lights, the food, and, most of all, the idea of one day when friends and family could put aside their differences and laugh together without restraint.  I always associated the holiday with freedom from responsibilities - school was out, work was on hold, and for twenty-four hours, I could escape from the tightly-wound ball of perfectionistic tendencies that dictated my everyday life.  At the age of twenty-two, I embraced Christmas with the same enthusiasm as when I was little and found myself too excited to sleep.  Back then, I'd pass the long hours until morning listening to tape recordings of books like Roald Dahl's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" until my parents finally allowed my sister and I to race downstairs, open presents, and read "Santa's" letter cautioning us to be good again during the upcoming year.

That all changed on December 25, 2006 when, unknowingly, I said goodbye to my late husband, Jon, for the last time.  He had been at home on R&R from Iraq during the two weeks leading up to Christmas, and Christmas day just happened to be the date he was required to return to his unit.  I always describe that last moment I saw him as being somewhat surreal and unsettling - he turned his head back toward me, flashed a big goofy grin, and then he was gone.  But he'll be back, I told myself.  And soon...right?  In theory, things were supposed to get easier during the second half of his year-long deployment; we were on the downslope, and although Jon always told me he didn't like to count the days (that was bad luck), reaching the six-month mark represented a milestone...and, for me, a huge relief.  As it turns out, of course, it's not that simple - there is no safety zone in a place like the one to which he had to return, and over the next several months, many good men lost their lives there.  I was twenty-two, life was just beginning, and as we said our goodbyes, I naively believed the worst of it was over.  Oh, how wrong I was.

We didn't have Skype or anything like that back then - just email and photos - and as I watched him disappear down the runway, I mentally prepared myself for the fact that the last couple of weeks of precious memories would have to sustain us for the remainder of the deployment.  No amount of preparation, however, could have helped me face what would ultimately amount to a far longer reality.  As you might imagine, Christmases after that year were always among the most dreaded of days.  It should have just been another hard date, but I always found myself haunted by what I now knew was the last fleeting moment I'd see him alive.  How can a person go from being so happy and vibrant and alive one minute to being dead and gone the next??  Part of me wanted to bottle up a mental snapshot of his face in that moment so that I'd never forget the sight of it while the other part couldn't stomach the sickening feeling I got whenever I realized that moment was it - the last one.  For the first couple of Christmases, I think I was still somewhat in shock...then shock turned to sadness, anger, trepidation, and finally, back to sadness when I finally started to deal with many of the issues I'd tried to push aside for years.  To say I was stubbornly opposed to the possibility of enjoying the holidays again would be an understatement.

As I've finally realized and learned to accept, however, Christmas is just another day.  Sometimes it might be a day full of joy and laughter and togetherness, and, as many soldiers can attest, sometimes it might be spent many miles away from home in a combat zone.  For me, this Christmas was a blissfully uneventful and relaxing occasion during which, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I felt peace.  Ah, peace...such a wonderful, elusive thing.  After years of yearning and searching for it, I finally seem to have found it.  I spent the day doing a whole lot of nothing with the man I love and feeling immensely grateful for his unquestioning acceptance of who I am, complicated past and all.  He is, in every sense of the word, my partner, and I'd be absolutely lost without him.  We laughed, cooked together, ate Christmas dinner, and made plans for the weeks ahead.  I can honestly say it doesn't get much better than that, nor could I have asked for more.  Christmas doesn't have to be the big, boisterous, shiny occasion it was when I was a kid for it to still be as perfect as anything ever gets in this life.

I guess I must have been relatively good this year because the gifts I can neither appraise nor quantify have been plentiful.  The greatest of all these gifts is, without a doubt, love.  Thanks to love, I can now look forward to future holiday seasons with a smile.  Thanks to love, Christmas is once again one of the most truly wonderful times of the year.  And thanks to love, optimism and excitement have taken the place of stubborn opposition to holiday happiness.  To simply call myself "lucky" doesn't do justice to this new reality; it fails to pay proper tribute to what is nothing short of a major turning point in my life.  For the first time in years, the thought of a "happy" new year doesn't seem so far-fetched...in fact, I'm looking forward to it.

98. Happy…to be wrong

"I'll never love again . . ." 

"It's not possible for me to ever be that happy again. . . " 

"My life is over - I've already had the best this world has to offer, and I lost it all before the age of twenty-three . . . "

These were all phrases that became a crutch for me after I lost Jon, a fall-back when life got hard.  Bad things would happen, some of which had nothing to do with Jon, and I crumbled because I thought I had been through enough and couldn't take any more heartache or adversity.  I sometimes used what had happened to Jon and I as an excuse to fall apart in situations where I probably could have been stronger or made better decisions because everything just seemed so inherently unfair - life doesn't give a shit about my happiness, I thought, so why should I care about doing the right thing or aspiring to great things when it doesn't really matter anyway?  I could cure cancer and then get hit by a bus the next day . . . you can call it karma, or maybe it's just another example of our complete and utter inability to exert any control over the things that really matter - things like people . . .  and love.  Those are the things we cherish at the end of the day, and those are the heartaches that cut the deepest.  Even when things finally started to get a little better, I was still, at best, treading water.  I fought just to keep my head above the surface, and I'd resigned myself to getting by for the rest of my days without true love in my life.

That was then.  This is now.  Finally, there is something to live for, something greater than myself.  My friends and family were right - I can be happy again, and it doesn't have to look the same as it did before for it to be just as good.  In fact, it might even be better now that I have a far deeper and more informed appreciation for what matters in this life.  It's not as simple as "I'm a good person and, therefore, good things happen to me."  It's also not as straightforward as "I did a bad thing, and now I deserve to be punished."  Bad things happen to good people.  They happen all the time.  It doesn't work in that tit-for-tat manner to which we often cling when we seek an explanation for the inexplicable.  We like that model because it's logical and coherent . . . but that would imply there is some logic or coherence to life, and there simply is not.  It's taken me over six years to get that through my stubborn skull, but I think I finally understand that it's true.

Today I find myself living in a great country that believes in things like freedom and equality.  I'm healthy, and I have a promising career ahead of me.  I have a supportive family and wonderful friends who put up with me, even when I feel like I'm too busy to breathe.  I'm almost done with the law degree that's now taken nearly eight years to complete from start to finish.  The Captain Jonathan D. Grassbaugh Veterans Project officially has clients.  People seem to want to tell the story of how I got to this point, and they smile with happiness at what represents a "good news story," rare though those are in the media these days.

Most importantly, I am desperately head-over-heels in love with a wonderful man who treats me like the most important person in the world.  He makes me laugh like a hyena and has this uncanny way of finishing my thoughts before I can even get the words out.  Whenever things get a little rough, he reaches over to squeeze my hand, and on the mornings we're not physically together, he makes it a point to wake up first so that I always have a sweet "good morning" message waiting for me.  He tells me every day how happy he is to have met me - in Afghanistan, of all places.  It doesn't get much better than that, and for all those things I am most grateful.  I literally get chills when I think about how lucky I am.  I've never been so happy to say that I'm glad I was wrong - happiness after heartache is possible.  In fact, this kind of happiness is perhaps the best kind of happiness because it's the result of slogging through a whole lot of bad to get back to what's good.

If you look up the definition of happiness, it's described as a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions, ranging from contentment to intense joy.  If you ask me, though, it's so much more.  It's mental, emotional, and everything in between.  It's hard work, it's perseverance, and it's often the product of blood, sweat, and, ironically, tears.  I'm just happy to say that, for me, far more of those tears are happy ones these days.  There will be more challenges and more adversity, I'm sure.  There will be other times when I feel like the world has turned against me and refuses to cut me some slack.  But when these things happen, I'll try to remind myself to smile and recognize that this too shall pass.  The happiness that comes after the storm is well worth all the rain.