5 years

I am still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Jake died 5 years ago today. 

5 years.

That feels like such a long time.

In the first five years of our marriage, we both attended and finished grad school, moved to Phoenix, had 2 children and were expecting a 3rd, lived in 3 apartments and bought a home and were humming ahead with life.

These last 5 years have been much different than that. 

Rarely in the first few years did there exist a zest for life, a feeling of moving ahead, a plan for the future. 

Rather, there was mainly a feeling of devastation, a sense of total and complete loss, and more pain and heartache than I ever knew was possible. 

It is a strange feeling at 35 years old to know that your life as you knew it is over. Totally and completely over. That all you had worked for and planned on in life would not- could not- ever come to pass. 

I have a newly widowed friend that I am talking to and in our last conversation she was grappling with the pain she is experiencing. She spent the first months mourning for her husband and in the last few months has been reeling at the secondary losses she is realizing every day because of his absence. Things she did not even anticipate being hard catching her by surprise and causing untold amounts of pain at the realization that every facet of her life, of her children's lives, is and will forever be affected by the death of her husband. 

I have had many people tell me over these years that they "couldn't even imagine" what it is like to lose a spouse so young. My feeling is to encourage you to try to imagine it. And then know that living the reality is worse than even your most approximate imagining. 

This experience is hell.

But...

Time is healing. Slowly and with much work and patience and care you begin to come alive again. To start to grow out of the ashes. To rebuild and see a new life emerge in front of you. 

And now, 5 years later I am amazed by the goodness of God and by the way my life is taking shape. I feel like I have come full circle. I have a vision for my future. I have a plan and a purpose. I have new love in my heart and hope for good things to come. 

5 years later I can truly say that I am happy again, that I am grateful to be alive and that I am full of hope for the future. 

Paul teaches in Hebrews 2:18 

"For in that he himself hath suffered being tested, he is able to succor (or give relief or aid to) them that are tested."

If there is one thing I have come to know in these years. To know as a form of concrete, solid, immovable and tangible knowledge as real as the physical body I still inhabit and the tangible mortal world in which I still exist- it is that Jesus knows and understands the realities of my young widowed experience. 

He knows it because He has felt it, He bore the pain of it and He has, for 5 long years, given me the strength, the comfort and the power to endure it. 

At our most recent General Conference there was a beautiful talk addressing the question posed by a woman asking "What has Jesus ever done for me?"

And the answer to that question is the other reality I have lived with for the last 5 years. The answer that opposes and contrasts and brings ultimate relief to the hell and pain and heartache that I have experienced. 

I live with the reality that because of Jesus, I will see Jake again in his resurrected, restored and perfected body. I live with the reality that I can repent and be relieved from the weight and the sorrow of my personal sins. I live with the reality that because of Jesus, I know where I came from. And why I am here on earth. And where I am going after this life ends. Because of Jesus I live with the reality that because I suffer I have claim on the Savior's Atonement that has offered, that does offer and that will offer me the strength to bear ANY infirmity, ANY pain, and ANY heartache I may experience.

If I have observed anything through these 5 years, it is the reality there are countless people who also suffer. Who walk around with broken hearts. With shattered dreams. With unfulfilled hopes. With pain and heartache and loss of a thousand kinds.

And if there is anything I can say to you who are currently suffering- who are holding on by a fingers grasp to a very thin rope. It is to keep holding. Keep believing. Keep trusting. Keep living, hour by hour if that is where you are, with faith in good things to come. In increased strength. In comfort and help and the ability to endure. Things will get better. Things do improve. There is hope for a brighter future and healing and renewal and restoration for ALL that has been lost because of Jesus. 

I am a living witness to the reality that, as Elder Renlund stated, the Savior loves to "restore what you cannot restore; He loves to heal wounds you cannot heal; He loves to fix what has been irreparably broken; He compensates for any unfairness inflicted upon you; and He loves to permanently mend even shattered hearts." 

That mending has happened and is happening inside of me and it is a miracle. It is a true miracle!

5 years later.

And I am full and alive again.