Ramblings of a Broken Heart and Clouded Mind

"We've found your husband...I'm sorry to say that he is deceased."  Words spoken kindly and gently and yet they ripped through my life like a class 5 hurricane.  Lost dreams, broken hearts...nothing will ever be the same.  How can our world ever be okay again?  How do I mend the hearts of my sweet children who miss their daddy so much and can't possibly understand why and how this happened?  How do I put myself back together enough so that they I can help them?  How do I be strong when my best friend left me permanently alone in this life?  By choice...he left of his own free will.  I understand that his mind was darkened with mental anguish, but it breaks my heart that the love I have for him couldn't get through to him in the end.  I feel like a failure and my mind races maddeningly with thoughts of what I could have done differently...desperately wishing I could go back and change things.

I realize this may have been the outcome a year ago when our family felt the full effects of my husband's mental illness for the first time.  A year ago today he left for a month, disappearing without a word.  We prayed and fasted and prayed some more.  He finally came back to us, broken, but home.  Many times over the past year he has promised me he would never leave me again, unless I asked him to.  He left, for good this time, and he promised me he wouldn't.  How does my mind even begin to process this?  He told me that last year he wanted to die and he was not going to come home.  But then he wanted to hear my voice one more time.  He was so disconnected with our world that he had no idea what I had been doing to try to find him.  That I was not angry and only wanted him home where he could get the help he needed while wrapped in the arms of his loving family. He thought he would call, and I would be angry, and he could make his permanent exit from life.  He was wrong and I am grateful for that.

I feel this past year is a gift.  We struggled, we worked hard to get over temporarily broken hearts, we talked, we laughed, we spent so much time together, we struggled some more, things were far from perfect, but we kept trying.   I tried so hard to understand what was going on inside his mind.  I knew he wasn't capable of sharing everything, so I tried to be patient with him and just love him.  Sometimes I failed at that, wanting change to come quicker.  He was my best friend.  I miss him so much. It hurts terribly, but if I was given the choice, I'd do it all over again.  The 15 years of our marriage were worth this terrible pain.  Our family is worth it.  He is worth that to me, and more.  I only wish he could have seen that.

I have faith that through the Atonement all will be made right in the end.  I know that we can be a forever family, as we always planned.  I know my children and even myself will be okay through the comfort that only the Savior can give us.  My doctor asked me today, as I sat in his office having an anxiety attack, if I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  No, there is no light and there is no tunnel, as it feels I am in a small dark place and there is no way out.  But I do believe that relief will come.  In time.  I am once again choosing faith and  not fear.  As heartbreaking as it is to move forward without my Richard, I know I can do it.  But life stretches out so long in front of me...