If you have loved and lost...

"'Tis better to have loved and lost 
than never to have loved at all." 

- Alfred Lord Tennyson




I have loved. I have continued to love. I will continue to love; no matter how much I have lost. I have taken refuge, comfort and consolation in Tennyson's famous quote: "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." It reminds me that NO MATTER WHAT I have lost; I have not lost "love". I may have lost the subject, the person whom I loved, or may have lost them "for a time" but I have not lost LOVE. I do NOT REGRET LOVING no matter how painful that it had become to LOSE that one whom I loved.

Most of us have parents. Some of us even had good parents. Upright mother and father; maybe a bit quirky and not so perfect, but loving, providential and respectable. They may not have done everything right but we are thankful, like so many others, that they did not do everything wrong. I have enjoyed my parents who are both "gone" now. Today would have been my father's 90th birthday (Mom would have been 91 this coming January 18th). I miss them terribly but I don't regret anything that I did for them out of love. I regret nothing and am thankful for so much. 

I lost a child to stillbirth. That is really a loss that no one can prepare a woman to endure. That lose included the loss of my dreams. The loss of being a mother to a daughter of my own. I was going to name her Mikaela Rose (my family name as her middle name) and she was expected to be beautiful. A mixed and conflicting feeling overcame me as I learned that the child whose heartbeat had stopped just a few hours before, was a boy. A beautiful boy, I later found out after I "gave birth" to this precious child. My dreams of being a mom of another boy or girl of my own evaporated into a fog of sorrow and "loss". 

I have lost a love...one that I thought was "the one". One whom I had loved most of my life. I had lost him to mental illness. He was unable to "find himself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". Maybe, it was during this time, that I realized the value of "Singing a New Song" for so many people who did not suffer from mental illness. Unlike a person who suffers from mental illness, one who has suffered mind bending, heart wrenching and soul crushing mental illness and was beaten with verbal and emotional abuse has HOPE for healing, health and wholeness. The loss of that love reminds me of an "eternal loss" as I promised that "I would not return to him...again". I loved him deeply and I am so glad that I had some opportunity to share my love for him, with him. It was a love that mental illness stole from both of us. I don't know which is worse: having lost it or having it stolen from you. I still do not regret loving him and never will. 

Never, ever regret loving someone. Even if it is someone who did not deserve your love. You have LOVED and that is the most wonderful, the most valuable power on the face of the earth that dwells within the human heart. 

Learning to live after abuse

It's been a LONG time since my last post; nearly a year. SO much has changed in my life. I have begun to learn to live again. I separated from my abusive husband in Nov. 2009, by June 2010 I was nearly convinced that his abusive ways were unchangeable and his behavior toward me, imminent and continuing. It was in August 2010; the 24th day, that I realized and "let go" of the denial of another lost marriage; the second one. The rest of 2010 was spent in personal growth and compassion toward myself and my losses. I let go.

In January 2011, I experienced an epiphany that my life is "not what it ought to have been". There was a death at my workplace of many years; a woman tragically fell and died a few days later whom I knew since my start there in 1987, I made a drastic decision. I chose to LIVE. I realized that there was a very special man. One whom I have loved since 1982 that I cried hot tears over not having seen for over 25 years while I sat at my cubicle that day.

Why do such tragedies "have to happen" to "wake us up" to what is real and important? I am singing a NEW song. I have "broken the mold" of my behavior and not only left but divorcing the abusive husband. I will soon be marrying the first love of my life; who is not only the first but the ONE and ONLY as we have reunited. There is MUCH more to this story. There is HOPE after abuse. Life CAN be good and we only need to learn how to live without the abuse in order to embrace ALL that Life has for us.