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Anytime you give your heart away to another, that person is indelibly attached to you for the rest of your life. You may have broken up under horrible circumstances, but a part of you will still hold onto a piece of them. Take my life, for instance. I have been married three times. I have also been involved in several other relationships that were serious and long-term. Each one of those relationships has left their mark on me in one way or another. With my marriages, it is easy to see how. I have two children from my first, one from my second, and a fourth from my current marriage. They are the defining elements of my life.

Although my first two husbands and I could not remain married, cordial, mostly friendly relationships came out of those divorces, and they have helped to shape the way that I interact with my current husband. They are always present in my subconscious, constant reminders of things that worked and things that didn't. I may not have loved these two men forever like I once thought I would, but their constant presence in my mind serves to remind me that I still care about them.

Recently, my first husband passed away completely unexpectedly. We got the phone call in the morning, and shock set in. I felt like I was moving in a daze. I could not even think straight for my children's sake, and if it were not for my husband, I would not have been able to deal with it at all. The unexpected nature of his death brought home the knowledge that although the marriage had ended and the love had cooled and changed to something else, he was still very much a part of me, and that part needed to be acknowledged and grieved for.

I called my second husband to tell him what had happened and to remind him that he needed to go to the doctor, talked to him for a while, and then hung up and just sat there. I finally looked at the love of my life and quietly thanked him for being so strong when I was so overwhelmed. Then he smiled and reminded me that those people that are a part of our past are always connected to us, something we cannot just forget, no matter how hard we might want to or try to. We may have our differences with our exes, obviously, or they wouldn't be exes, but that doesn't mean that they cannot still affect our lives. We need that connection, whether it be good or bad, because it not only holds the layers of our past together, but it also allows us to learn and grow, and sometimes grieve when necessary.

Learn more about this author, C. Ann Cunningham.
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