by Donna Carroll Batton

Created on: April 09, 2011

When I lost my husband almost six months ago, I not only lost my soul mate, the true love of my life and my best friend, I lost our cherished dream; the dream of a future growing old together in our Amish rockers on the porch of our little house, nestled in the quiet woods.

Whenever I had trouble falling asleep I’d close my eyes and picture our little dream house.  I’ve built that house from the bottom up so many times I’ve lost count.  We’d have a spare room for visiting family, a garden to grow our own vegetables and flowers, a workshop for my husband to make his beautiful handcrafted wood designs.  It would be far away from any busy highways both for peace and quiet and also for our kitties to roam and play outside without worry. We both coveted the quiet, country life.

Now that precious dream is gone, along with my reason for living.  My children would take exception to that.  And I don’t, by any means, want to lessen their importance in my life.  Along with my precious grandchildren and great-grandchildren, they are what keep me going now.  But, in truth, they have their lives, full of energy and ambition and an eager eye on the future.  My future has become a cloud of sadness and uncertainty.

Now I look forward (only literally) to a lonely apartment, a place to store my “things.”  Things – that is another change in thinking for me.  Where I used to scan the Sunday ads for camping supplies, lawn and garden things and whatever else I thought we needed to enjoy life, my thoughts now turn to getting rid of “things.”  I have no desire to camp without the one who made camping so much fun for me.  I get no pleasure from sitting in the back yard swing alone.  The little campfire we made way in the back yard for our quiet, solitary moments, sits desolate and unused.

Our magnet board on the wall, full of our collection of magnets from places we visited, will never be added to.  The things we collected together before moving in with my mom are in boxes in the basement.  We sold our house in Florida to move back up north to take care of mom, who is ninety-seven years old.  Never did I think she would outlive my husband, who was so sweet and never minded us moving up here from the warm south to take care of her.  I love her dearly and we made the only decision we could have.  How were we to know that we would be denied the time to finally have our own quiet place; a place where we could grow old together.

So I grieve.  I grieve for the loss of the man who meant everything in the world to me.  I grieve for a man who was the kindest, most unselfish person I ever met.  I grieve for a man to whom “family” was the most important thing in the world.  And I grieve for the loss of our dream.

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