A Letter to my departed Husband

 2018

I saw your name and email today on Family Search. I evidently was following you in some work you had done for a family member. I saw your name and it stopped me in my tracks. I clicked on your name just to see what it would bring me. A box popped up with your email. It asked me if I wanted to send you a message. I had to pause. Oh, how I wished that I could. If only I could just send you a little message now and then. That started me thinking, what would I say, if I could send you a message? 

  I think I would start off by telling you how very much I miss you. I think you know how very much I love you. But I don’t know that you know how much I need you and miss you and long to be with you. It truly physically, mentally, spiritually hurts in every way imaginable not to have you close. To know that you aren’t coming home tonight and won’t be coming back for a very long time. I can’t even bear to think about how long it will be. It hurts too much. I have got to just take this one step at a time. I think it might consume me entirely and cause me to shrivel into a lifeless, useless pile of dust if I were to try to look ahead at an entire remaining life without you. I must live one day at a time. 

  I would tell you how lonely I am for you. How I am not complete without you. And how exposed and unprotected I feel. I have no one to hug and tell me that everything is going to be alright. And even if someone tried, it would not be consoling to me. Your hug and your embrace is the only one I long for. The only one that regenerates and rejuvenates me. I have no one to tell me that they love me and think the world of me, when I am being a stinker and don’t deserve it. You always had a way of telling me that I was your sweetheart or making me feel sweet even when I was really being ornery. It made me want to try harder to be sweet, as you seemed to think I was.

  You were always so very good to me. And so very good for me. I needed you, even without realizing it for a while, and forgetting sometimes. But you were exactly what I always wanted and needed. Your imperfections, which weren’t many, made you seem to think that you were lesser in some way and I was greater. But it simply was not true. I just sinned differently than you and had different weaknesses and flaws. And you were more than my knight in shining armor, my shield and my protector. You were my shining example, my strength, my light, my friend, my love, my delight. I only wanted to ever be with you. Our children are a joy and blessing, but my dream is unfulfilled without you. You are my main star. You are the one I looked forward to spending a lifetime being close to and an eternity together. You are the man of my dreams, my hope, my wish, my everything. 

  It seems like we had only just begun. We had so many yet to be lived dreams. And so much to look forward to. I know that we would have made it happily to our fiftieth anniversary. We would have made it happily to our hundredth and thousandth anniversary. We were just so happy being together, thick and thin, richer and poorer- mostly poorer J, sickness and health. We worked well together. We were great together. I am only one half of a super fantastic team. 

  I know that you agree. I think you know that I think of you often. I think you think of me too. Maybe not quite as often, as you are probably much busier and happier than I am here. But I will try to keep busy and happy as you would have me. I strive to come through this ordeal as sweet as you made me. It’s not easy. But Thank you for the inspiration. Thank you for the wonderful life. Thank you for the hope of a beautiful eternity that I know of course is only possible through our Lord and living Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for being so good. Thank you for your awesome example. Thank you for this precious family. Thank you for always being there for each of their births and for each one of them. Thank you for being such a fantastic father. Thank you for loving God and always putting Him first. Thank you for your relentless service to God, family, country, and others. Thank you for being such a happy, fun-loving, kind-hearted, all around best kind of guy. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for everything.

  I continue to pray for you. My yearly favorite Christmas wish is that you come back to me soon. I love you forever! And look forward to an eternity of loving you and serving alongside you again. 

  God Bless and Be With You Always!