This past Saturday, was the 10 year anniversary of Jonathan leaving this earthly life. I was able visit with his family and I think that was a good thing for all of us. I never thought 10 years ago my life would be where it is today. I am so grateful for the things I have learned and still have to learn.
Living with Connie was the greatest blessing in my life in my time of grief. I moved up to live with her in April of 2006. I was quickly able to find a job working at Miller Beef in Hyrum as a receptionist that worked out great with my school schedule. I also met some really amazing friends while working there too. Me and Connie shared something that I know I never would have been able to share with anyone else. We were able to understand each other on so many levels. I literally thought we would die old widows together because we had so much in common and did everything together. I tell her all the time (even to this day), that she got me through the hardest part of my life and I will forever be grateful for her and her kindness it letting me move it with her and pour my soul out to her without ever batting and eye! I loved all our late night talks, cries together, and hours of just being able to tell her how angry or sad I was and she knew completely how I felt!
While I was living with Connie, we went and talked to several other women who had been widowed in their lifetime. Some of them old, some of them not so old. The old ones we would leave thinking they don't get us, they had their spouse for most their lifetime, we only had ours for a short time and that they just couldn't relate to us in our particular situation. This is when I started to understand that grieving is so different for everyone. I hate to hear people say they have it worse than someone else in the grieving process, nobody has it worse than anyone, it is so hard on every person in different ways and every persons situation is so different, what it comes down to is losing a loved one is not easy on anyone in any way. I remember one particular lady that we went and talked to. Her situation was very similar to ours. She was married to a man at a young age in the temple, they hadn't been married very long when he was tragically taken in a freak accident. They had no children. She had remarried when we went and talked to her and had 6 children with her new husband. As we talked to her, she cried as she told us her story and her current situation. Her current husband was not active in the church, but she was confident and faithful that things will work out to the Lord's will in the next life, whatever that may be. As I listened to her, I realized it's faith that we have to have to move on and that they will always be a part of you and you will never get over the fact that they live on in your memory. One thing that always rang out with all the widows that we talked to was that with time you will heal. When widows would tell me and Connie that, we would leave there thinking whatever they don't have a clue, they have no idea what we are going through how can they even say that! Well, here I am almost 10 years later saying something similar to those widows who are just starting out on the journey of widowhood. I don't think time heals everything or that it necessarily get's easier, but I think with time you learn to live without them and you learn to carry on in life. There is always going to be that scar on your heart and some memories and thoughts will make that scar hurt and you'll still cry, but with time you will learn to live without them because really that's what you have to do, it's not easy, but eventually you will smile again and that smile will be a tribute to their life.
Connie and I decided since our husbands never got to do some of the things that they wanted to in this life, that we were going to do that for them and we traveled to lots of places that we thought our husbands would have loved to go to. One of the first places we visited was Oregon. We went to Oregon to go visit Jared and Amy, one of the survivors of the accident and his wife. My aunt lives in Oregon and is in Jared and Amy's stake and so we were able to stay with my aunt while visitng them. Jared sustained a brain stem injury in the accident and will never be the same. He can no longer walk or talk and has to be taken care of 24 hours a day. After visiting Amy and watching her take care of Jared day in and day out, I admire her for her faith and love for Jared, she is absolutley amazing!
Our next trip was to Las Vegas to the NFR. I know this was somewhere Jonathan always wanted to go. Our trip to Vegas was interesting. Let's just say both of us were used to our husbands navigating and driving (they were better at that than us), and we had people honking and flipping us off all over the place cause we didn't know where we were going! I loved the NFR and want to go back!
Our next trip was back to Vegas to watch George Strait in concert. You would have though we had the navigation down by now, but we still struggled! This was a quick trip for us. We flew down one day, stayed there the whole day that the concert was and then got up bright and early at 5 am to fly back the next morning. We were so tired after this trip because the conert didn't end until about 2 in the morning then we had to get up bright and early to catch our flight back.
Our next excitement was out to the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo. This was such a fun trip! We drove out there and let's just say Mapquest sucked at getting us to our hotel, so we had to find it ourselves, which we were not very good at! While we were in Cheyenne, we went to the Boot Barn. I have never seen so many boots in my life! Cheyenne was a fun little town that we checked some things out. We went to the rodeo 2 days and then the second night of the rodeo, we watched Trace Adkins in concert at the rodeo grounds. The Cheyenne rodeo arena is seriously the coolest arena I have ever been in for a rodeo!
This trip kind of ended our traveling for awhile because I had started back in school and I was busy working and going to school. We did take a few little close vacations to Connie's brothers house in Cedar City and we went out to Reno to watch my sister play volleyball too. On a side note about the trip to Cedar City, Connie came and picked me up at my parents house the day that we left. She was towing a horse trailer full of stuff down to her brother, but needed to get gas before we headed out. So, we stop at the gas station right off the freeway and as Connie is pulling into the pump, the trailer we are towing hits one of those cement/metal u-shape things at the end of the pumps and totally bends it over and part of the wheel well of the trailer dug into the tire and popped it. We were stuck. None of my brothers were home to help, and neither of us knew what to do. Luckily Jonathan's brother lived close in Orem and I was able to call him and he came to the rescue to help us. After our delayed repair, we were finally able to get on the road and make it to Cedar!
These mini vacations were a little bittersweet. We had so much fun, but sometimes wish that we could have been doing it with our spouses.
