Remembering
Forty Years
Tonight I sat on my front porch and sobbed.
Not polite tears. Not a few moments of emotion. I sobbed.
In a few weeks, it will be forty years since Martin died.
Forty years.
Today I took three of my grandlittles on one of our Wednesday adventures. We laughed, wandered through Deseret Book—the chocolate store that also happens to sell books, according to my seven-year-old grandson—and enjoyed being together. My life is full. It is rich. It is filled with people I love.
And yet this evening, as I looked across the alfalfa field toward my beloved red barn, with the sun outlining the gray clouds in gold and silver, grief found me again.
Both things were true on the same day.
For a few moments last night, I even found myself wondering if Martin would recognize me now. Would he still know me with my white hair, aging skin, and forty extra pounds? Those thoughts surprised me, but they were real.
Grief can be like that.
It reaches into places you thought had long since healed.
Over the years, people have sometimes asked if it ever goes away.
My answer is no.
But something else happens.
Life keeps growing.
There are new babies to hold, grandchildren to spoil, books to write, people to love, and sunsets to watch from the front porch.
None of those things erase the life I had with Martin.
None of them diminish the love I have for him.
None of them betray his memory.
They simply remind me that love has never asked me to choose between remembering and living.
I can do both.
I don’t shove the grief down anymore. That only gives it more power when it returns.
Instead, I let it come like waves.
They wash over me, sometimes with breathtaking force. I cry when I need to cry. I remember what was. Then, eventually, the water recedes, and I step back into the beautiful life waiting for me.
If you’re early in this journey, or if you’ve been on it for years, please know this:
Moving forward doesn’t mean leaving your husband or wife behind.
Thriving doesn’t erase the memories.
Healing isn’t forgetting.
It simply means making room for both joy and sorrow to live in the same heart.
Mine still does.
Forty years later.
— Charlene