Pancreatic cancer took my lovely wife away from me about 18 months ago. Messed me up big time. Took me way longer than the 2 weeks of grieving I anticipated, only because that seemed to me my grieving period for other deaths of family. But losing anyone that is your true love devastates all of us. Nothing worse. We search and search for answers and find none. We hurt so badly that we can focus on nothing else. All the Whys, What ifs. And the emptiness. Why is that? I spent well over a year trying my best to figure all this out. This is not an emotional loss, nor a physical loss. It is a spiritual loss. And it is this spiritual loss that overwhelms us and we suffer from it emotionally and physically. I believe that a spiritual joining happens between a man and woman. We become one. And when our true love dies and leaves us, there spirit leaves and our spirit is broken and wounded and badly damaged. So what is our spirit? It is our true self, our inner self, our eternal self, that part of us that lives on forever. Our spirit is who we really are on the inside. Our spirit is also called our man of the heart. And a broken heart is what we all have suffered. We lost the most important part of our unified spirits, and there is no pain that can compare. As much as we would like to think this pain is unique to us, it is not. This is a part of our human experience. And death is as much a part of life as life itself. Like everyone else, we never really contemplated our life without the other. And for those of us that stood by helpless as we watched our loved one wither away, instantly die or we weren't even with them when their life ended, a part of us died with them. We are broken. No doubt about it. Our faith can sustain us only so far. Our philosophies and religions fail to give us the comfort we so need. And the worst part of it all is that we must go through it to begin our healing process. And ever so slowly, we begin to grasp the reality that they are gone and not coming back to us in this dimension. We begin to search inward to find out about the "I" that we are left with, no longer the "we". And the pain propels us into deep introspection, throwing out what we don't like about ourselves, keeping that which we are comfortable keeping. And a metamorphus occurs. Some things about us from our youth return to us that were lost through all the experiences we transversed through this thing called life. We grow more connected with who we really are and we begin building ourselves a new. I like to think that my wife had completed her purposes here, had become the person she was created to be, and it was time for her to pass into a new dimension where she is free from the oppression and battles we all face in this thing called life. She ran her race to the end and ran it well. Me, well I wasn't near finished. I have a whole lot of growing as a person to do, removing layers upon layers of stinkin thinking. And I'm learning more and more about myself, who I am and who I want to be. No longer do I have her to hold me up, to be my helpmate, to be my love. No, its time I faced the remainder of my days with the realization that life is whatever I decide to make it. I can continue living in my past, or I can move forward and mold myself into the person I want to be. And once I figured out that I really didn't know a damn thing about anything, I found that inner peace and contentment I had to have to move beyond my memories of a wonderful life spent as a "we", and now forge ahead to build yet another life with the new and improved Scottie. And one day I just woke up and realized, my grief is over. My life has begun. So it is time I run my own race and get on with living. And I've come to the realization that all our experiences, our loves, our pains, our sufferings, our sorrows, are all just pieces of this amazing thing called life. And what we do with this wonderful gift of life is completely up to us in our time remaining. And there is not a one of us that knows when our end will be. So seize the day. Make the most of your time remaining. Find your passions, find new loves, create the new and improved you, live your life with no stone unturned. We must live our lives for the adventure it truly is. Our life is unique in the complexities of eternity. Take full advantage of it. And those my friends are my thoughts for now. And as I wrote a friend tonight, I'm in a good place. And all of you will find your good place as well. I promise. ~~~ Scottie