Everyone needs a Hero

   My mind has been a blank for the last month.  I guess I have done pretty good at protecting my heart.  I am really not sure.  It's a feeling I really don't like.  It's more like I have no feelings.  I don't get mad, sad or happy. I'm just going through the motions, doing the minimal things I need to do.  I join the gym last month and I've been a few times.  I just can't seem to get motivated by anything.  I have things I want to do around the house, but then I just go hmmm. May be tomorrow.   Then tomorrow comes and I say, well maybe Monday.  It's not like I feel hopeless. I just feel numb.  

  I've been thinking about what Em would tell me.  I don't think she would be happy with me.  She would
be telling me to get up and do something.  Do the things you had planned.   I laugh at that last sentence.  Why? Because the last 2 years certainly have been nothing like I've planned.  I try to read my bible and I'm so confused by it all.  It says he knows my destiny.  He doesn't cause pain, but I'm supposed to be a better person because of it?  I don't know how I become a better person with all this pain. I talked with a Mom just last week that has just lost her son and she said, "I don't think I will ever have that true feeling of happiness again".  I agreed with her.  Do I have moments of joy, yes.  But that feeling where you want to dance to the music, or sing along with the song, no.  I haven't had that feeling since Em left.  Maybe one day I will, but for now, that remains to be seen.

 What I truly find sad is that I never really knew how strong Em truly was.  I think that probably happens to a lot of us after losing someone.  But I tell my therapist just what a truly amazing young woman she had become.  Yes, I did know that, and maybe I just never thought about just how hard she struggled for so many years.

She stayed in an abusive marriage, and blamed herself for not making it work. She turned to drugs and alcohol to deal with the verbal abuse in her marriage.  She came back home where she was embarrassed, no job, and no money.  But she didn't pity herself, she got up, found a job and got sober all on her own.  Yes, Don and I were here to support her.  As parents, many would say, she was on her own, but I guess if you've never been there, you truly don't know what you will do.  Don and I both realized that at that moment, she never chose to end up there.  Circumstances pushed her there and I didn't blame her and would never have left her out in the cold.

I tell people that every lesson Em learned, she learned that hard way.  During her recovery, she did not want to take any medication.  So like many, she started smoking pot for her anxiety.  Then one night she got stopped and arrested for possession.  She spent 15 hrs in jail.  Thankfully the judge was easy on her, she got a years probation and a $1000 fine.  Don and I told her that she was to be responsible for keeping on the straight and narrow and pay her fine.  During that year, she worked hard and finally finished her probation and paid her fine.

After that, she was able to move to Gainesville with me.  She had come so far.  She found a job that she excelled at and loved.  But God had other plans for her.  I will tell you that I will never meet another woman that was as strong as she was.  I think she looked for a hero and I'm sure Don was a hero to her.  Everyone needs a hero, and I can say, she's my Hero.