“We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world – the company of those who have known suffering.”

—Helen Keller

They say it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. If you would have told me that 11 years ago I probably would have rolled my eyes and walked away crying… because 11 years ago I lost the person who helped me learn to love again.

I met Chad shortly after the break up with my ex. He was going through a divorce at the time and we seemed to bond over relationship problems. I was completely closed off and not interested in anything new or serious. I am pretty sure he felt the same way. However, over the course of a few short months we fell in love, moved in together, and began talking marriage.

The ‘M’ word was huge for me. I had absolutely no plans of getting married and having kids, but something about Chad changed that in me. Life seemed to move pretty fast around us as we started to think of our future together.

I like to describe this part of my life as the color yellow. Everything was so bright and loving. It was an exciting time. I had never had a relationship like this and I wanted to cherish every moment. For the first time in a long time, I was in a relationship that was enjoyable. I was finally able to breathe.

December 11, 2011 Chad asked me to marry him while we were eating dinner onboard a cruise ship. I, of course, said ‘YES’ and as soon as we returned home began planning an April 2012 wedding.

On January 12, 2012, I received an early morning call from an unknown number. Chad was out of town working and I answered it thinking it may be him. It wasn’t. It was one of his friends and co-workers telling me that he had been in an accident and was being life flighted to a nearby hospital. After getting what little details he had, I jumped up, threw on some clothes, and started the 3 hour trip, driving as fast as I possibly could.

I was halfway there when I suddenly felt like it was hard to breathe. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t catch my breath and I had the heaviest feeling of dread wash over me. I immediately called the hospital to ask for an update. When the chaplain got on the phone I knew something was very wrong.

The chaplain told me that Chad had passed away during surgery. I couldn’t believe what he was saying to me. I just knew he had the wrong person, that he had somehow mixed up the patients and Chad would be smiling at me as soon as I walked into his room.

That was not the case. When I arrived to the hospital the grief counselor met me in the waiting area and brought me into a room to talk to me. After several hours of begging to see Chad, she finally relented and brought me to him. The second I saw the tattoo on his arm I knew there was no mistake… it was him.

I was in complete darkness. I was numb to everything around me. I had no feelings other than grief and pain. The world around me had suddenly faded into complete blackness.

Chad’s mom had to drive me home from the hospital that day. I was in no condition to carry out any task, no matter how minuscule. My dad met us at our house and then drove me an hour and a half to my parent’s home, where I ended up staying for a while. For the next week, my parents drove me back and forth to Chad’s parents house every single day while we planned his funeral.

I needed to feel like I was doing something. I needed to be busy. I needed to feel close to him anyway I could. I held onto anything and everything that gave me some memory of him.

After the funeral I decided I needed to be in our home. In our bed. In our space. I would end up locking myself in that room for a month. The only time I would leave was to go to the cemetery to visit Chad. I was so lost in my heartache that I didn’t eat, I barely slept, and I pushed everyone away as far as they would let me.

It wasn’t long before I was forced to go back to work… back to life… back to the world that continued to turn while mine was falling apart. I was heartbroken, angry, and confused. The grief I felt overshadowed every other emotion I could have possibly thought of feeling and I was on the verge of letting it eat me alive.

During this time, Chad visited me in my dreams on two separate occasions. Each time it was like he was telling me that he was okay and that he didn’t want me living the rest of my life this way. I didn’t think I was ready to face the world alone without him but I also didn’t have much of a choice.

Soon after returning to work a coworker asked me to be her plus one to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Cookoff. I hesitantly said yes. I wasn’t sure what kind of mental or emotional state I would be in but I felt like I needed to at least try. I could always leave if I wasn’t into it, right?

I went. I smiled. I laughed. I had a good time. But I was also drinking… a lot! I was never a big drinker in the past, but this new found ‘medicine’ helped ease the pain long enough for me to catch my breath. It was like the grief was an ocean of pain, constantly pulling me under, making it nearly impossible to lift my head above water and catch my breath. The alcohol seemed to be a make shift life raft, allowing me to get above the pain just long enough to take a breath, only to be pulled back under as soon as the tide came rushing in again.

This is how I began coping with my grief. I began saying yes to anything and everything I was asked to do. Even though I have some great memories from these spontaneous trips, they were shrouded in alcohol. I could be found at the bar every night until 2am and would turn around and head to work by 6:45am six days a week. I was reckless and rebellious. I would jump on the back of stranger’s motorcycles after leaving the bar and ride all over town just to see if the thrill would make me feel something, anything, again. It never did.

I was acting completely out of character and it was beginning to worry my family and friends.The problem was I felt dead inside and I had no intentions of worrying about anyone else’s feelings but my own. That was until I found out I was pregnant.

[This is the time of my life that I am not proud of, but I have to believe that everything happens for a reason.]

It wasn’t Chad’s. It was the random guy I had been using to help try to fill the hole where my heart once was. We had been hooking up randomly after the bar here and there, neither of us were looking for anything more than what it was, and now I was supposed to raise a child with this person?

To say he was less than enthusiastic about this new situation is an understatement. He wanted me to ‘get rid of it’ and so graciously offered to drive me and pay for it. But this was the first time since Chad had left me that I felt any emotion other than anguish and I wasn’t letting it go. I finally felt alive again.

I had made up my mind that I was going to raise that child on my own. My emotions were everywhere. On one hand I was excited about the possibility of becoming a mom and having someone to care for but on the other I was heartbroken and embarrassed that it wasn’t Chad’s baby I would be bringing into this world.

All of those thoughts and feelings were in vain, however, because at 8 weeks pregnant I suffered a miscarriage. It was like my heart was already raw from loosing Chad and now someone was taking a cheese grater to it, making it bleed out in agony. I was slowly dying inside and I was too embarrassed to tell anyone what was going on.

The Recovery

It wasn’t easy starting the process of putting the pieces back together. Here are a few things that helped me through the grief.

I got professional help. I began seeing a therapist who helped put things into perspective for me. Although I continued to use alcohol as a coping mechanism for longer than I would like to admit, eventually I decided to face my demons head on, sober. Having a mental health professional in my corner was a game changer.

I spent more time with my family. My family welcomed me with open arms. They did anything and everything I needed to help me feel better. I spent many a hours on the back of a horse with my brother and sister by my side. I have always felt that horses can see into our souls and know our emotions better than we do. The horse therapy was exactly what I needed, having my little sister and baby brother with me along for the ride was just icing on the cake.

I began to openly tell my story. I started talking about Chad more. Some days I would cry when I talked about him and other days I would smile as I remembered all of the great times we had in our short life together. Some people knew about my miscarriage but few knew all of the details. Letting go of the fear of being judged for my past allowed me to make room for the love and support I received instead.

I gave myself time and grace. The healing process did not happen overnight, nor did I want it to. It has taken years to be in a place where I can accept the circumstances I was given. It has taken years of trying to find the balance of allowing myself to grow while still holding on to the innocence of the girl I once was. This is an ongoing process. You’ll just have to stay tuned to see how this one works out.

My advice for anyone who has ever lost someone they truly love: Grieve at your own pace. Take as long as you need to work through the emotions, but do not allow yourself to stay in that moment forever. As I have always said, “You never move on, you just move forward.” Keep moving forward.