Have you ever thought about the future and suddenly had a glimpse of what your future might look like? That is what happened to me Sunday afternoon. I had dropped Sabin off at Calvin University for a soccer camp. I came home and laid on the couch and took a nap. When I woke up, it hit me that I was looking at what my future may look like. I looked over at where the recliner used to be and it wasn’t there and neither was Ben. Before I know it, Sabin will be out of the house and it will just be me. The man I expected and planned to spend the empty nest years with is gone. My nest will truly be empty and lonely.
I try not to think about the future too much. Most days it is enough to just make it through the day. Periodically people ask me how I am doing. I never really know how to answer that question. The truth is I miss Ben more than I could have ever imagined. Often I am a wreck. Outside the walls of my home I can hold it together but inside the walls it is a struggle. If you see me out and about you may think I have it all together. But often when I am alone or at home, I am a mess. I can’t imagine many things much worse than losing the love of my life unexpectedly.
I am trying to make the best of a horrible situation though. I work for a company that gives me a generous amount of time off. So much so that I decided that this year I would take 2 full weeks off from work. We spent the majority of that time in northern Wisconsin at Ben’s family’s cottage. It was a good two weeks of time away but it was also very hard. We started out with putting Ben’s ashes in the ground shortly after we arrived at the cottage. That was hard. There was a finality to everything in putting his ashes in the ground.
People will ask what we did on vacation and I usually tell them not much. That is how our vacations have usually been. Going to the cottage is a time for us to unplug and relax. It seemed like every year Ben found a project to do while at the cottage. I think he enjoyed having a project to work on and make things better at the cottage. Last year we fought the great carpenter ant war. The year before that it was replacing the gas stove/oven with a much newer electric one as well as a new water heater. There were no projects this year. That was Ben’s realm not mine. I am not the handy person that he was.
One thing that I did manage to do while in WI was to drop my new phone and crack the screen. Thankfully I had coverage to get a new screen put on it. I set that appointment up for last Friday after Sabin and I decided that we would return home on Thursday. When I got home from getting a new screen put on my phone there was a package here for me. It was the t-shirt quilt that I had made out of Ben’s shirts. I was very excited to get it. It will definitely something that I will treasure. Although if I had a choice in the matter I would prefer to have Ben here to wear the shirts than to have a quilt made out of them to remember him by.
This week has been extra tough for me. Next week is sure to another tough week as Sabin will be gone to Pleasant Valley Bible Camp the entire week. I know he will have fun and he is looking forward to going. I will try to keep busy. I have been asked to make banners for a local Christian school again so I plan to work on that in the evenings. I am hoping to get a big part of it done while Sabin is gone. I can work on it and not have to worry about him since he will be at camp. After this week of being home alone, I realized that I need to keep myself a little busy or else I will just sit around and be in tears every night. I had planned on using this week and next week to work on the banners so it will work out well to do that. Hopefully next week is a bit cooler than it has been this week!
For the Love of Ben 