"My World is Empty Without You Babe"...Losing Loved Ones - Gains and Losses, Hits and Misses

L. B. Greer is currently semi-retired in the Southeast and has an in-home private tutoring business, but she has started writing and attending writers’ conferences, monthly local writers’ meetings, and retreats in the past two years. Although her background is in Math, Statistics, and Science, she is branching out into Christian writing as a great way to share her faith. She had two short stories in anthologies published in 2009 (Susan Osborne, ed. & Lonnie DuPont, ed.) Greer also started a periodic devotional writer’s blog in January 2009 for those needing a little spiritual challenge and insight into Greer’s heart and soul. Of course, there is a novel in the making, but it may take years to get published.

Gains and Losses, Hits and Misses

How can I define “loss” unless it’s in comparison of where I was a quarter century ago as a young woman and where I am now? Unpredictable and severe changes have occurred in my family, my faith, and my frame.

            Twenty five years ago, I was married to a career military man, and we were expecting our first baby girl. I was delayed in getting into marriage and the motherly way. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be a career woman or a married mother at home.

            After the first baby girl was born, I held her, breast fed her, and kept her happy and clean. I knew I was the one for this job. Who needs a career when you are holding life itself in your arms with blonde curly hair and beautiful brown eyes?

            Another beautiful little girl came about three years later. Life was perfect. My husband adored me and my cooking; my girls were cute as cupcakes and kept me on my toes. I was learning how to run a household and how to parent—an awesome and very challenging occupation consuming about eighty hours weekly.

            However, God had some very different plans to mold me into a modern day Job. While stationed in northern Germany, I lost my husband to suicide when the girls were three and six. My life went into a tailspin, my birth family couldn’t understand or care for me, and my in-laws turned into out-laws.

            My girls had a rough time growing up fatherless. They were never the same without their dad, and neither was I. When the last child left the nest, the first one was murdered at eight months of pregnancy. My widowed mother defaulted on an eleven thousand dollar loan from me right after I buried my firstborn child and my unborn granddaughter.

            I decided it was time to move away and start over in a new state and town. I’ve healed some each year from losses and betrayals. My remaining daughter oozes disdainful irreverence to all I hold dear, but I take it in stride. I know someday her son may treat her the same way.

            In the meantime, my faith has weathered enough storms to top Katrina ten-fold, and my frame is falling apart. Having Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue is a poker game every day of what will get accomplished. “Who cares?” is my motto. Do what you can and don’t worry about the rest.

Life has been a rough ride, and it may get rougher. My skin is leather-like now from the mileage emotionally and physically. More importantly, my soul is solidly planted inside the throne of grace. The relationship with my daughter will change with enough prayer and time. Thank heaven my body will wear out, and I will get a new model after this life.

            I have lost petals and gained some pounds, but I am a baby boomer in full bloom!