Reluctant Storyteller

If I’m going to have my life story count for something, if what I’ve gone through is going to help someone, then I’ve got to tell my story. Unvarnished.

I really want to varnish most of it, and the rest of it I want to avoid altogether. If only I wrote fiction, I could fix it so it ends better.

I don’t write fiction, at least not yet I don’t. I write about my life and my life is a mess. By that I mean my earlier plans/dreams for what my life would be like now at age 58 look nothing like my actual life. I planned on having children. We wanted six kids. My hubby and I planned on being grandparents. I planned on having a home based herbal soap business and my hubby and I planned on retiring in a few years to Paso Robles.

But in 1999 we lost twins and I was 40 and with that loss went our last chances of having children. This is the part of my story I don’t like to tell. I don’t like to think about it even. It’s an ever present grief for me and unless I share it no one would ever know. Why am I telling you now? Because our twins, a boy and a girl we named Walt and Verna, were due on Feb. 14th, 2000.

My hubby tried desperately to help me through that loss but I was inconsolable and he was not doing much better. He gets high marks for trying. I didn’t cope well, I just stuffed that grief away in order to move on with my life. Not a good idea. Grief can only be delayed I found out. It can’t be avoided forever. 14 years later when my husband died, I had to deal with the loss of my babies too, because all that stuff that I’d stuffed came out. See why I say my life is a mess? This isn’t pretty. It’s ugly and scary and unfortunately unavoidable.

We tried to become foster parents with the State of California a couple years later but we were not deemed qualified by the state (my age of 43 and our less than stellar financial situation were the culprits. And to add to our losses we had lost our home in the financial crisis and we did not look good on paper as foster parents) and we couldn’t afford to adopt. There went our dreams of being grandparents.

My hubby died in 2014 and with him also died my business and our retirement plans.

So here I am, a childless widow, writing this blog on February 14th, 2018 hoping that my story inspires others but to what end? What’s so inspiring about my story? It’s so sad.

I’ll tell you what’s inspiring! God is!

God hasn’t abandoned me. I may not have children or grandchildren but I have so many people in my life that fill that void a hundred times over!

I am a widow yes, but if I wanted to, and I Do Not, I could start dating and maybe change that.

I’ve started a blogging social media enterprise that is rapidly replacing my home based soap business dream and taking off in unimaginable ways.

I can retire some day, albeit without my handsome husband, but still, anywhere I want. Paso Robles, Scotland, the moon … of course, not really the moon.

God has given me so much in the midst of all my ongoing sorrow and turmoil. Because of all the blessings in my life I look forward to the future. That’s what’s inspiring about my story because of what God can do with it, in spite of it. He can do that for you too.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, . . .”

Jeremiah 29:11-14a – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Jeremiah%2029:11-14&version=NIV