I’ve been trying to remember my last Valentine’s Day with Mr. Virgo. By the calendar, I see it was a Thursday. I must have been at home working in my studio because my activity log on FB shows me doing a lot of networking. Marshmallow Ranch was a business page at the time. I was exchanging info with other “makers” to reach more people. I’m sure I spent a good deal of time online that day. I probably made a lovely dinner for my sweetheart. I do remember him coming in with flowers (an orchid, maybe?) and a little heart shaped cake. I know he gave me the sweetest Valentine’s card.

I had no way of knowing this would be the last one. He was gone 26 days later.

This will be my 3rd Valentine’s Day without Mr. Virgo. Third…thirteenth…thirtieth. What difference does it make? Gone is gone. When two become one, it opens a hole in your heart, in your life…in the world. I know many to whom it is just a day on the calendar…in this case, Sunday. I know some who still can’t breathe. I have survived the first year when it felt like my brain was wrapped in gauze. I have survived the second year when my brain sizzled and burned…like a pat of butter in a too-hot pan. And now the third. The third is different. I’ve adjusted to being alone…for the most part. I no longer think about him every moment of every day, yet he lives in my heart. I no longer feel the sting of tears when I see his picture. I haven’t cried myself to sleep in a long time…yet, when I stumble upon some tangible evidence of his presence in my life, it still accentuates his absence.

I was filling out a form online yesterday. When I came to the box for “marital” status, my choices were “single”, “married”, or “divorced”. Something like that used to trip me up in the past. I can still call myself Mrs. even though Social Security says I am no longer “married”. Yet, I’m not single. I’m on my own. It made me think about the passages we go through in life. When we marry, two become one in many ways. We move over in the framework of our lives to fit another in beside us. If we aren’t careful, we get smaller so that, if we lose the one we love, it feels as though we have had half of us amputated. And in time, slowly…ever so slowly, we become more “whole”. Not the same as before. No…not nearly the same as before.

I don’t feel like half a person, most of the time now. There’s just this hole in my heart, and in my life, and in the world. I used to fill that hole with shopping, eating, busyness… Now I cram it full of stories, and pictures, and music, and lots and lots of love. I fill it with big hugs that I give away like candy. I fill it with time spent with special people. I fill it with as much fun as I can muster. I fill it with raucous laughter. I fill it with my writing. Each word I write places another stitch in the gaping wound of my heart. The hemorrhaging has been stemmed and smaller stitches have been placed. Things are healing. I promptly address little leaks here and there. And now I am trying my hand at some decorative embroidery. I’m creating a stronger heart…a kinder heart…a gentler heart from the wounded one.

I am becoming one.

❤️

“Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.”

2 Corinthians 3:5 NIV