Salvaging the Broken Pieces

A year ago today I wrote about feelings my husband was having about his chronic illnesses, his abilities and/or disabilities and his future. It was less than a week before his dialysis access clotted off, which was the beginning of months and months of complication after complication for him....

Bringing us to where we are now. (I realize I still haven't given you all a clear update on how Mark is doing. Will work on that.)

At the time I shared:

...while he's happy for me to get the opportunity to do a little traveling, he is also jealous because he doesn't think he'll ever get to. He went on to say: "Nothing is going to get any better for me. It's only going to get worse.

It's like he knew what was coming.

I confessed that I couldn't argue with his statement and:

That harsh reality had me sitting on the floor, bawling my eyes out. It breaks my heart into a thousand tiny pieces.

But I still thought maybe he could simply work on staying positive. And sure, one can always strive for positivity over negativity, but hell, all anyone need do is tally up everything he's been through over this past year -- since I wrote that post -- and see that he was right.

Honestly, he's still doing better than some might, even if a little more negativity is creeping in.

Now? Pieces of my heart continue to break. I find myself thinking back to how Mark used to be a lot these days. If I miss the way he used to be, of course he must too, and probably even more.

My poor eyesight is a legal disability and I've known many people with disabilities, so I know that human beings are adaptable....

But it's not only my (or any one's) heart that breaks over all the struggle. It is all the bits and pieces of his and our lives that are slowly being chipped away.

We're left with wading through the losses and grief, searching for the salvageable broken pieces of our hearts, and the pieces of our lives that have fallen away, to pick them up and try and build something new.

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