My high school sweetheart, my partner for 18 years, father to my three children, confidant, and best friend, was gone so suddenly, I couldn’t grasp the new reality I was forced into.
But my children needed me, and though grief sometimes threatened to drown me, I pulled away from the choking darkness of loss, to be strong for them.
I thought maybe I wouldn’t be able to write again: After all, I had lost MY happily-ever-after, how could I create one for my characters?
But I have come to realize that just because the love story I had with my husband ended, in a way I never anticipated, didn’t mean it wasn’t real, true, and full of love. It didn’t mean I couldn’t still believe in it, hope for it, write about it, find it again.
On the contrary, it meant I knew what it took to find it, to create it, to keep it, to nurture it, to survive losing it. And it has made me a stronger woman because of it.
I have always believed that everyone deserves a happily-ever-after, and that some love stories are born in the dark.
Now, I can say, that some love stories rise from the ashes of another story, and though it may be different, it is still love, it is still deserved, and it still breathtakingly wonderful.
I urge you all, no matter where you are in your journey of life and love, to never stop believing in that happily-ever-after, whatever that story means for you.