I had lived through a lot in my 39 years... I experienced loss early in life when my mother passed, but I still I believed it was the natural order of things: children bury their parents.
It was March 29th 2008. I had returned home from doing Saturday errands when I got the call that my husband had been seriously injured when an IED struck his vehicle in Iraq.
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The next morning I knew I must prepare for the worst news of my life. As I sat in my living room awaiting “the visit”; I was confused. This was not the natural order of things. This father would not leave his children, this husband would not leave his wife, this son would not leave his mother, this man would not leave his family. As the Marines approached my front door, my first instinct was to slam it shut and never let them in, for then it would not be true.
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My heart sank as I looked at my four children. Without words, they knew our lives would never be the same. Gladys (3 yrs. old at the time), not understanding why, but knowing something had gone horribly wrong, began to cry with us. I heard the distant voice of a Marine casualty officer “Mrs. Hall we regret to inform you…”
As our family prepared for the arrival of my husband’s remains, the tributes to his life, and his final resting, we questioned everything: his career, his injuries, and ultimately our faith. I thought, “How did I get to this place? How did I become the statistic? This happens to other families, not ours.”
In the mist of my grief I decided to run the Marine Corps Marathon. My destiny brought me to Arlington, the place where my love lays with our nation’s heroes and presidents, the place where I said my final goodbye, the place which will forever hold a part of who I am. I stood there challenging my body to endure 26.2 miles, yet with every step and mile my heart had traveled infinitely further.
And just when I thought I had nothing left in me, I began to cry again. I sobbed uncontrollably not only because I had completed the run, not because he would miss graduations and first dates, not because he would not give away his daughters at their wedding, not because he would never see his sons grow to be the men he had shaped, not because we would never grow old together, but because I knew he had not abandoned me but in fact stayed with me through it all, and because I finally understood that knowing, loving and losing him was part of my destiny.
Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted
Luke 6:21 Blessed are those that weep now, for they shall laugh
Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peace makers, for they will be called sons of God
God Bless America, our destinies and you.
Reprinted from http://murrietamommas.com/ Xiomara Hall, owner of Tropical BBQ in Murrieta http://www.tropicalbbqtemecula.com/.
