Dear Jim,
It's hard to believe that today marks seven years since you left to spend the weekend with the kids. It's harder to believe that you've now been gone physically from my life just as many years as you were in it. I'll admit there are still days a memory hits me and I can't hold back the tears. I suppose that's a good thing.
I've heard it said that crying proves it mattered.
And God knows you matter.
Thank you for giving me a purpose and direction in my life.
Thank you for showing me how to love deeply and how to give unselfishly.
Thank you for showing me how to be happy and for reminding me I deserve to be happy.
Thank you for helping me to cope over these last rough years, for putting people and activities in my path to make me get out of my comfort zone and prodding me along even when tearing off the scab felt like it would kill me.
Thank you for everything you have done while in this world and now where you are.
For showing me that while some birds do mate for life when one is left behind and is as loyal as we were to each other that it's okay to take a leap of faith and try to love again.
And though you can never be replaced, thank you for putting a man in my path who could help me through those early years of grief and who would want to protect and care for me in a way I thought only you would ever be able to.
Thank you for shaping me into the woman I have become today and for helping me to have the strength to make it through the next journey and book of my life.
Thank you for watching over me and helping to make this happen.
Thank you for making sure that I could be blessed to be loved by a man who couldn't stand to live without me in his life and who would love me as much as you did.
Thank you Mr. Waddles, for all of this and so much more. My heart aches and overflows at the same time with words that can only be expressed in feelings.
I miss you but I know a part of you lives on in my memories and heart... even if it's time for me to give it fully to someone else.
Our story will never truly end.
Please don't stop watching over us.
The hard part has only just begun.
xoxo,
Tara Ann
