Be Careful With Your Words

When someone you love leaves this earth, you are shattered and life as you know it will never be the same.

Not sure why this is on my mind and heart tonight, but it is, so I’m writing about it.

Typically when someone passes away, you hear everything good about that person. Regardless of how they lived their life, you begin to hear in what people say about them, things that make them sound like a saint. Well, no one is perfect and no one’s life can measure up to that picture that is painted.

Having said that, there isn’t any good reason to speak poorly about someone who is no longer here. My Jonathan would be the first to tell you, and he did while he was here, that he had flaws. He spoke more openly about them than most, usually to help someone else. So, I have never spoken about him like he was perfect. I have sometimes talked about his struggles and things he went through, when appropriate, to help someone else or to teach something to our kids. But, as his wife and as the mother of those children, it is my place to do that.

This past year, my kids have learned some things about their father that don’t put him in the best light. Some of those things were things that I chose to tell them because I knew it would help them. Other things were told to them, things that I chose for good reason not to tell them; yet. Some of the things were absolutely not true. So, I had to speak to them about all of that. Things that I wasn’t ready to say, things that I maybe never would have said. I also had to clear up the things that were not true.

It is never good to gossip about anyone. We are all guilty of that sometimes, including myself. But to gossip about someone who is no longer here, and then to take it upon yourself to share those things said with his kids is never okay.

No one will ever know what I have had to go through with my two children. Helping them grieve the loss of their father. Helping them live day to day without someone that was such a big part of their every day lives has been more difficult than anyone could know. It has been 6 1/2 years since we lost him and it is still a daily struggle for the three of us.

I am given unsolicited advice from people who will not understand unless they have gone through what we have, regularly. I have heard things like: It has been long enough. It’s time to move on. I could go on and on. They are said by people who care, people with good intentions, but it still doesn’t make it okay.

We will never move on. There will never be a day that we don’t miss him and wish he was here. There will never be a day that comes where we are over it and it should all be okay. It’s just not that easy and it is not realistic. We not only want, but we need to talk about him. We want others to talk about him. It’s important for us, especially my kids, to know that he hasn’t been forgotten.

There is so much more that I could say but I am going to stop here. Moral of the story is this… Think about what you say before you say it. Understand that your words can have life altering consequences when heard. Especially by the loved ones of someone that is no longer here.

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