Passion for Paraguay

The last two months were hard. Somehow July and part of August brought back a dark sense of despair and hopelessness. I was doing so well, at least I thought. I had passed the one year mark in April.  I was feeling renewed strength and feeling like the worst was over. Suddenly bam bam, I felt the world coming down I believe that several things contributed to my slipping back into an acute state of grief. One, grieving is cyclical as I have learned. It bytes back when you less expect it. Second, Julies birthday was in July and August would have been our thirteenth anniversary. Third, I was back in the states on a very short trip and happened to visit a few places that Julie and I would have been together on our last trip. Among these places,  is our campus at Anderson University, another was being with relatives and just being on a plane alone with no one to share my journey with, knowing that wherever I landed, Julie would never again meet me at the airport with her smile, s...

  My second anniversary without Julie Thirteen years ago last month, on a hot and humid summer morning in Indiana, in the open-air ceremony Julie had wished for, the two of us said, "I DO." For the next 12 years I shared my every day with Julie. But for the last 18 months I have been without her. While Anahi has given me a reason to get up every day, not having Julie with me has been exceedingly difficult. Julie and I always stuck together, even during the early adjustments of marriage. During our conversations, we would often agree. "Yes," she would say. With Julie, I learned that the depth of conversation develops and the shaping of character occurs only in the long run. How many couples skip out too soon, I wonder, and miss out on what their marriage could have become? Over the years, I also came to realize that marriage becomes sweeter as it ages—I loved Julie more as the years went by, and agape love began to really make sense. I remember how Ju...