What Happens When You Lose a Soul Mate?

Angelique closed her sketchpad and stretched lazily. Her cat stood up and arched her back in a stretch of her own. She walked to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee and paused, like always, gazing at the faded photo framed in the hallway.

It had been twenty years and still she ached. She lived that day again and again.

She had gotten up a little earlier than normal and took her routine run on the beach. Tony had been in London for a month working on an IT project and she couldn’t wait to have him home. He had proposed a week before he left and they were getting ready to move in together.

Angelique had planned the perfect welcome home dinner. Reservations had been made at The Boulevard, trendiest new restaurant in town. His new Tag Heuer wrapped in white paper with a gold ribbon. He had been salivating over it for a year. She smiled to herself, feeling the warmth in her chest as she thought of the look on his face when he opened it. How was she going to make it through the day?

Fortunately, she had a major project to work on and had a deadline. Angelique adored her mentor and working on the new line for the spring season was thrilling for her. A gifted prodigy, she had been designing clothing since cutting and pasting scraps of magazine pictures for her paper dolls. Graduation was coming and she had a position with a major design house in the city. The future was bright and when Tony popped the question that night, it looked like every dream was coming true.

Though it was hard to concentrate, she did get her final sketches in to the director on time and ran out to her car. As usual, she had scheduled every minute leading up to the dinner. Tony was planning to come to the restaurant directly from the airport and she only had two hours to get her mani/pedicure and get home to get ready. The beautiful blue dress, one of her own designs, had been hanging on the closet door for a week, her new gold pumps sitting prominently on the dresser.
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11.11.2009
Paul Bennett
The death of someone we love shatters our identity -- invalidates what we know about ourselves --and a huge part of what we know about ourselves is the future we're imagining and living into. Angelique knew she was in love with Tony, knew she would marry him, would spend the rest of her life with him. (Of course, we can't know this, really. No matter: this is the future we're living into, at every moment.) So when loss shattered that identity and that future, Angelique soon built for herself another identity; what she knew about herself now was that she had lost Tony, that no one would be like him. She knew about herself, in other words, that she was the most deprived of widows -- the one who lost her marriage before it started. Most of us eventually find the identity if widow or widower too confining -- we can't grow within it. Some, like Angelique, find it too comforting to release. And ultimately, either path is a choice. Paul Bennett www.lovinggrief.com
I relate to this. It's only been a year. The hardest year of my life. I've been told that time heals, and looking back on the last year, I'm definitely in a different, better place than I was 1 year ago, but I really do not want to hurt in 20 years.
10.27.2009
rachelg g
ok i although i agree that there weren't cell phones back then, i do think people go through this. often. to anyone in that situation, i would remind them that they deserve that same happiness again. nobody will be like the first one, everybody, every situation, everything is unique unto itself. it's ok to let go of that relationship, don't compare, just accept and enjoy, be grateful and love. a woman (or man) in that situation is not doing anything wrong by falling in love again or by having a partner again. true love would mean that the deceased partner wants nothing more than for love, joy, and happiness to prevail in the other's life. in "Eat, Pray, Love" there's a great part about letting go - i would write down that entire section and give it to this woman and pray and hope that she would be able to let go and allow good things to come and remain in her life.
10.27.2009
JC
There were no cell phones 20 years ago.......duh.
10.26.2009
Gabriel
I would tell her that Tony would want her to be happy, he would want her to go on with her life and find true love again. I believe it that when people die, their souls look out for their loved ones and they don't rest until they know that their loved ones are happy again. She should trust that she can be happy again, maybe in a different way, but she can love again if only she lets herself live it. She should trust that Tony looks out for her and he ll be happy too if she is....
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