I feel lost.

Like a boat out to sea that can’t find its way out of the storm. The waves are crashing in on the deck. I look around and I am alone. No place to put down my anchor.

My compass is broken and can’t find where I need to go. I am lost just drifting around.

There is a hole in my heart, and I am broken. The people that I need to bring me to shore are gone forever. I know they are watching me from heaven trying to guide me home.

I am lost my sense of home is gone.

Matt was my home. My grandma was my anchor. I know I am not alone. My family and friends will be there for me as I deal with this storm that is raging on. I am lost, but I can hear the people I need calling me.

As I pack a home that was well lived in for more than sixty years and has been my home for eight, I can’t help but feel the sadness that comes along. Somethings I need to part with although I would like to keep them. I feel that wave of pain as it crashes in.

I am moving and starting the next chapter of my life but I am not sure how to start living. Eventually, that storm will stop hitting as hard as it has in the last week. I have lost two people that meant the most to me in less than two years. I know that this feeling of being lost will end at some point.

My mom has to get heart surgery and I am nervous that if something goes wrong, I will lose another person. I am leaning into my faith and know that God will only give me only what I can handle.

God will lead me out of this storm. He will be my compass I just have to trust him to lead me back to shore. I know that through my faith I will be able to overcome this wave.

I am lost without Matt but little by little I am finding myself again. The other day as I walked into the church and stood at the front I felt them with me. As I started to read my eulogy and choke up I knew Matt was with me telling me it was okay.

I took a week off to deal with the changes that have happened with my grandma’s passing. Tomorrow is my first day back since she died. I need to go back but still have so much to do at the house to get ready to move.

I am lost in the ocean alone and as I drift back to the shore I am healing bit by bit.

About 

Laurel became a young widow on October 2, 2020, her husband Matt had a heart attack he was only 37. Matt was a juvenile diabetic and they always knew he would die young but she never thought that she could be a widow at 32. Navigating grief with anxiety, regrets and guilt have been a struggle for Laurel. They had gotten into a fight days before he died and they had talked about divorce. One of the things that helped her the most is finding other widows who understood the pain she was feeling. In February she decided to start writing her story. Self-care is something else she started to do daily and art has become her outlet to get what she is feeling out which she shares on her Instagram. Being a young widow comes with its own challenges but we are not alone in this journey.
You can find her on Instagram @HealingPorcupine or her personal blog link- Healingporcupine.com.