After going through the loss of my husband, the thing that I have connected to the most, is that feeling of what it feels like to be alive. When I get too far from that, I get more unalive though I’m alive.

What I am trying to say is that when you watch a person going through life and then you witness the end of their life, that creates a lot of contemplation around the question of what it means to be alive.

When that life is over, 100 percent over, and I look back on the life of my husband; he lived his life so fully. His example is so powerful to me. When I start to sit or wallow in sadness and pain and despair, I feel more dead than alive.

I really don’t like that feeling. By no means do I think that is okay and I absolutely do do that. I’ve also noticed when I am in those moments, I’ve learned to cope with those feelings as I have learned to deal with all the needs of my kids all at the same time.

I’m constantly optimizing the situation and optimizing our place and optimizing the needs that my kids have. I know that I am the one that needs to fulfill those needs. I am the only one left in their life as their primary caregiver.

I am the one who sees and handles how challenging it is for them to have lost their dad. I know that regardless of those things we face in the different situations in our life; there are ways. And we can ask for help.

Regardless of the challenges, I ask myself and children sometimes, how we can make the best of this? As I watched my husband live his life and then have it end so quickly, I have a new and truly deep appreciation for what it feels like to be alive.

Being alive after losing my husband makes it really easy to feel like I don’t want to be alive. Or to wonder what is the point of staying alive and doing all this work and struggling through this much?

In these questions I also find my most beautiful answers. The present moment is truly the most powerful moment that I have. At this moment I always have a choice.

Sometimes that choice is to wallow in sadness and despair. Sometimes that choice is to create beautiful things around me and to address all the problems and the issues and the challenges.