Beauty in the World

"Anne of Green Gables" has always been one of my all-time favorite books. I remember when I was younger, my parents got me a box set of all of the books in the series and I literally cried my eyes out. I've always identified with Anne. Like her, I am a lover of all things beautiful and like her, I experience the extremes of emotion that all empaths seem to do.

When I met my husband 20+ years ago, I felt the pull of a true kindred spirit. He had the same ability as me, to empathize with others even when he hadn't experienced the same struggles that they had. He was kind-hearted, generous, and loved everyone he met unconditionally. It didn't matter how much they hurt him or whether they loved him the same, he loved everybody without reservations, limitations, or questions. That's what made him look so much like Jesus to so many people.

We both lived hard lives and went through more than our fair share of pain, both physical and emotional, before coming back together to fall in love with each other. He truly was the Gilbert to my Anne. He tried to get through life without me, but he always held on to the first love that he felt for me when we were young and never stopped hoping that one day, he would be able to call me his own.

That day came nearly twenty years later on December 4th, 2018. A simple Facebook message of, "Hey, girl," and our fates became inextricably intertwined forever. On December 28th of the same year, I took his name after maybe the shortest courtship in the history of the world.

Those who loved us worried that we were moving too fast, that we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, that we would live to regret the rushing of something so important. But just as I had recognized his kindred spirit in our youth, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was my soulmate within days of reconnecting with him.

We had plenty of hard times in our marriage, not the least of which was his constant struggle with ill health due to diabetes. We were only married a couple of months when I came home to find him sitting on the steps to our room completely unresponsive. I called 911 and he was rushed to the hospital where they found that his blood sugar was twice as low as it should have been because he took too much insulin.

As I watched my brand new husband fight to live that day, I realized how much he truly meant to me and how terrible it would be to lose him. Time and time again, his health problems brought me crashing to the earth after flying to the highest heights of love that one can experience in this world.

When we fought, which was a rarity, it was most often because of my fear of losing him and his stubbornness about going to the doctor. He had lost three toes and half a finger because of diabetes and he was terrified of losing even more if he sought a doctor's care. I was terrified of losing the person that my entire world had come to revolve around.

So I would take him to the hospital, even if it was against his will, because I loved him more than life and couldn't stand the thought of living without him. Sometimes I would yell at him, cry for him, and be on the verge of leaving him, not because I didn't love him, but because I loved him too much to stand seeing him suffer.

At the beginning of June of this year, I had once again come to the point where I couldn't stand it anymore. Brett was sick and I wasn't taking no for an answer. He was going to the hospital whether he liked it or not. I literally held him up in the doorway of our bedroom, struggling to get him to go to the car with me as he hurled slurred insults and threats my way.

Don't get things wrong, he wasn't abusive, but his fear of dying or losing even more than he already had combined with how desperately sick he was had made him lose his mind. I called his dad who helped me get him to the car and I drove him straight to the ER. Because of Covid-19, I was only able to bring him in and tell them what happened because he was too out of it to tell them himself. I was sent back to my car while the doctors and nurses took over.

Once again, I was faced with the stark reality that all my fears were coming true. I was going to lose my husband a mere two-and-a-half years after finding him again. After an hour of sitting in the hospital parking lot, I called for an update and the nurse informed me that his kidneys had failed and they were placing him in a medically-induced coma.

In an instant, my world turned upside-down. The love of my life was on the verge of death and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And even worse, I couldn't be there with him when he died.

But God is gracious to those who love him and his timing is perfect, even if we don't know it. Instead of dying, Brett seemed to get better. They put him on dialysis and strong antibiotics and within three days they were able to take him out of the coma. He was in terrible pain and would likely be on dialysis the rest of his life, but he was alive.

My heart soared back to its highest of heights. Even though I couldn't be with him for the two weeks that he was in the hospital, I had my husband back. He was contrite and apologetic about not listening to me before he got to this point, but the main thing he wanted was to get back home to be with the wife that he adored and the children he would give his life for.

Finally, after two of the longest weeks of both of our lives, on Tuesday, June 16th, he was able to come home. He was still in terrible pain and would have to go to wound care and dialysis several times a week, but he was going home.

When he got home, three of our kids were waiting to be enfolded in his arms. He hugged and kissed Riley, Addy, and Daniel and told them how much he loved them and how happy he was to see them again. Then he and I went to our bedroom and spent a glorious evening just talking and kissing and being together. He was very tired, but not so tired that he couldn't revel in the love of his soulmate for a few hours.

For the first time in a very long time, he was his old silly self again and my hopes soared as high as my love for him. He was going to be okay. We were going to get through this like we always had. Neither of us knew, although I believe he suspected, that this would be his last night on Earth.

I fell asleep that blessed night with the love of my life beside me, his arms wrapped so tenderly around me that I felt like a precious treasure he couldn't let go of and wouldn't for anything in the world.

But the next day, he was in and out of consciousness. When he was awake, he was talking out of his head. I thought that it was just his medicine making him loopy and that the best medicine for it was sleep. I let him sleep and didn't wake him up except to get him to eat something. He ate half a burger and fell back asleep.

I had no idea that anything was wrong. The hospital had released him on his own recognizance and he had wound care and dialysis appointments set up for later in the week. I assumed that they wouldn't have done that if he hadn't been much better than he was when he got there. I was wrong.

Brett was sleeping and making a lot of noise in his sleep that whole day and I figured he was just snoring. But just before 3:30pm, I realized that he had gotten quiet. I called his name, no response. I shook him until my arms were tired, no response. Panic started to rise inside of me. This couldn't be happening. He was okay, he was home, he was better.

I turned him onto his back and knew in an instant that he wasn't breathing. I felt for even the slightest quiver of breath, nothing. I felt for a heartbeat, nothing. This could not be real. He was better yesterday, and now he was gone. I called 911 and they came in less than five minutes. They worked on him non-stop for over thirty minutes, nothing.

I knew before they even got there that he was gone, but I held out hope that I was wrong. But as I looked down into the room where 10 grown men were standing quietly around my husband's prone body while one continued to do CPR, I knew that he was gone and that he wasn't coming back this time.

When they told me my greatest fear had been realized, I dropped to my knees and screamed. I cried like I had never cried before and screamed that they were lying. I begged them to wake me up, because this was just a nightmare and I needed to wake up. I went through every stage of grief in the space of a few minutes.

It was a nightmare, the worst nightmare I had ever had. But God is good and I can see his hand through it all. Brett's nightmare was to lose another part of himself, God saved him from that. His nightmare was to live dependent on doctors and medicine, God saved him from that. His nightmare was to die alone without the one he loved by his side, God saved him from that. God's timing is perfect, even if we don't know it.

Yes, I'm living in my own personal nightmare, but God never gives us more than we can handle and he's good enough to hold us through it all. He knew that Brett wasn't strong enough to live through his nightmare coming true, so he saved him from having to. But he trusts me to be strong enough to get through even this.

I've had more pain and hardship and bad luck in my adult life than most people endure in a lifetime. But I also had more love and joy and peace in those two-and-a-half years than most people ever receive in a lifetime.

God gave me an immeasurable capacity for love, both towards people and towards him and his creation. It is that immense love that helped me to love Brett unconditionally, without reservations, limitations, or questions, and it was that love and God's grace that gave us the most beautiful years of our life.

I miss him terribly and I always will and though I'm young, I know that there will never be another person for me. To be honest, I wouldn't want one. I've had my Gilbert, so I'm not going to take away someone else's. Besides, Brett's love and God's goodness will carry me through until the day that I see him again.

I don't regret a moment of the time we had together, whether in our youth or later in life. Sometimes I think if I could turn back time, I would so that I could love him for all those years we missed out on. But in reality, I wouldn't give up the years that I spent with or without him because I've learned that we see God more clearly through the lens of tragedy than we do through rose-colored glasses and the world is more beautiful through that lens as well.

Like Anne said, "Dear old world... You are lovely and I'm glad to be alive in you." As long as there is still beauty in this wonderful world that my God created, I can go on living even though I lost Brett, partly so that I can see it all, partly so that I can add a little beauty to it, but mostly so that my Gilbert will be proud of his Anne.