My Valentines

”You should not have to rip yourself into pieces to keep others whole”……Emma Bleker

His actions showed me everything my

Heart needed to know

His words empty – not backed up by

Actions I needed

There he left me – first mentally being

Somewhere else as I searched endlessly

For his presence

And then one day he just never came back

I sat down with myself to look at the hard

Truth – I wasn’t good enough – he was

Gone, never to return

Just waiting in that hallway to nowhere

Thoughts scrambled, making no sense

In a strange place.

What was once comforting and familiar, in what

Seemed like an instant, was chaos. Me, not

Knowing which way to turn, spinning around in

Circles.  At every turn all I could see was him

I never dreamed we would not be WE anymore

Never prepared myself for such a time.

I wanted to change me…..wanted to be the me

That he wanted – never to happen, never SHOULD

It happen even if I could change. I should have

Known when he started criticizing everything I

Did or didn’t do. Some kind of justification for

Not fighting harder for us.

He left me lifeless – my heart broken into a thousand

Little pieces – lost. Day after day trying to gather

Up those pieces – trying to place things back in

some semblance of order…….

I only wanted him. The darkness overtaking

My existance

But the babies saved me. We gathered up all those

Pieces and began to place them one at a time with

Such precision – with a made up mind, with a deliberate

pattern…….with purpose.

They gave me a reason to stay alive.

As hard as it was, I prayed and praised and when I thought I couldn’t keep going

I prayed and praised some more.

My babies, my valentines, they were, they are everything to me.

They helped me to remember to count my days, to

Measure my steps.  They kept me looking up

And those days when I felt alone, and unworthy I needed only

To look at my babies and breathe deeply and know that they live inside

Me and that they are still keeping me alive and

I begin to pray and praise God from whom all blessings flow!

My babies, my valentines, for the love of you!