#10- New Friend

When I moved back to Midland the lady who works in the flower shop where we got Shawn's flowers for his funeral suggested I get in touch with another lady who lives in Midland who lost her husband a year ago in October. I politely told her no thank you. She just smiled at me and said that if I changed my mind give her a call and she would put us in touch. I didn't feel like I was ready to 'pour' my heart out to somebody that I didn't even know. I figured I had my family, friends and the Coach's so that was enough. I didn't need or want anybody else to help me with this. Or so I thought...

A few weeks later after an emotional day of missing Shawn day curiosity got the best of me and I googled "Sarah Schieber" the name of the lady they suggested I get in touch with. The death of her husband was a very public. I had heard about her husband Chad's death even while in Ohio. I read several newspaper articles about her, Chad and their family last year. Then I found her personal web page (she is a Christian recording artist), her web page for her CD led me to her blog. One word...AMAZING! I found her blog on October 13, 2008. Her blog post for that day was about how Sarah and her children were going to mark the one year anniversary of Chad's death. The rest of her post for that day went on to say how the family spent the day. After reading Sarah's post I cried. I thought to myself that maybe the lady in the flower shop was right and that it would be good for me to get in touch with her. After thinking for only a few seconds I left a comment on her blog. Later that night Sarah emailed me back. A few days later she was having a CD signing at the flower shop and invited me to meet her there.

I will tell you about our friendship after I tell you a little about her husband. Some of you may remember last years marathon in Chicago. Sarah and her husband were running in the marathon. Chad collapsed and died during the marathon on October 7, 2007. Chad was only 35 when he died. He was a Midland Police Officer, and from what I now know of him through Sarah he was a great husband and father to 3 young children.

That first meeting with Sarah happened on the Thursday before I left for my first trip back to Yougstown. I went thinking that I would walk in talk for a few minutes and then leave. I entered the flower shop and asked for Sarah. She was dressed in the cutest outfit, turned around, asked if I was Jenny and gave me the biggest hug. We talked about Chad and Shawn, each of our feelings, the many stages of grief, and what if 'feels' like to be a widow in your early 30's. Little did I know that I would stay and talk for nearly 2 hours. It actually felt 'good' to talk to somebody, my age who unfortunately knew exactly how I was feeling. That was almost a month ago. I'm so glad that I left a comment on her blog, I now know there was a reason for me leaving a post on her blog...I needed that extra support, I needed another friend in my life.

Since then Sarah and I have talked several times. We also have started communicating through emails. I have asked her several questions about what I'm feeling, if it's normal or not to have these feelings. By emailing we have answered questions for each other (Sarah has mostly answered for me), we have gotten to know each other, and we have shared our grief, and talked about what the future holds for a widow each in their early 30's. Sarah and I have decided that we are going to start to 'publish' or emails. Over the next few weeks we will be starting a blog where we will be sharing our emails. Hopefully by doing this we will be able to help other widows who are walking the road of grief as well. As soon as we get it up and running I will link it to my current blog for those who are interested.

Sarah has taught me two important things over our short friendship thus far. One is that I need to 'find' myself. I need to take this time, to not only grieve for Shawn and the baby, but I need to take this time for myself. I will have good days and then horrible days. I will be fine one minute and bawling the next, all of which is perfectly normal. She told me that after you have lived so long with a person your identity kind of becomes 'lost'. She is so right, I was with Shawn for 12 years we started going out when I was 20. I don't know me without him. I need to take the time and figure out 'Who I am'. Gosh what a task!

The second thing that Sarah told me occurred last Friday over coffee at Starbucks. We were talking about each of our future's and what the future may hold for us both. Some how we started talking about falling in love with another man. I'm no where near that, but we talked about it. I told her that the thought of falling in love with another man scares me more than anything else. Sarah is at a much different point in her grief than I am, she has had a year to think about all of this and deal with the many emotions of grief compared to my 12 weeks. At the stage I'm in right now I told her I was scared to fall in love again, whenever it may happen because if I do it would mean that I would love Shawn less. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. As I was telling Sarah this I had tears stream down my face, she was crying as well. She told me this... that when the time comes for love again that I will NEVER EVER love Shawn any less. She told me it is like when a parent has only one child. Parents never think that they can love another child the same way as their first. Then baby number two comes. She said your heart just grows and expands to love that other baby in your life. She told me that is how she envisions falling in love again when she is ready. She will never love Chad less, her heart will just grow and make room for that other person. As she was explaining this to me, the tears were rolling down my face. It made sense to me. What a great way to explain that to somebody who had just lost her husband. It still scares the beejeesies out of me to fall in love again one day, but at least I'm comforted by the way Sarah described it to me. She is a friend who truly understands what I'm going through.

Sarah's blog is http://sarahschieber.blogspot.com/ in case you would like to go and read her blog as well. She writes with great emotion and awesome strength.
Sarah also has another website for her music where she is selling her first CD and her new song "Christmas in Heaven" Sarah is in the process of recording her second CD now. That website is http://www.sarahschieber.com/.

Ok this post is getting very long I'm sure (shocking, mine are always long) but I just wanted to tell you all about my new friendship and what a great person Sarah is.