It is a choice you have to make.

I awoke once more this am at around 5:30 am. For me sleep has been a commodity, I can’t find much of these days, especially since my wife passed in August. Doesn’t matter if I stay busy or not all day or stay up late watching television, I just seem to wake, early. I took medication to sleep and still woke up early. I average maybe 6 hours a night these days. It is amazing to me that I am still alive at this time, yet here I be, trying to clean out and sell our home and find a new place to live for me alone.

Life has too many twists and turns and surprises and I tire of it all daily. How much can one man at 65 take and survive on his own? I don’t really know folks, but with back and neck pain daily and at night, breathing difficulties when I sleep, PTSD from childhood and military, what is one to do? Many ex-service members suffer from PTSD and injuries from when we served, it becomes a part of our lives once we are discharged. Just because we don’t complain much or show it much does not mean we don’t have these problems, just means we have learned to live with them, ask any disabled veteran and you will know then.

When you get to 65 years old, your aches and pains and injuries haunt you daily, they just don’t stop. You tend to live with them, adapt to them and be careful of them, you have to to keep going. I love it when those who are family, try to pull you in different directions or take advantage of you in hope of gaining from you financially or otherwise. I am not rich and my children will have to wait until I pass for anything to happen. Just a fact is what I say.

Each day I awake, I try to get the time straight to know it, and then I climb out of bed, put on some clothes and head for the coffee pot. That is probably the same for many ex-military members no matter what branch they served in. Coffee became a staple in my life in The Army, Army National Guard and Navy. You gather habits and needs as you age and tend to stick to what works for you. Life just works that way doesn’t it, I think so.

Well, having to adapt to life without my wife has not been easy, she is gone over 90 days now and I, still awake sometimes looking for her. She is still on my mind and in my heart each day I am alive. Yes I miss her deeply, but, I also know, there is no bringing her back to me. So I try to push through each day and night and pray I make it on my own at least for survival purposes.

I am lucky to be here really still. If I had not reached out when I did, I would have crawled into the bed with my wife and went with her. I reached out in a few ways, first I reached out in a online chat room, then I listened to those people who told me to seek help, so I called The Veteran’s Hospital and thirdly and most importantly I reached out, to my sister. Without any of those three resources and people, I would not be alive today. I know there must be a purpose for my being here still, if not the Good Lord would have recalled me too by now. Finding the purpose for my being here is right now my mission in a way. Am I here to write about my wife’s struggle through cancer or my own, am I here to tell military stories to people or to write a book? Am I here to meet someone and help them, or they to help me, I don’t know. I do know that all humans and animals are here for some purpose/reason the Good Lord intended for each of us to accomplish before we perish from the earth.

When you find yourself alone, and you stop to think, many things come to mind. Like why am I still here, should I be here and doing something? Or how do I do something I need to do to have a place to live or survive on my own? Even simple choices become difficult for you, like, what to eat, when to get to a Doctor, do I go out to keep myself busy and entertained, what can I do to survive and keep going? No decision seems small, or causal, it all seems hard to decide and do when you are alone. Others will say, it isn’t, because they have friends and family who help them through all of these things. But when you end up alone, because you were widowed suddenly, it gets tough. I just hope to find my way, and be able to do what I must till my time comes.

Choices we all make come into play folks, as we go through life. We make choices each day, who do we get in a relationship with, what kind of a relationship, the wheres and the whens ,of events we are in, or even the places we live in. How do we react to different situations, places, people and more all comes ,into play in life, doesn’t it? Many times in my past I have said this and people think I am full of it, I never expected to live past 40 years old, my life was such that I survived it. Life is not about, just you or yourself, it is about all the others around you too.

When we die, and pass on to the next place we go, whether it is to heaven, hell or in between, what will we be remembered for here on earth by other human beings? People don’t remember you for the house you owned, the property you owned or material things. They remember you for how you interacted with them and others, were you kind, were you generous, were you patient, were you considerate of others or polite? It all comes into play doesn’t it?

Always remember as you go through life each day, when you are gone what will they say about you? Unless, you just don’t give a damn about what others may think or believe about you, it is a choice you have to make.