Dream Come True

“Visualize your dream (Yes) /Record it in the present tense (Don't be scared) /If you persist in your efforts /You can achieve…”

- Queensryche, Silent Lucidity


Three years ago today, my beloved husband Russell James Downie died after injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.

That event turned my world completely upside down. He wasn’t supposed to die, at least not this early in our lives (we had celebrated our five year wedding anniversary just a few months before). I had always assumed that, out of the two of us, I would be the one to die first – being the insulin-dependent diabetic, having an aversion to exercising – but one of the first things I learned since that monumental day was that “Life” doesn’t have the same script as I do.

Even now, my husband’s voice echoes in my mind. Not so much like an actual recording, but more like pressure… the kind of pressure you feel when somebody you haven’t seen in awhile picks you up a the airport, throws their arms around you and gives you a big, bear hug. All the best things about the woman I am today, I credit to him. He took a frightened, miserable creature who hated herself and hated the world and transformed her into a living, breathing, feeling human being who strives to pour all of the love inside her heart out to heal her world. And in doing this, she herself is healed.

I feel like I’ve finally turned that corner. This is the place I was waiting to find; my new identity, my new life. I don’t feel like “the young widow” anymore… I’ve jumped back into the fray with both feet; I have things that I want to do, and I still have my dreams. I am hopeful for the future. I feel immersed in the love all around me, inside of me. I’m happy to be alive.

I won’t ever forget him. But I don’t think I’m supposed to. I could sooner forget that I am the mother of a 19-year old United States Marine, or that there’s nothing I love more than singing. But I also don’t think I am meant to view the rest of my existence through the filter of this one experience; much in the same way that you see all the colors of the rainbow when you shine white light through a prism. My life with my husband is one of many colors that paint my world. And my world is unique, beautiful… at least in my eyes. And that’s what counts.

To those of you who find your way here who share the experience of losing somebody you loved more than life itself… I leave you with a few words of hope. You WILL get through this, if that’s what you want to do. It’s not easy; and you will feel more often than not that you just can’t go on, you just can’t get out of bed even one more day… but let me remind you: You have an obligation. That person who left you here? Together, you had dreams. Together, you had plans. And now it’s up to YOU to see them through. No one else. So don’t give up. NEVER give up. And I’ll be one more person on the planet rooting for you.


I believe in you. Believe in yourself. You WILL get through this.

Peace.


– Shirley Denise Downie


“So here it is, another chance /Wide awake, you face the day /Your dream is over...

Or has it just begun?”