Gentlemen: long time lurker here. This thread helped more than you could ever know during the darkest times of my journey. So thank you.
wincing_at_light - I still read your "Epic Post" from May, 2013 every once in a while. Truly a classic.
I have been keeping a journal since two months after DDay and looked back a long way today for some reason.
Found something I wrote 10 years ago in February, 2010, a month after DDay, while pondering an earlier photo of my wife and me together. It made me realize both the depth of my despair and how the stress post-A had saddened and prematurely aged her face. We had been married 18 years when the A was exposed. We were high school sweethearts and "onlies":
Lost
A picture of a man and wife
Who cannot bear to be apart.
Where can I find that which was lost,
The treasure kept only for me?
When will I love you once again?
When will the heartache fade away?
Thought I search to the end of the earth,
I cannot restore what is gone.
My soul is barren and lifeless,
There is no joy, no hope, no sight.
I walk in a land of sorrow,
Each day has a new grief to bear.
Peace eludes me and hides itself.
I long for the days of still waters:
Your precious face, your joyful eyes,
And your tender, radiant smile!
After 10 years, we are still together, but I have not found what was lost and am sadly resigned to never finding it again.
I hope your journeys are more fulfilling.