Ch. 1 Preparation for better things

"Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place."

― Rumi

I woke up thinking it was Sunday, I put my dressing gown, and after going to the bathroom, I went down the stairs. When I entered the kitchen, Jackson was there making breakfast. I hugged him from behind and stole one of the avocado toast.

"Yummy!" I said. He kissed me. "Yummy, indeed. I was going to bring you breakfast to bed," he answered me.

"You're perfect, you know?" I said

"Of course."

"Are we the only ones up?" I asked. He didn't get to answer. We heard steps going down the stairs. It was Ruby. She gave us the sweetest good morning kisses.

"Can we go visit daddy today?" Ruby asked. "Of course, I'll take you after work." Jackson answered.

Jackson was the best with the kids. Harriet walked with Eli down the stairs and the five of us had breakfast while we discussed what had we dreamed last night. I was so grateful for my family.

I stood up and told everyone to come. "The baby is kicking. Touch!" I said. And everyone touched my belly. It wasn't the first time that the baby kicked but it was always a moment of joy. It was Saturday after all. Jackson had a surgery scheduled, so he left after breakfast. I was already in my maternity leave so I wasn't working. I was on my 37 week.

…

So much had passed since I left GSM. I had no idea what I was doing when I married Matthew. It's kinda embarassing for me, thinking about that time of my life where I made so many mistakes, and somehow it turned out better than great.

I was obsessed with the fact that Jackson was the love of my life and that I had lost him. It was like having a huge hole in my heart. You know that he is happy and you are happy that he's happy but you are so attached to the past that you can't just let go of that love. You wanna move on like he did, but you don't know how. In my case I was so focused on our love story that I did believe there was nothing more for me. That was it, I was lucky enough to get to love someone who loved me back. That was my great love story and it seemed impossible for me to believe something as wonderful could be there for me again. It was like he was the sun and I was the Earth just going around it. I tried dating and everything but it didn't work for me. It was easier for me not to believe that there was a second chance at love for me, because I had no control over it. You have control over your actions, but the heart has a mind of its own, you can fight it or get along with it, but you don't go saying I want to love this person and just like that it happens. At least not with romantic love. Either you feel attracted or you don't.

So when Ruby was born I get to met Matthew again and he told me that he found with Karin what I had with Jackson and I was happy for him and when Karin died I thought we could understand each other's pain. Of course he never caused me pain, while I was just painful memories for him. So I didn't even tried to approach him. At that time I went into a crisis of faith because life seemed so unfair and meaningless. Karin should have lived. She wasn't the only death that day that seemed so unfair. And I was also on an unhappy place so everything that happened to me and that seemed unfair to me, hit me harder. Eli, my patient, took pain so differently than me. He wanted to help me and he did. Even in his last moments he found ways to give meaning to his life. Having faith is not only a thing you do when everything is all right. It doesn't mean your prayers will be fulfilled. His example took me out of my crisis. God was not angry with me and I didn't get to be angry at him.

Around that time Ruby was sick, I had the chance to help her. And that's how we reconnected with Matthew. It was nothing romantic at all. We just understood each other and were there for each other.

We talked about our faith, I told him about Eli and we pretty much talked about everything. We worked together doing charity. We visited each other and shared a lot and after sometime, it felt like family. It was like the time I was living with Jackson but there was nothing between us. You get used to the people that surround you, the people that you see mostly every day. I loved Ruby and she and Harriet were getting along so well. I loved him and he loved me too. But it wasn't romantic at all.

We were later on a car accident and it was like a wakeup call to me. Maggie saved my life. I never could have hated her and even less after that. Jackson prayed for me. When I was dating Matthew, the first time, before I left him at the altar, I thought Jackson had died in front of my eyes, in an explosion, and it was the most unbearable feeling I ever had. That leaded me to tell him that I wanted him, that if he gave me a reason I wouldn't marry Matthew. So that time when I almost died and Jackson didn't want me back, I knew for sure that that was it, he would never love me again like he used to. It was over for him and he had moved on. I was the only one who hadn't moved on. I felt pity for myself. I could had died and I was wasting my present time living in the past.

I couldn't go on like that. We talked with Matthew about the accident and about what it meant to us. His only concern was that he would have left Ruby alone. We talked about our dreams and fears. He had so many plans but being a single parent made it difficult for him, and I wanted to help the two of them who I already loved, I wanted to move on and I still dreamed about having a big family. And it wasn't how I thought it would be, but we already kind of were. At one point I said it, we should marry. Matthew was frozen and I didn't blame him. We had already tried that. He kindly told me that the accident was too recent and that if I still thought that way in a while, we would get married. He was the kindest soul.

I decided that the best thing I could do to move on, was leaving the hospital that would always remind me of the past. Matthew supported me in every decision I took. I was going to help those in need and take some time to think what was next for me. At Alex's wedding, Matthew asked me to marry him and I was the happiest person in the world. I had my best friends there. It was nice and I really was happy. Being married to Matthew meant to me that I was moving on, that I was helping him, that I was having my big family. It was a dream come true. I honestly hadn't thought at what was I missing. After the wedding, Matthew made a foolish joke about how he thought Jackson was gonna stand up again this time. He didn't mean any harm, but it broke me. It took me back to my other wedding to Matthew and to the reason I chose Jackson, because of love. And I told him, and I knew I hurt him again. Certainly, I was an awful person, how could I got involved with the person I left at the altar just to marry him and tell him I didn't love him.

In that moment, Matthew tried to calm me down saying we could divorce, that it wasn't a problem. But it was a problem, I was a problem. I had no idea what I have been doing or what to do next. I was really upset at myself and at Matthew who instead of blaming me for being such an awful person was trying to help me and comfort me. I was losing it. He was telling me how I shouldn't be married with someone I didn't love, that I deserved better than to settle. He told me I should think in Harriet. If she was in my situation, what would I like her to do. He made it so easy. Just like that I knew it. You are the sun. That's what I would like anyone I love to know. Jackson wasn't the one. Matthew wasn't the one. I was the one. I was the sun.

I understood in my own way why it didn't work with Jackson. We were great. We were perfect. Until I left him twice. What I thought had happened was this. Jackson made me felt so good, I felt I was the sun with him. Then he almost died and it changed me. It made me lose it. I was no longer the sun, he was, and I was going to do everything in my power to get him back. When he didn't chose me, it hit me harder, I was no sun, no worthy of him. Then when he stood up at the wedding and I run away with him, I became the sun again. And we were both the sun, we were both happy, until Samuel's illness. When I left Jackson for a second time, I believed I hurt him and made him believe he wasn't the sun and that I was. When I came back, he tried to be his sun again, so he tried not to think of me as the sun. That's what happens in my opinion when you stop being your own sun, your reationships fail. And when he suggested we divorce, he became the sun to me, and I stopped being my own sun. And he kept being the sun until this theory came to my mind with Matthew's words. My marriage with Matthew wasn't going to work even if I loved him, because I wasn't my own sun. You need to be your own sun, to love someone else in a healthy way. That's what I would had wanted Harriet to know, that she was going to be fine if she is conscious all the time, that she is her own sun.

I thought that losing Jackson was the worst, but the worst was that I had lost myself and didn't even notice it. And even though I realized what my mistake was, I try not to lose me again cause the thing is, it happened to me more than once. Once was when Jackson almost died. Then when we lost Samuel, I lost myself but I was conscious of it so I tried to find myself again and by doing so, I lost Jackson. When I came back the second time, I was full of confidence but being left by him, hurt me badly. He became the sun again, so I needed him back. Until I found I was pregnant. I was too broken by then and I knew it, so I tried to protect myself every way I could, not to be hurt again. There was a time, after Montana, that I thought we could be back again, but I just got hurt again. I didn't let go of the pain but I did my best to pretend it wasn't there.

Matthew helped realized that the pain was there and that I was the one that should do something about it. You can only be on a happy, healthy relationship with someone else, if you have that with yourself. That's what I had with Matthew. That's what I have now with Jackson.