How I Learned to Shine Again:My Story of Loss, Grief, Healing, and Restoration

By Michelle N. Files

Inside the pages of this book resides a piece of my heart. It’s a glimpse into my soul during the most traumatic and heartbreaking time of my life—the loss of my husband. This is my story of how through faith, family, friends, counseling, and writing I mustered the strength to crawl out of the dark cave of despair, washed away the pain, found healing, and unearthed a new life of joy, peace, and love. This is my journey through the wretched webs of grief, and it is my wish you will find comfort through my struggles. Most importantly, I hope you will find the courage in your heart to live fully, to love boldly, to shine brightly, and to never give up on your always and forever.

“Poignant and inspirational. A moving account of having a life blown apart only to have it pieced together again through the hands of a loving God. Resonates on so many levels to all who are struggling. Powerful and moving—a must read for anyone who needs hope.”
—Addison Moore, New York Times bestselling author

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michelle N. Files
• Release date: Oct 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370556670

Michelle N. Files

Michelle N. Files was born and raised in wild, wonderful West Virginia. While her first passion is accounting, not long into adulthood, Michelle rediscovered her love of books and with it the joy and fulfillment of writing her own stories. After the sudden loss of her husband in 2013, she found healing and restoration in chronicling her own personal journey through grief and with it the calling to pen self-help and motivational nonfiction. She spends her time combining her love of numbers and words by teaching accounting at local colleges and through her writing of both fictional and real life stories of life, love, and friendship, or as she puts it weaving tales of always and forever. When she's not teaching or writing, you'll find her reading, hanging with her furry children, or out and about on adventures with family and friends.

Book preview

How I Learned to Shine Again

Copyright © 2016 by Michelle N. Files

Cover Design by Kelsey Kukal-Keeton, K. Keeton Designs

Edited by Hollie Westring

Interior design by Marisa-rose Shor, Cover Me Darling

Formatting by Allyson Gottlieb, Athena Interior Book Design

Published by CMF Publishing

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [e-mail]. Thank you for the support of the author’s rights.

Library of Congress Cataloging in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN: 978137055667 0 (e-book),

For Chris, my first love, my first husband, my first loss, my first angel.

And for anyone who’s ever felt the cold hands of grief suffocate your heart.

And provide for those who grieve in Zion—bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

Isaiah 61:3

Two years ago today I was still married. My husband was still breathing, talking, and walking. Our home felt completely different than it does today. It was filled with the sounds of activity—television, microwave, another set of lungs breathing, another voice speaking.

A year ago today I was wallowing, fighting the despair and anxiety of the impending date—the one-year mark. A year of surviving widowhood. A year of life without Chris. I’d eaten my pain for an entire year, gaining close to fifty pounds. I’d cried more tears than I’d ever thought possible. I sat in great disbelief that this was my life now. This wasn’t merely a bad dream. This was real. My house sat empty, just like me.

Today my house looks and feels different than two years ago. There are vibrant colors on the walls. All around the place new furniture sits adorned with sparkles, quotes, memories, and books. The house looks alive. I’ve dropped those fifty pounds and found my light shines brighter than before. For the first time in my entire life I can look at myself and see beauty and strength—in my body and in my eyes. I can feel the love, the joy, and the peace inside a heart I once thought broken forever. Praise God for saving me—for filling my life with His goodness.

There are so many facets of my story I want to share with you. So many moments where I thought I’d never survive, where I’d never be the same, but then God showed up with the right person, the right opportunity, and sometimes with merely the comfort to get me through the day.

This is my story of loss, of grief, of healing, and of restoration. This is the story of me. A few chapters in my life—a few chapters I pray will give you hope through your bad days and an understanding that good can come from pain. I am here to tell you MY story and how God saved me, because for me, no person could heal my heart, and it has been healed, polished, and made new. For me, that was a task only God could accomplish.

I awoke on October 25, 2013, a married woman. It was a normal Friday. I was getting ready to walk out the door for a continuing education class while Chris stood peering into the fridge after his morning workout. He made some sort of sarcastic joke (his trademark) and I remember thinking how much I wanted to kiss him, but I didn’t. Instead I laughed and said goodbye. That would be the last time I’d hear his voice.

I sat through continuing education class on the Affordable Care Act—riveting information—while texting Chris off and on about his classes and such. He’d recently gone back to school to try his hand at accounting/finance. Class finished early, so I went to take care of some bookkeeping work for one of my friends at his business. Chris was diligently working through his to-do list, which was extensive and according to his text too long to type. We’d made plans for when I got home. I was going to cut his hair and critique his business law paper. I texted that I was finishing up and a :). This would be the last text I’d ever send him.

I headed home thinking about the weekend ahead, assignments I needed to grade, and class I needed to prep for—I’d started teaching accounting part time at my alma mater, Shepherd—the same college Chris had returned to. As I rounded the S curve a minute from our home, I noticed two cars pulled over. I slowed, finding it odd no damage was visible on the vehicles, but then my eyes caught a glimpse of a motorcycle—more specifically, the gas tank. As I rounded the second curve, deep in my gut a sinking feeling settled in—the gas tank looked strangely similar to Chris’s motorcycle. I reasoned that his bike, a GSX-R750, was highly popular, but I couldn’t shake how it had the same carbon fiber decal on the navy blue tank as his. As I pulled in my drive, I said aloud, Don’t panic. Open the garage and if his bike is gone, then you’re going back.

The garage slowly opened revealing only the car. The bike was gone. Why would he have been on the bike? It was chilly out. He had no reason to take a joyride. I backed out of the drive, returning to the scene. I called his phone—no answer.

I always wondered how I would react if something tragic happened to someone I loved. How would I handle seeing them hurt? Would I panic? Would I cry? I thought I would do both, but apparently our brains have this mechanism to help us through moments like this and mine kicked into full gear—shock. I walked onto the scene, and even now in my memory it feels like a slow-motion dream. In the moment, my brain was empty. I was only filled with action, and yet it vividly recorded that entire moment in time. A moment that would haunt me later at unexpected intervals with triggers—sometimes anticipated and sometimes not.

I remember so many things about the accident: walking up to him unconscious, clearly hurt but not disfigured, not bleeding except for the few scrapes on his hand from the boulders he’d tumbled over, helmet scuffed up but still on. I picked up his wallet from the mulch next to him—he’d landed in someone’s yard and managed to end up in between the bushes and flowers without messing up the landscaping. I held his hand, telling him I was there and it would be okay. I held on to hope. Part of my brain processed he was badly hurt but he’d be okay—maybe end up in a coma and we might have to make some tough decisions but he’d pull through, and then the other part of me knew better.

After several hours in the ER waiting room, the news was delivered. He was gone. Dead. Deceased. The room was filled with curses and tears, but I felt nothing. The deep state of shock I’d been in since the moment I walked onto the scene held me together. While the rest of the world was reacting, I was empty. No emotions except disbelief. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t have been real.

My head remained vacant as we headed home that night. It was really late, close to midnight or maybe later when we pulled into my driveway. I walked into the house and everything looked normal—just as I’d left it that morning. I walked to the kitchen counter and there sat his to-do list. That’s when I broke down. I started to cry as I saw the list with everything he’d marked off. The one thing he’d yet to mark off was Winterize the bike. That was why he was out. When he winterized the bike he would take it out for one last spin before putting it away for the season. I sank into his recliner—his chair—as my two best friends showed up. I talked about the accident with stoic disbelief. The tears were starting and I cried with my two best friends, my mother, and my sister consoling me. It was late when I finally went to bed that night; my mom and sister refused to leave me. I woke up a wife and went to bed a widow.

When I woke up to a bed empty except for two furry pups, realization set in and along with raging grief, wailing and sobbing ensued. I’m sure that was a nice awakening for my mom and sister. I can’t imagine what it was like for them to see me like that. How helpless they must have felt. Desolate despair gripped me. I was inconsolable. The week after the accident was filled with blurred memories of texts, Facebook posts and messages, phone calls, visits, and all the things that come with a death.

I don’t remember Saturday very well. I know I went to his parents’ and heard from family and friends. But I remember Sunday, because Sunday we made funeral arrangements and Sunday I found out some infuriating news, Chris’s actual time of death.

Someone had shared the local news article about the accident on Facebook, and I read it right before our appointment at the funeral home. It stated, Files was transported by helicopter to Shock Trauma, where he was pronounced dead at 6:56 p.m., approximately two hours after the accident.¹ This sent the wheels working in my brain to our timeline that day.

During the almost two hours we waited for an update in the ER waiting room, I provided the hospital with health insurance information and frequented the bathroom. I was a nervous wreck inside. On the ride there, I kept staring at my left hand...the hand that had held his. It was painted with a small smear of his blood. The first time in the bathroom I didn’t want to wash that hand as I stood at the sink. I knew it was gross to have blood on me, unsanitary, and slightly ridiculous to not want to wash it, but I didn’t want to. However, I did.

When they finally took us back to discuss his condition, the social worker asked about his allergies and his medications, even commenting on the health benefits of some of the supplements Chris was taking. All positive talk, right? At least to us. At least to me. Why ask such questions if he wasn’t here anymore? As we crowded into the small room, we had expectations that he’d been stabilized. The doctor and the social worker returned and delivered the devastating news. News we received somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m., but according to the article (and his death certificate), Chris was pronounced dead before we’d even arrived at the hospital. Yet we sat in the waiting room for nearly two hours before being informed of his condition. When I kept asking if anyone knew what floor he was on or any information about him, the employees I spoke with knew nothing. My mind returned to the social worker who kept checking on us in the lobby and her demeanor as she walked us back to receive the news. He was dead when we’d arrived and yet a shock trauma hospital that should be well practiced in this area let us sit for almost two hours before delivering the blow. Let alone the fact we were from out of town and were going to face a decent drive back home with the knowledge our loved one was dead. I don’t know what happened that day to cause them to drop the ball like that. It disappoints and hurts me they would treat us that way. I hope and pray they don’t let others slip through the cracks the way we did.

I’m not a quick-to-anger person, but I’m glad I found that out before planning the funeral. It gave me a fire, something to focus on instead of the intense pain of losing my husband, and that helped me make it through the funeral-planning process.

We sat in the funeral home—my mom and sister, his parents and brother—and we planned his funeral together. I’d always known what great people my in-laws were, but in those days and the many days since, the magnitude of the blessing they are in my life has only grown. My father-in-law said to me that day, You’re always a part of this family. Those words still mean so much to me. His parents had originally suggested I write the obituary, but I didn’t feel as if I could. Turns out after sending the obit back several times for revision, I really did write it. The funeral home was amazing and laughed at my constant changes while I was probably driving them crazy. However, they remained kind and patient.

I’d decided that Sunday I wanted to speak at the funeral and amongst his parents, the pastor, myself, and Chris’s close friends, we made a plan for the service. One without singing—that wasn’t his style—but one that was filled with testimonies and tributes from those closest to him willing and able to speak. Waking up early one morning the words quickly poured from me as I wrote my final tribute to Chris for the funeral service.

How could I be a widow now? I wasn’t gray. I didn’t have a lifetime of memories with my husband. We’d had thirteen years together, two of them as husband and wife, but we didn’t have children. We didn’t get to have all the things that made a life. What does being a widow even mean? Being called Chris’s widow was incredibly weird