God, Please Spare Me from This
A story of love, loss, and what remains
My partner Marv and I, like many couples, had a tumultuous relationship.
We loved each other deeply, but we struggled. We couldn’t seem to stay in that love for long without conflict.
We lived for the moments when everything softened; when we could feel good about ourselves and about us. But we couldn’t resolve our conflicts, and that brought a tremendous amount of pain. There was so much good between us, and in the life we built together, but there was always a gap we couldn’t navigate together.
We both longed for a kind of closeness we couldn’t find together.
Sometimes I think we just tried too hard, for too long.
After 20 years, Marv found the courage to say he was done. He was leaving.
The separation brought out the worst in both of us. We entered a new kind of hell, dismantling our life. Some couples separate with care—we didn’t. We fell into our old patterns. I froze and clung. He ran and pushed away.
We were both afraid.
After two years of stress and negotiations, we were finally nearing the end of the legal process. We had sold our home, and I could see a light ahead. Part of that light was hope that maybe we could find a new way to be in relationship with each other. Something more peaceful, for us and for our children.
I was right that something new was coming.
But I could never have imagined what it would be.
Marv died four weeks after our separation was complete.
He was in a hang gliding accident, fell into a coma, and died on August 26, 2010.
Marv died.
For a long time, I could barely say those words.
My life felt like it stopped that day. I kept moving, I kept breathing but something in me froze. It took many years of deep grief and trauma healing to find my way back to myself. I felt shattered in a way I didn’t know was possible.
For a long time, I barely recognized myself. It was as if all the life and love had gone out of me. I was surviving, moment to moment.
Three days after Marv died, I had a dream that became a guiding light.
In the dream, we were standing together in a doorway. I was holding a baby. Everything was completely still and at peace—but it was more than peace. It was a kind of pure presence I’ve come to recognize as true nature.
We stood there together, softly looking at the baby. There was nothing personal between us; no history, no conflict, no grasping or pushing away. All of that was gone.
We were simply there holding innocence and vulnerability together.
It was everything we had ever longed for.
That presence had always been there, even when we couldn’t see it.
It’s still here now.
The dream didn’t take away the grief and trauma. I still had to walk through the pain; every part of it. At times, it was unbearable. I begged not to feel that much pain. “Please spare me.”
There were moments when I didn’t want to be here anymore.
But something held me. Grace met me in those darkest places; quietly, gently and kept bringing me back. I had something to live through. Something to learn.
Looking back, I can see that Marv’s death shattered my sense of who I thought I was. An identity that was already fragile at best. But somehow, through that breaking, something deeper began to emerge. It took a long time for me to recognize that something else was emerging.
I began to see that everything personal; the clinging, the fear, the pain; is not the truth of who we are. It’s limited. It’s unstable. And it can’t truly be resolved.
I stopped trying to fix the personal. There will always be another problem, another misunderstanding, another reason to feel separate.
But underneath all of that, there is something else.
If you become still; even for a moment; you can feel it.
A quiet, open presence that is already here. Whole. Unbroken.
That is what we are.
That is what we’re all longing for.
At first, you might only glimpse it for a few seconds. But even that can change you.
I wish I could say the pain is gone, but that wouldn’t be true. As long as we are here, we are unfolding. We are learning how to live from this deeper place.
It’s not enough to see it. We have to let it move through us and into our lives, our relationships, our humanity.
We are here to embody it.
If you are suffering right now, know this:
in the heart of your pain, something is revealing itself to you and through you.
You are not broken.
You are becoming.
You are light.
I see you. I love you.
“Everyone has a story that will break your heart.” — Brené Brown
In memory of Marv.
All of Candace’s services are Trauma, PTSD, Complex Grief, Chronic Illness and Benzo withdrawal symptom sensitive.