She did find someone, but only after she found her faith, and faith led him to her. She once asked her husband, worried and pleading, who would teach their little boy Kaleb the things he loved, how to bait a hook, how to sit quiet in the woods, how to love the simple hobbies that shaped his own childhood, if he wasn’t here. He answered fast and flat: she would meet someone else, someone better for Kaleb, because he would always be sick. Within hours of a long, desperate talk, he ended his life. Nothing she said could reach him. He was sure they would manage without him. Grief came with anger. She was shattered that he believed he would never be enough, and bitter that Kaleb had no say in a choice that changed everything. She replayed his words, “you’ll find someone”, and hated how easy he made it sound.
Years passed. She tried dating and learned how hard it really was. Being a working single mother with heavy emotions did not fit neatly into profiles and first messages. She could have settled for company, but she knew Kaleb needed more than “someone.” Around five, he began to pray for what he called a dad on earth. He pictured camping trips and paper airplanes and used that hope to fill a space that hurt. She knew the wrong person could break him, and she refused to risk his heart. One day after they left the cemetery, Kaleb asked if his dad in heaven would be upset that he prayed for a dad here. She told him no, his dad would want that too. The question cut deep and reminded her the search was about both of them, not only her loneliness.
People told her to relax, to wait for the right time. The words slid past until one June, six years after her husband’s death and a week before her birthday, she made a choice. She gave the outcome to God. She stopped the apps, picked up a notebook, and wrote, first small notes, then full pages. She wrote about fear and hope. She wrote about Kaleb’s longing and her own. She thanked God even for the empty places, trusting they could be filled with the right love. She prayed for the man she had not met yet, whoever and wherever he was, and asked that his heart be nudged toward them.
She kept at it for about a year. Then something shifted, not with a stranger, but with someone who had been in their life all along: Russell, a childhood family friend and cousin to her late husband. He had been there when the family grieved. He had lost a fishing buddy and a piece of his own memories, too. For years they saw each other at holidays, exchanged small talk, and moved on. Then one spring afternoon by the lake, a door opened. They talked for hours. He said he had prayed for her happiness and for Kaleb’s care. His words sounded like lines from her journal. They went on a few dates. Each time, she felt a steady confirmation that her prayers had not been ignored. On their third date, he told her he admired her strength, but also that she didn’t always have to be strong with him. The walls she knew about and the ones she pretended not to have began to fall.
When she told Kaleb, he lit up. They invited Russell to dinner. At the table, she mentioned a food Kaleb’s dad had loved; Russell remembered, too. Kaleb’s eyes widened. It comforted him that this new man could share real memories of the father he missed. Later they found old photos of Russell and her late husband together, and she could see how those pictures might steady Kaleb in the years ahead. Nearly eight years after the loss, she looks at an engagement ring and feels awe, not because life erased pain, but because love arrived with care, timing, and meaning. The story still moves her: how letting go opened a path; how prayer built patience; how a familiar face became a new beginning.
