Am I forgetting????

This morning I sit and write in sadness. My night was short or long, depending on how you see it. My sleep was over-taken by dreams that caused me to cry out in the night. I woke with tears streaming down my face at the memories of what I had dreamed in the night. And I woke up afraid. Not because the dreams were nightmares. I woke afraid because they were so real and made me wonder what they meant. It was at any rate a very long night.
3 years and 8 months ago, my entire life changed. Everything I knew, every reason I got up in the morning... changed. Sheila and I had been together for almost 25 years. Our daughters were grown and our life different for certain but still filled with Love and caring and a forever that was to travel the miles from earth to heaven and back down to earth. It was a love that had seen so much sickness and so many hospital rooms. We walked through fires hand and hand and nursed one an others burns when we came out the other side. And this love saw a man broken, lost and breaking the heart of the very woman he had pledged his life too. A Man that no longer felt he was worthy of this Angels love and so he stepped out, thinking it was she that would one day leave him.
3 years and 8 months later, I wake with tears and sadness at realizing that she would have never left me. I stayed at her side to the day she went to heaven, never walking far away from her. We kissed good morning and kissed good night every single day of our life together. We whispered our "I love you's" and spoke them out loud even after I had done her so wrong. I still tell her I love her and know she hears me say it. I will always say it.
After nearly 4 years, loving someone new and feeling contentment at where my life is, still, I dream of Sheila. Mostly good things and wonderful memories. But that was not last night. Not unhappy where I am, I wondered why the dreams last night were so different, so hard.The sorrow and tears were so strong and real and I sat today, questioning why. I dreamed of her in her wheelchair, alone. I found her and cuddled with her and told her how Much I loved her. I waited in the dream for doctors to come and make her better. I called to them aloud in my dreams. I woke myself, calling out her name. Telling the empty air that I could not see her... I could not find her. I ached to know the feel of her tiny hand on mine just once more. I strained to hear her voice and prayed I would remember the sound when I woke. But, I didn't. I reached out to touch her and she wasn't there. But I heard her small tiny voice say so gently to me, "I am not gone, Love. I am right there in your heart, right where I have always been."
Fear? What am I afraid of today? I am afraid that I am forgetting her. I am so scared that I am leaving her behind somewhere because I am living a new life. I fear that God may not know me when I go because of the hurt I caused Sheila. Are these real fears? Yes! People will tell me it isn't a big deal or not to worry about it. They will say "you need to stay focused on the future" and I will nod. But in my heart, I will ask God to forgive me for what I did to her. I will ask him to remember the 24 years we spent together and all we stood by each other through. And I will thank him for the blessing of entrusting Sheila, who was sick from 1 year after we married until she went to heaven. A love... My Love that went too soon and left me without my having said All I wanted to and should have said to her.
Yes, I live each and every day with the guilt of what I did wrong. I pray silently that God will feel that the good far out-weighed the bad. The dreams will come again and I pray for strength to keep moving on with my new life, my new love. I cry even now because I don't want to forget her. I don't want to wake one morning and realize I have let her go away. I sit here crying because I Miss her so. And I wonder... Do I deserve to cry? I hope I am still allowed to cry for her. I remember all of our fun times and how hard we laughed as we went through our life together. And I pray once more that I am Not forgetting My Sheila.