Category: Grief

Another test…

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I don’t know what to do.

Tonight was another test. Just how much will I be given to hold? The rain keeps pouring over the tear streaked face, too wet to remember what it feels like without tears.  The winds feel cold across my face, but I long for them, to feel something….anything.  How much Lord, must I suffer… how many deaths must I endure?  So many lives, full of hope, of courage, of grace & strength, suddenly taken away.  I realize that they live…in a time that I do not understand, hidden beyond my sight behind your great hands.  I understand this, and I yearn to join them.  I yearn to not be separated anymore from the people who have gone before me.  I hurt so much and ache for them. 
I sit here, and what I want, I cannot have. What I don’t want, I have right now.  The things that made me happy have come and gone. And the things that supposedly will make me happy again, I cannot see through the cloudy eyes of tears. There is a restless spirit within my ambiguous desires and sedentary day. What to do with myself, my life…my pain, and everything that is wrapped up within the three, forming a cord that seems to cut off life to my heart.

When oh Lord, will you come?  When will you join with us again, joining us and the ones we love? 

This last death, though a relationship not as prominent as my mother, has hit me low….it is so soon after my mother’s death,  that I feel completely empty, void of anything, yet terribly in pain.  There is too much sadness Lord, too much grief. What is your purpose, and why to us? Where will the pain end, and to what extent must it reach?  I know there are no limits of your love, and you have limited death…for you will not be overcome by it.  Yet how come I cannot always see the limits of death, or feel the limitless reach of your grasp?  You need to touch me, to hold me, to comfort me, for I cannot live without your peace. Your grace is more than sufficient to hold the terrors that haunt me each day, but meet me now Lord, do not delay.  For my heart wanes for you & aches with tremors.
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There has never….

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Today the air seems heavy, my limbs feel weighted, one of my fingers has an insatiable twitching….I want to cry every time that I turn around the corner. I don’t know what it is about today….I have shivers on the inside and yet I want to stand or run out in the cold rain.  There are no real words to describe….I can’t tell you what would make me feel better. Doubtful if anything would.

There has never been a time in my life that I have not talked with my mother for more than two weeks. It has now been almost three weeks to the day that I last spoke to her. It wasn’t much…we talked about what was happening, we talked about how she felt and how she didn’t want to lose me. We talked about my new website I wanted to make, and how I had found a name I really liked…not for my site, but in general. The name was Lucile Ann.  I told her I liked that name because it was her middle name & my grandma’s first name. She told me before I left that day, that she really liked that name, but that I should put an “e” on Anne.

I remember playing piano, her playing music me playing notes. Somehow we always made music together and it sounded beautiful, our mixing of melodies. I remember gardening, weeding, and planting. I remember her stories that snap dragons would bite my fingers off if I got too close….I kept away because she was always truthful. I remember putting our fingers in the water, to feel the coolness & stirring of the unseen tremors of the water.

My joints ache with the pain of an unexpressed sorrow. The anticipation of days ahead leave me with urges to close my eyes and to not think, to not breath, to not imagine. And how can you imagine, when the future is so unclear, and unknown, indiscernible? I breathe. Once, twice, again & again. Waiting & hoping for relief.

Questions or Statements

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So many people have been speaking to me, and telling me…”I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to say, and don’t worry….I won’t be the millionth person to ask how you are.” Well, I want to give you permission to ask.

The simple truth is…in my attempt to be honest with myself & with those around me, I fail in offering up much information about how I feel or what I struggle with.  However, if someone directly asks me not just how I feel, but how do I feel about: ______ or what will I miss about:______ or how will:______ impact the ____ part of your life? Those questions are all good, normal & welcomed.

In this shock and awe of grief, my mind is not actively thinking about how my life is changing, has changed or will change. I’m just trying to simply survive from one second to the next. Laying one foot down in front of the other. Drive one more mile without crying.

I’ll tell you this too….don’t be afraid to ask me about things, because if I don’t want to talk about it, I’ll tell you. I’m becoming better at saying “no thanks” when things come to me that I don’t want to share….so I’ll let you know if I can’t talk about what you’re wanting to know, and I won’t be mad that you asked, okay?

Alright, now that all that is on the table, I hope you feel a little more comfortable talking to me, and I hope you’ll take advantage of my openness.

indescribable

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It’s unexplainable, and indescribable what my hollow body feels right now.  In the last few days, hours & moments, there is a need I have to repeatedly put my hand over my heart, to remind myself that I am alive. My heart that is feeling so much is yet completely numb and stilled with life.

What more can I say when my mother, my beloved mother who was and is my world, has disappeared before my eyes?  My heart beats to a song that no longer plays.  In almost every memory I recalled this weekend, her influence or presence was in each one….and I did not want to share those memories…I almost wished that I had memories that were apart from her…and yet there are none. We did everything together, and if we were not together we shared everything with each other.  This constant communication will be the hardest to get used to.  Unexplainably, the last few mornings, as I awake from an unrestful rest, my arms are wrapped tight around my soul, and it feels as though someone else is holding me…like my mother, from somewhere, is holding me and comforting me as I awake to the bitterly silent home.

Although I feel I want to write everything I’m thinking out now….I will withhold some, and will be continuing this walk with grief once again.  If you are reading this, and have memories of my mother, I would love to hear them. Please write.

Expectation vs. Reality

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You know how you expect things….you know they’re coming, or you think they’re coming…but the way you expect to feel when they come isn’t at all how they feel once it becomes reality? It’s like your expectations meant nothing because nothing prepared you for this. And no matter how long you’d been expecting it…it just wasn’t what it really was when reality hit? Hm.

It’s like if you play a scene in your head…you know that Thing A will be happening…so you process all the possibilities & probabilities of what will be the effect of Thing A, that causes Thing B. You convince yourself that Thing B will be great, that it’ll be grand, that it will work out. But when Thing A comes along, you react, turning into motion Thing XYZ and not even close to B….and then you freeze.

It happened tonight. As I’m wrapping presents, alone in my parents house. I’m wrapping all of my families presents. The door bell rings, from someone unexpected. Then here on the door is a friend, bringing care packages to my family, because he knows that this Christmas will be different. Yes it will. I knew it would be….I prepared for it. But as I took the packages, thanking him for his prayers & care, I placed them gently on the chair and started to cry. How is it that someone ELSE knew how hard a different kind of Christmas this would be….but to me, I had no idea! I get that this isn’t going to be like this every Christmas from here on out….but this one, THIS one….it’s just hard & it sucks. And everyone around me knew it….but I didn’t. I thought it’d be fine, it’d be an adventure. Hm.

As I’m writing this, two verses come to mind. Philippians 4:7, which says that “…the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts & minds in Christ Jesus.” ….So I know that He is guarding me, and will put peace in my heart that I may not understand. And I also know that “The Lord is my Rock my Fortress and my deliverer, my God is my Rock in whom I take refuge.” (Psalm 18:2) Therefore I know that He will be the one to bring me through….to bring US through. I may not be prepared for what’s next….but I know that when my expectations meet reality, God will be the one who will comfort, provide, protect & reveal all that it is I am to know and do.