July 12th, 2023

𝘎𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, again.

Emergency Contact…

I went into the settings on my iPhone and, as is typical for me, went down a rabbit trail that somehow ended up in the part where it lists your emergency contact…surprise…guess who? And here we go, down Alice’s rabbit hole…

I had to change my emergency contact to one of the boys. There is a fear that comes with losing my husband so suddenly and unexpectedly, especially after losing my nephew two weeks earlier in a different but also abrupt and unforeseen way. Many times I’ve thought, since then, about how disruptive and undecided life is. One minute everything is coming up roses; the next minute it smells like rotten garbage and someone tells you that this garbage dump is your new home. Welcome home and, by the way, this is the station where you get off. Have a nice, long stay.

I think a lot now about how I don’t want my boys to have to go through any of the tribulations I’m walking in now. Scott was only 49. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He didn’t have a will. He had a high-paying job and I was, theoretically, retired from nursing so that we could spend more time together. So there are bumps that feel more like jagged mountains in this rocky road I’m walking on…shoeless. I don’t want all of my kids walking this road, not this way. I at least want to get them thick-soled shoes first and try to smooth out some of those big hills and valleys.

So a will is on the agenda for sometime after probate gets handled, which could take forever but I know God will hold my hand while I’m walking. He’s already picked me up and carried me more than a few times until I got my will-to-keep-going and strength back.

Scott would never have intentionally left things undone. We just didn’t know. You never know, right? And people who go through tragedy tell you that, but I think we always tend to think that really bad things like that only happen to 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 people…not us. Or maybe it’s that some part of us thinks that if we don’t talk about it, it won’t happen, like an ostrich hiding it’s head in the sand. If I can’t see you, you can’t see me…

But this is where we are now and it did happen; it happened when we were unprepared. Out of all of the people who read this, most of you won’t go do anything differently after reading it. You’ll be like we were, if you’re young. I know I’m 50 now but we were still SO YOUNG.

If you don’t do it for any other reason, do it for your spouse and/or for your kids. Please.

Things like emergency contacts trip you up in grief. It sounds like a simple thing: hit the delete button for each letter of their name and then just type in a new one. No biggie, right? And yet every single time you have to hit that button, it is like a stabbing, gut-wrenching wound opening back up the place that you just got clotted off and were hoping against hope that it would stay that way. Now you’re bleeding all over the floor again. Another mess to clean up and you still have to figure out whose name to type in this stupid box to replace his.

R͛E͛P͛L͛A͛C͛E͛. It feels like you’re slowly chipping away at pieces of your person, the one you loved…the one you still love despite immeasurable distance. You’re purposely not packing away the clothes and all the things because you want them to know that you still want them HERE, not gone. But it isn’t the clothes that force your hand. It’s things like the words “emergency contact.” Just in case anything happens to me, I need an emergency contact who will answer the phone. Scott’s phone would just ring and ring on his nightstand. Yep, he still has a phone and his number. Well, I have it. Can’t cancel that either. Not yet.

Yes, logically I know that changing something like my emergency contact and other paperwork that has to be done isn’t erasing 𝘩𝘪𝘮. I know, I know. Say it loud for the people in the back but it still won’t change how it feels…to me. The figurative language that opens its mouth during the reaping of his name, one sharp slash of the scythe at a time, has a deafening, slicing sound. With each swish, the word echoes in your mind: gone. gone. gone.

I know you can see by now that today was a rough day. One bright spot was that I did get to have lunch with a wonderful woman who understands the pain I’m going through and who is so good at making very valid points about grief.

Let me tell you about some of her wise words today. I asked her a question. I told her that something has been plaguing me, worrying me about whether I’m “doing this right.” I know God didn’t promise us the rose garden and He even said there would be trouble. But while thinking of my instruction manual (Bible) I got this: If you want to follow Him, you will have to die to self daily, and by dying, you actually live. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” (John 11:25) Die to self; live for Christ. Got it…I think…?

Yet I feel SLAP FULL of self these days. I’m not 𝘵𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 to have a pity party. I’m 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 to find a way to bust out of this prison cell I’m in called grief. I promise. But all I can think about is how SAD I am, all the time. It’s immersive. It’s intrusive. The missing him is incessant.

People keep saying “You need to get out of the house; get your mind off of things.” They mean well. They’d do anything to help. They just want to relieve the burden, take some of the pain away. What they likely don’t realize is that nothing “gets my mind off of things.”

That’s why lunch today was good for me. She doesn’t expect me to put my mind in places that intend for me to concentrate on not only the thing that never leaves my thoughts but also some other conversation that is difficult to follow when I cannot concentrate, not properly. We talked about Scott. We talked about her husband. We talked about grief. And that’s okay. It didn’t hurt worse. It helps because the things my brain is tormenting me with are things she went through, too. She doesn’t make me feel like she is uncomfortable if I talk about him.

That is why, while it’s happening, while I’m feeling all of the pain that I feel right now, I’m writing it down and I tell you about it. One day someone will be feeling what I am now and they’ll see themselves deep in the mud that I describe in these pages. They’ll know there’s a hand to reach for. I’m right here…just reach…I can almost touch your fingers…!

Sorry, I digress, as usual. Back to the “dying to self” scripture. So I was feeling like, if I cannot stop thinking about how sad I am and how miserable this life is going to be without him, then I’m clearly not doing a good job of dying to self and living for Christ. I should be spending my time pointing people to Jesus, not wasting the beauty that God can make from these ashes of my life. I should be taking every thought captive and focusing on love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. ALL of the Fruits of the Spirit. Instead, the ashes from the incinerating burn of my life are just going to blow away on the next breeze that comes through.

You know what my beautiful, wise friend said? I’m paraphrasing because I can’t remember the exact words but here is the takeaway: you aren’t making a decision to grieve. Grieving just is. It just is what it is. God gave me my husband and he gave you yours. They were treasures to behold and now they’re just gone. Grieving the loss of that gift is just something that happens; you don’t “decide” to do it. IT JUST IS. God created us with emotions and He knows and understands what they do to us. He lived on this earth as one of us! How worthy was that love of a grief so deep?

Jesus wept when Lazarus died. He already knew that he was going to wake him. He knew he would bring him back to life to show the glory of God’s power. But he wept. He cried for the pain he was seeing on the faces of those he loved. He didn’t choose to weep or not to weep. It was a normal, human reaction to deep empathy for those he strongly cared about. Grief wasn’t a choice, it was a human reaction.

I’m grieving the loss of my primary emergency contact. It may sound silly but it just is what it is. It is an ugly, messy, disconcerting, discombobulating, disastrous, painful grief. And I can’t stop doing it because it just is. And, truthfully, I feel better about that.

No one is “doing it wrong.” No one “isn’t moving on like they should.” No one is going overboard and no one isn’t grieving enough. Some people have a pretty good talent for keeping their mask attached firmly at all times public. Others fall prey to tears with each trigger that jumps out dramatically from every possible hiding spot. We’re all doing it 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. We’re processing. Sometimes we’re stuffing it away to deal with later. We’re doing the very best we know how to do in order to survive each new onslaught, every single day.

Eventually, I’m going to boss this grief. Not every single day, and not right now, because I’m learning how to combat the evil tactics it throws at me. But one day, I’m going to be the overcomer, eventually, that I was created to be. 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺 it won’t be like this. I think.