Tag: depression

Through It All, My Eyes Are On You – FOREWORD

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FOREWORD

After this post, he lived until October. The past four years has held so much loss and heartache for my family, so much so that it’s been hard to take in every single next breath sometimes.

I sat with Don (my stepdad) and gave him morphine every hour overnight until he reached for the hand of Jesus and gave up his long fight.

In early 2022, Scott’s brother died suddenly and unexpectedly at home. It tore at my heart seeing the pain that Scott and his parents, wife, and kids faced. About six months later Scott and I had to sit down with my precious daughter-in-love 𝙩𝙬𝙞𝙘𝙚 and be the ones to deliver the news that two of the most important people in her life were gone, her mother and then only six months later her grandmother. My heart shattered both times watching her world fall apart before our eyes. Only three months later my 14-year-old nephew died. I didn’t think I could manage the pain of seeing my baby sister’s world being ripped to shreds without warning. Two weeks after that, Scott was no longer here to help me shoulder grief but was now the unintended and unexpected cause of my own devastation and spiral into the depths of despair and loss. And even after this, we have lost others who have chosen to separate themselves from our lives. Grief hurts and it is true that hurt people hurt people.

If you ever wonder why I talk so much about my grief, know that it is because he (Grief) and I have gotten to know each other on a very personal level; we’re on so much more than a first name basis. Sometimes he quietly sits in a corner and sometimes he screams in rage and agony from the rooftop of my soul but he is always there; even when he hides, he is a constant companion and I doubt we’ll ever really lose touch again, like old high school friends or childhood pals. I’ve tried sometimes to lock him away in chains or behind doors, but he always finds a way to escape his shackles, seething and foaming at the mouth. Now I’ve learned that he remains less volatile, usually anyway, if I just let him quietly walk beside me and try to ignore him mostly, try not to bother him, tiptoe to keep from making sounds that might remind him that he has a job to do, that his journey to destroy is not yet complete. Maybe what I am doing is more like playing dead; if he thinks I no longer exist then why would he continue to exert any effort? But maybe it’s really more like playing peek-a-boo with a baby; he’s still there but I’m just hiding behind a blanket with my eyes closed.

What I do know? What I know that I know that I know – is that I have never been alone with him. Sometimes my kids walk with me. Sometimes my friends. Sometimes my sister, wrapped in her own cloak of pseudo-hiding. Sometimes my mother-in-law or my parents. Sometimes others who have walked the same path. Sometimes my old friend chaos comes to shadow over me, stirring me up in something that keeps my mind diverted to another temporary subject. I don’t even mind her company as much as I used to because her best friend, distraction, always accompanies her.

No matter who else is with me, God has never left my side. Yes, He becomes quiet at times. And sometimes He tries to speak to me but I sit in a corner with my fingers in my ears saying “I’m not listening, I’m not listening, I’m not listening!” just to avoid having to talk about it while I’m playing my peek-a-boo “game.” But other times…other times I run toward Him and hide behind His back instead. Grief looks and looks; I can hear him creaking over the floorboards as he gets near but somehow doesn’t see me right around the next corner. I get a blissfully transitory break from the sharpness of his claws, only a dull ache in its wake. There are times I’ve felt God lift me in His arms, a rush of wind spilling around me as I displace the air on my hurried way up. He swipes me out of Grief’s near grasp just before Grief accomplishes his ultimate goal – to destroy me, demolish my spirit, devastate my soul. That was January of 2024…felt like he got so close that time.

Whether God walks beside me, carries me, or walks quietly behind me waiting for me to turn around, He has never bored of my inattention, my lawlessness, my weeping and wailing, or even my complete attempted evasion as I’d pout like an unruly child in a temper tantrum. He has never walked away. No, He waits patiently for me to return to my roots, the ones I’ve grown in Him over years of being reminded, over and over, who He is and how His arms are really the only place that feels safe.

Later on in my grief, as I shuffled back and forth between bewailing the sorrows of my life and grasping for the sparks of light, the joy that laid within the sadness, I began to truly be thankful that deep roots grounded me here. I remembered that I am not one who grieves with no hope. I was never really lost in the storm (even though it may have felt that way, at times,) because He always knows where I am and has always had the power to calm the wind and the waves if I am only so bold as to remember and believe that He can.

Today I know – I know that I know that I know – He will.

Polarized

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It’s the strangest things. The tiny things no one would even think about. This is why grief just seems to ambush you over and over out of nowhere…and everywhere.

Every single time I put on polarized sunglasses I think of him. One day we were fishing in the Florida Keys, both wearing sunglasses, and he said “Look at all of those fish under the water.” I couldn’t see anything but the glare of the sun off the top of the water. He said “You can’t see all of those fish? Oh, wait…here…try these” and he handed me his polarized sunglasses. Suddenly I could see fish teeming just beneath the surface and I was kind of shocked that I’d been missing so much. Sounds silly, I’m sure, but I had never really known the difference. I’ve never bought a pair of sunglasses since then that were not polarized. And I’ve never not thought of him when I put them on and see the world so much more clearly than I had before him.

And now my life is polarized. Two entirely different lives…before and after. But the vision of it is no longer polarized because the glare of grief is too strong to see a darn thing.

Anniversaries are Supposed to be Happy Occasions…right?

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I didn’t make a post yesterday because I needed, for my own sanity and ability to put one foot in front of the other, to essentially pretend that it was another, everyday kind of day. None of my days will ever be the kind of normal I want them to be again; yesterday was certainly anything but “normal.”

May 10th. One year. A whole year. The longest year of my life and yet…wasn’t he just here yesterday? I will continue to say that I really don’t understand how time works after all of this. Or how it can be that my brain knows he is gone but my heart…my heart still thinks he’ll walk in the door any minute. My heart still jumps when I see his location on my phone and it says he’s home. For a split second, every time, I want to get up and go find him. And then after the split second comes the sinking feeling that he cannot be at our home because he has a new one with Jesus.

Tornados hitting the county, a tree falling and crushing my new baby almond tree, my patio furniture being slung all over the place, and no power most of the day while Lillian was with me kept my thoughts busy in the early morning. We hid in the hallway and played with flashlights with all of the curtains, shutters, and doors in the house closed until the danger had passed, then walked window to window to survey what damage we could see from inside. Soon after, a sweet friend took time out of her own busy, kid-filled schedule to just come sit in our powerless house and talk with me for a couple of hours. We talked about a myriad of things but really didn’t focus on Scott. Oh, I thought about him all day long..he’s in most of my thoughts every day…but I couldn’t really talk about him yesterday. I had wanted to spend the day celebrating who he was but then realized I could not talk about him much at all on this “anniversary day” or I would lose what composure I was managing to maintain, a slim cord wrapped around the bulging chaos of grief that wanted to spill out. So I just kept pretending.

A little later my kids started showing up to hang out while we all waited for power to return at our respective homes. We all laughed at Lillian’s antics, which tend to amp up when there are so many of her favorite people there to watch, and everyone tiptoed around what day it was…or more accurately, around what this day looked like, felt like last year. With no power, no TV or music or phones for distraction, it was a blessing to be occupied by casual conversation with others the whole day.

Luke and Patrice asked me to eat supper with them but Austin and Taylor had already invited me to go out to dinner with them at the beautiful 406 restaurant. They took me with them to their anniversary dinner and then insisted on paying for my dinner and theirs. I didn’t realize last year that it happened on their anniversary. I’ve found, along the way, that there is a LOT I don’t remember at all about those days.

Our power was restored and, thankfully, I was able to get some sleep with the A/C on. Much needed sleep because, although I’ve been dreading the arrival of this date for awhile, what I didn’t anticipate was the 9th being much worse than the 10th this time around.

The 9th, throughout the day, was a replay of what we were doing this time last year. Waiting for him to be called to pre-op. Kissing him goodbye in the pre-op area before they took him back. Telling him I loved him and he was going to be fine; I’d see him when he woke up. Sitting with his parents in the waiting room while he was in surgery. Saying goodbye to them while I was waiting for him to be taken up to a room. Seeing him at 7:00 p.m. And then it got really hard. You see, I never saw him on the 10th. Well, I did. I laid in the bed with him but he was already gone. Re-living, again, the hours from 7 p.m. to 11:43 p.m. was brutal. And then remembering the time from then until 12:45 a.m., frantically pacing a waiting room I had been shuffled to and left alone in, trying to get a hold of people I needed, until doctors came to tell me it was over…life, as I knew it and loved it, was over. And the feeling of the cold wall against my back and my shoulder as I slid to the floor, unable to hold my own weight. No. No. No.

That film has played in my head many times during sleep over the last year but usually, while awake, I’ve been able to redirect myself. There are too many whys, what ifs, why didn’t I’s, why didn’t theys, and the ever present “what else could I have done; what should I have done differently to make them save him.” I don’t have a choice when I’m asleep, until I wake in sweat, but in the daytime I can usually waylay the thoughts, except for this time. It’s like when you think about the Challenger explosion, or 9/11, or the Oklahoma City bombing, and you not only remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at that moment but you can feel the shock and devastation you experienced then. This time I was unable to let go of it until I had walked through much of those hours again. The last hours. I’m sure “anniversaries” are different for everyone but I now know that the anniversary of the day before will always be harder than the day they officially called off the code and delivered news to me. By then, he was at peace…and I was desperately clinging to strands of faith that one day I’d find peace here before I go to be with him again.

Looking back, this year has been a picture of God’s hand at work after tragedy. Friends I’m blessed with rallied around and poured love over our family. Some of those same friends have been very steadfast throughout this whole year, understanding that this wasn’t a pain that would disappear after the visitors and meals stopped coming, after the funeral was done. Financially I shouldn’t have been able to maintain what I have been able to thus far. Many times I thought I may be forced to break mine and Scott’s promise to the kids that I would stay home to keep Lillian at least until her mama finished nursing school…but God. Every time I prayed I could keep the promises that Scott and I had made, every single time, God made a way. While I will have to return to work soon, it won’t be before what we committed to. I’m not sure what that work will be but God has given me a year to heal and learn how to manage my grief before needing to concentrate on whatever my new job will entail. I do not even have words to express how thankful I am for this time.

And Lillian, my beautiful, sweet granddaughter. God knew, long before we did, how much she was going to be needed in our family, the light she would bring in darkest sorrows, the joy she would spread even when sadness seemed to reign over everything, the hope she would sprinkle over grown ups, not even knowing that she was doing it.

I haven’t posted much online lately but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing about him. This last month, especially, has given me much to write. Now, though, for the most part, I am saving my words for print. I still have a lot to learn about publishing and a lot of choices to make about how to do this, but if everything goes well, and I believe God is in it so it will happen, I will have a book out sometime this year. I always thought my novel would be the first (and really only) book I would write but this book has written itself in my words but by God’s voice of hope intermingled with my trauma. I’ve decided to finally tell about what happened to my husband and how he died…why he died. I have also decided to add in some other very sensitive subjects about loss, widowhood, and being left behind, that I have written over the last year but decided were not social media material. They’ll be in my book. I’m saying this now because Scott really wanted me to publish my novel. He was proud of my writing, even when I felt like I couldn’t get it right, sounding like I wanted. He believed in me so much more than I ever have. He encouraged me endlessly to do this thing I never felt worthy or capable of doing with any success. I do not care, though, about success in an author’s terms. The success is in completing another thing we had planned to do together. This first book won’t be my Christian fiction novel, although I hope to one day finish the other half of it, too, but this book was born of pain and healing, of loss and still living, of devastation clinging to hope. And it is filled with him.

Today is the 11th. This year has been like a marathon (and I 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 running) with those little tents throughout the race where you stop to drink or fuel up before continuing on. My stops weren’t fuel ups, though. They were days I had to get through. Instead of marking my progress by how many fueling stations I had passed (I don’t even really know what marathoners call them) my progress was marked from one day I made it through to another. Holidays, birthdays, probate dates, and tasks completed. The thing about this marathon, though, is that when I finally felt my chest hit the ribbon at the elusive finish line…it wasn’t the finish line at all. It was yet another starting line and I cannot leave until I finish. But when I finish this one, there’s still only another start again. Every marathon, every year that passes, flows into the next and the next with no end, like some ride that you cannot step off of because it never stops moving so, so fast. I’ve gotten through all of the “firsts.” Now I have to learn how live without just surviving each day. So starts a new year…and God will still be in the outcome.

Change is the only Constant

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I’m not who I was a year ago. There are parts that are healing. There are parts that still feel beyond repair but I know they will heal…they just won’t ever look or feel the same where the scar lies. There are parts that are wiser (about things I don’t really want to be wiser.) There are parts of me that still can’t figure things out. All I know is that change is the only constant in life. How ironic is that?

The one year “anniversary” of my nephew’s death is next Tuesday. It feels weird to call it an anniversary – those are supposed to be happy occasions, like birthdays…but those aren’t as happy either anymore. After we fumble our way through that day, it is only 16 days until it’s been a year for me, too. It’s like there is a convoluted countdown going on. Part of your brain unwittingly hopes that one year means “Whew! I made it through the firsts. Should be smooth sailing from now on…” while the part of your brain that contains intellect knows full well that an anniversary date is no longer the end of anything. It ended last year and once it’s ended there can be no other ending. There’s no reprise, no encore act. The bow has been taken and the theater long cleared out.

I’m different because I’ve made it this far. I have exercised my faith this year as if I were training for a double triathlon. God has come through every time. None of it has been easy – the exercising of my faith to what felt like the full limit part, or even the parts when He came to the rescue. It’s still all been really hard, but I am here. I am still living in our home and was not forced to move. I still have three amazing sons and three wonderful daughters-in-love plus a grandbaby. I was able to care for my granddaughter during my daughter-in-love’s entire nursing school program so that my son didn’t have to pay for daycare and so that my sweet grandbaby was exposed to as little illness as possible. My husband and I had agreed to do that for them and I was trying my best to hold true to that. The fact that I feel so much loss and brokenness but am still so blessed seems like a crazy paradox. An impossible coexistence.

I will be applying to jobs soon. The retirement my husband wanted and planned out for me was revoked once he was no longer here. I’m so thankful that the grace of God has provided ways to allow me time to grieve and to be with my granddaughter; He has provided hand over foot, over and over again, each time I even considered that the time may be coming when we’d be forced to look into daycare for the baby. Then suddenly a solution that would appear, in the natural, to be completely out of the blue, totally unexpected…they were solutions that were promised to me last year. He said “don’t worry; it’s already taken care of” and it was, right on time, every time.

I really didn’t want to go back to work but I am thankful that I was afforded this time to walk the brittle beginning of this journey with my granddaughter to light up the darkest days and without added stressors to keep me from processing all that I have been able to thus far. Now I will work on walking back into the work world and figuring out how that is going to look.

Money has been a sticking worry point for me throughout the last year. I’ve often felt guilty for worrying about it because figuring out how to deal with the money part isn’t nearly as difficult as figuring out to deal with the loss of my husband, my soulmate. Also because God tells us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear because the birds of the air do not sow or harvest but God provides food for them. And the lilies of the field are dressed in the most beautiful finery but need not worry about clothing. How much more does the Father love us? (Matthew 6:26-30) Every time I tried to stop worrying about money, another problem would pop up, making everything feel like a monetary house of cards all this time. And every time, He provided a way like He said He would.

I figured out this week one of the main and primary reasons that I’ve been so worried about the financial part. First off, my husband and I were both nurses but he was in a position to make a lot more money than me. As is typical, our bills grew to what we were able to afford and we bought a new home just four years ago, right before the onset of COVID-19. We bought a home together. For anyone who doesn’t know already, this was not either of our first marriage. He had a home and I had a home when we met. He eventually moved to the home I already lived in. Then his career path changed course and we were able to begin looking at houses together. We found one we loved for various reasons and we purchased it together. Then we made even more memories here.

I think it was in the first few days thay I said “I can’t lose our house; God, please don’t let me lose our house.“ This home represented so many of the dreams we had together. Things we wanted to do here for future grandchildren. Upgrades and even addition we dreamed of doing one day. Plans of what life would look like after all of the kids had moved out. I was terrified of an empty nest but he had a way of making it seem exciting and fun to be “on our own,” able to leave town at the drop of a hat and explore places we wanted to go. So one thing that has been at the tip top of my mind this whole time was “how am I going to afford to keep this house and all of the bills that go with it?” I was talking about how going back to work was the only choice but that I should be able to work it out to have the house paid off before retirement (hopefully and prayerfully.) Someone said “well, you could look into selling the house and moving into something smaller since you don’t need so much space.” That person meant no harm at all and was just trying to give a helpful potential solution, but my heart felt like it fell past my stomach and to my knees. Literally like the first downhill of a roller coaster. That same fear of not having this place where we planned our forever jumped right back into my throat while my heart tried to find its way back to my chest. It was all I could do to hold the grief break inside of me til later. It was only then that I fully realized that was the source of almost all of my money fears. Yes, I could survive if I had to sell our home. Yes, I could probably afford a tiny home more easily. Yes, I know many people end up not having a choice but, if there is anything I can do about it, I will have a choice about whether to keep or sell my house. And I will stay right here.

Now that I know part of my plan to do that means I have no choice but to return to work and that I know I will have gotten through my granddaughter’s first year and a half with no daycare, at least, I am able to build the resolve to step into it. I’m in the process now of figuring out how to plan for retirement without him here, too, but God still says it’s all going to be okay…the money part anyway.

So, things are still changing every day. Nursing school ends next month and then I go back to being one, too. It wasn’t the plan but things keep changing. But I was wrong about one thing. The only thing constant in life is not just change. It’s also God. He is never-changing.

Grief Ravine

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February 13th, 2024

I’ve fallen, again, into a grief ravine.

This deep chasm is not unique, not in this place, this particular map of a city I’m passing through in my life.

This ones is not tourist trap.

Oh, I’m trapped here but no one would visit on purpose.

These un-unique, deep gaps

– too ugly and terror-inducing to be called “valleys” – that sounds magical and lush, and green…

”valley” sounds like it slopes down gently and back up again…no, this is no valley.

these deep, vertical gaps are everywhere.

It’s as if someone took a giant hair comb to the earth here,

creating deep, deep, deep slashes into the ground

and leaving very thin, very high peaks in between each one.

The walls of the ravine are steep and very hard to climb.

Sometimes it feels as if the walls are slippery – like there is no place at all to get a foothold.

Then it changes, morphs into a craggy, dirt-packed wall with tiny, broken seashells sticking out

so that when you climb and then lose your footing, the wall tears into your skin.

But your choices are to climb – to 𝘵𝘳𝘺 to climb – or to run along the bottom of the ravine

Endlessly – never gaining altitude to get out.

But the running along the bottom part…

That part just feels easier sometimes.

Or stop moving altogether, just sit here, stay in one place.

I hate it here.

It’s too deep for the sun to shine down here so it’s all shadows.

Like a treasure trove for Seasonal Affective Disorder to collect participants for its annual party, except here there is an annual pass.

You know how that goes: annual passes are never cheap.

This one is very expensive. Very.

The cost of being here is too high to pay. I didn’t choose to pay it.

Thieves.

…Somehow, some way, there is definitely a way to get to a nicer, more lovely city.

I’ve been on other terrain before. I’ve stayed in nice places for long periods of time and never wanted to leave.

So I know better views and cities exist on this voyage I call my life. I cannot seem to find the map.

Perhaps one of these days I will arrive at the peak and it won’t be between ravines that time

A long stretch of flat ground will be there and, beyond that,

No more jagged rocks and broken seashells

But lush greenery, flowers and springtime air with fresh-cut grass.

One day.

For now, if I sharpen my focus a little…or some days, a LOT,

If I remember that I can call out for help and that there is someone who always hears, even from wayyy down here,

I’ll suddenly see camouflaged ropes hanging from the top of the chasm.

I’m not much of a rope climber so it’s still a tough climb, but there are knots in it to help.

Sometimes, when I just don’t even have the strength to reach the first knot, He comes down and sits next to me in the pit.

He lets me rest and watches over me so that no other beast can overtake me down here while I’m unaware.

Then, when I’m ready, He gets on His hands and knees, even in the broken-shell ground, skin-tearing ground, and lets me climb on His back to take the first step toward reaching the rope

To try again, finding the way out which is only up.

There have been times when I have gotten to the top and He has laid down across the gap of the next chasm, letting me use Him as a bridge.

Other times I’m not paying attention and just fall into the next, somehow completely ignoring the sturdy bridge.

One day, I will find the top that extends into pretty scenery. I just don’t know how many more ravines are between here and there.

For today, I can’t decide whether to rest, or look again for the rope.

I’m going to cry out for help finding it because I want out again.

I’m not worried about whether or not He’ll come; He always does.

Rod & Staff

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Grief is a UFC championship level scuffle except there are not only two contenders; anger, despair, thankfulness, pain, grace, loss, panic, praise, fear, disbelief, worship, and longing are only a handful of the emotions fighting to be the one on top, the one you can’t shake.

When loss happens and you’re knocked off your feet, life still keeps going on, unbidden, around you. You still get sick. So do your kids. You still have mishaps that cause the need for home repairs. You still get flat tires. If you’re in Florida, hurricanes still come and go. Nothing just stops while you feel like your heart has. You don’t get to just grieve “in peace” because the world just keeps turning and everyone else goes along with it. One thing I have learned in this process is that grief feels like unmitigated emotional chaos.

In a maypole dance, the pole stands still at the middle but children holding ribbons dance around it, over and under, which leaves the pole completely wrapped in ribbons. Braided ones that you can’t just let go of and have them fall off; nope, they have to be untangled. This is how it feels when you’re just standing still trying to catch your breath, but the emotions and the daily occurrences of “normal” life are still swirling around you, over, under, and around. It all gets tangled up and twisted around until just the normalcy in itself makes it hard to breathe. HOW can the world be normal without that person here who was so very much a part of what your world IS…was…

And so a daily (and sometimes nightly,) battle ensues. The battle to try to keep the positive things on top and wrestling the negative ones to the bottom, underneath…but underneath means they’re still there – maybe even closer to the core than they were before.

Since January, for reasons I cannot even identify, my core has been strangled by emotions that I have great difficulty controlling. I’m doing the things that I know to do: taking medicine for major depressive disorder (not my first tangle with this beast,) staying in the Word daily, trying to stay busy on the days I can force the energy to do that, taking vitamins, trying to eat food that is nutritious (sometimes) and drinking water, journaling to get the thoughts in my head to the outside so I can sort them. Nothing is making the scales tip in my favor lately, however.

It. Just. Hurts.

I’m not a stranger to pain. I’ve had kidney stones several times. I have given birth to three children. Each of those children has been hospitalized at one time or another – actually, each has been more than once. Each of these things has a time when the pain will cease. You pass the stone (and/or have surgery to be able to pass it.) The baby is born and the contractions stop. Each of my children, thankfully and by the grace of God, have come back home with me from various hospitalizations. But this…this has no end date as long as I am on this earth. When people say “Honey, you’ll be alright; this too shall pass” I want to say “Yeah…like a kidney stone.” It will never go away. It hurts as it passes and there are more up in the renal pelvis just waiting to get stuck. Last count I had five on one side and four on the other. So there is really no end; there is just wondering when the next attack will begin.

I’ve lost people I loved and cared very much about before. It sucks. I have a pretty good vocabulary but any way you shake it, that phrase just feels right. It just sucks. And yet even still, this is different. The cut is so deep that sutures won’t fix it; it has to be left open to heal from the inside out. And being open leaves it accessible and vulnerable to every single organism. In the case of grief, the visceral pain leaves you open to spiritual attacks on every side.

I don’t war against God. I war with Him. Even when I already feel defeated, I’ll be on the winning side of this one day. In the meantime, He’s got a plan for what He wants to do with me during the rest of the time I’m here. It’s my job to figure that out. Even while I’m sick. Even in the middle of a hurricane. Even with a flat tire. I have to figure it out. No pressure.

My purpose right now is my granddaughter and doing what I can to help and keep “raising” my already grown up kids. Turns out they do still need their mama after they turn 18. (Don’t tell them that when they’re 16 or you’re going to get a fight.)

I guess it’s not that I don’t have a purpose. It’s that God promises to give beauty for ashes. I think it’s that this tragedy needs a purpose. I did not find solace in the purpose of trying to make it right for other people who would tread the same path my husband trod in the hospital system. Giant corporations are going to keep doing things the way they do them because the laws are written to protect them and because they have enough money to fight against having to change the way they do things just because it’s the right thing to do for the people they are supposed to serve. The way they do things saves money and they have zero reasons to stop doing that when our laws don’t hold them appropriately accountable. That is what it is. Period.

So what purpose can come from him being gone? Nothing is ever going to make this right. It cannot be “fixed.” That is what I’m waiting for God to tell me. Please, take the ashes and show me the beautiful part.

My granddaughter is beautiful. The ashes are that her PopPop doesn’t get to see her grow up. My children are amazing. The ashes are that they don’t have the benefit of his example and his help learning things anymore. My home is beautiful. The ashes are that we bought it together and now I own it alone. There has to be more than ashes in all of this. Of all of these ashes, something good must be made by shaping them into some kind of art. Some mosaic of the broken pieces of our lives.

Since January I have been tossed in waves of despair and feelings of desolation. I survived the holidays! That alone should have been cause for some feeling of accomplishment but instead the road began a downward spiral on an escarpment of epic, steep curves and I cannot seem to stop the trajectory right now.

What I do now is know that God is riding it out with me and will catch me before I hit the bottom. He’ll either lift me back to the top or He will walk back up the steep path, carrying me when necessary. What I do know is that, although in so many ways I feel alone, I am not alone at all. His rod and His staff, they comfort me. His rod wards off enemy predators when I feel them approaching. His staff guides my direction. As long as I don’t wander away from Him, He can reach me with those. That’s what shepherds do; stay close and tend the sheep.

I don’t know how long I will remain in the valley I am wandering through. I do know that I don’t do it alone.

Chasing Peace

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This is from Joyce Meyer but I think it’s my primary problem right now:

You can’t just sit back and wish for peace, wish the devil would leave you alone, or wish that people would do what you want. The Bible tells us to actively pursue peace. You have to make up your mind to crave peace.

It actually feels as if a the opposite of peace is actively chasing 𝘮𝘦, every single day lately. And I know the author of peace but I know who dishes out the other, as well. And I absolutely do 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘦. But the Bible says we have to actively pursue peace: ”Turn away from evil and do good. Search for peace, and work to maintain it.“
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭34‬:‭14‬ ‭NLT‬‬.

The verse makes it sound as easy as a Nike commercial: Just Do It. But, holy cow, it is NOT easy to maintain sometimes. I’m reading my Bible. I’m doing four separate devotionals every day (because they’re all very helpful – while I’m reading them but then somehow I get off track walking away from them.) I’m praying. I’m seeking it. Still, it is elusive. It’s as if it found the ultimate hiding spot in a game of hide & seek while I’m getting hot and sweaty outside looking for it, ready to throw in the towel and just go get a glass of cold Kool Aid and plop down on the couch in front of the TV until it comes to say “why’d you quit lookin’?”

Trying to muffle the chaos inside my head does not work because that just wakes me at 2:00 a.m. when my mind figures it has nothing better to do. Raging at the tornado I’m constantly facing doesn’t help because, alas, I do not control the wind and waves. Crying over it doesn’t help because I just get a headache and stopped up nose…although sometimes it feels like it helps release the pressure in the moment. The only thing that does help is reading my Bible and I’m sure that’s what I’m being called to do even more than I have been but I’m kind of stubborn sometimes (no comments from the peanut gallery, please.) My childlike mind wants to say “I’ve already done my homework and I worked hard on it! Why are you assigning me more? I’m tired already!”

And so I pray to crave it as strongly as I crave peace since sometimes I can’t seem to remember that they’re the same thing. And I pray for my stubborn, childlike mind to maintain a stubborn, childlike faith but to do a better job growing out of the attitude I tend to get when I’m tired or hungry. The I Can’t attitude.

For now, I will try to sleep. When I wake up, I will try to start again, again.

Not Me

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I’m not who I once was.

I was a “social butterfly” at one time. But my wings have gotten wet. Wet butterfly wings don’t make for easy flight. When I’m around large groups of people and noise, I feel hot pins and needles all over my body. My skin feels too tight, like after you wear tight, not-stretchy jeans to Thanksgiving and then feel like you can’t breathe after you eat until you peel them off or at least undo the button and maybe even the zipper while you pull your shirt down to cover it up. Oh, and by the way, by ”large groups of people,” I now mean something like ten where that term wouldn’t have been used for less than fifty or a hundred people before. I’ve performed on stage for over a thousand before. This person who used to enjoy being surrounded by people is much more comfortable with one or two now.

No one really knows how to deal with this other me. They keep waiting for me to get straightened out and become myself again but I really think that person died when my husband did. I really think I’m not the same me and that the person they used to know isn’t coming back again. Yet, still, no one knows how to adjust; I’m supposed to.

I’m very anxious in social situations now. It becomes difficult to breathe. Often that is because I’m trying very hard not to cry. Nothing has to even “trigger” the tears reflex and that’s another whole part of this different person I’ve become. My husband used to wonder why I never cried. I told him I thought it was learned behavior from being a single mom. I’d compartmentalize things to avoid crying so that they’d never be worried or upset. I just wasn’t someone who cried. Now I cry uncontrollably and sometimes at the most inopportune times. Inopportune, for me, means in front of people, thus why I will struggle to breathe normally while desperately attempting to hold back tears. Who 𝘪𝘴 this person???

Well, now I guess it’s me. And it doesn’t feel like it’s a me who will just go back to being that other woman. The one I barely recognize anymore. The one who laughed to the point of tears of hilarity when my husband tried to raise one eyebrow without raising the other, making ridiculous faces in the process and laughing just as much with me. The one who played the game where you try to talk with a mouthguard in and then talked even a little sillier when it made people laugh to hear it. The one who was everyone’s “mom” at work and had extra chocolate, unopened chapsticks, safety pins, pens, tampons, and Vicks VapoRub in her locker at all times in case anyone ever needed anything at all. I don’t know where that woman went because I’d really just rather be at home, even alone, doing homemade projects I devise for myself to do by myself. I don’t even know if this new person is healthy but I don’t feel sick. I feel like I’m finding some kind of peace in an otherwise untenable situation in which I have no choice but to live.

People keep telling me it’s not healthy for me to be alone so much, to stay home so much. But if it’s not healthy then why do I feel better doing it and feel torn every single time someone asks me to do anything else? I love my children and my granddaughter; I feel joy when they come through the door and when I hug them. I love sitting and just reading books to my granddaughter or listening to her laugh at the dogs. I enjoy sitting with my sister and just doing random things like cooking something and talking. I feel good sitting and having coffee with my best friend, even when we talk through the hard stuff. I enjoy spending time with my mother-in-law, just sitting in the living room and talking about the people we miss. I just don’t love the chaos of noise, and groups, and tornados of activity anymore. Maybe that’s not so bad, right? Maybe the new me is just an introvert, and if I’d always been that way then people would think it was okay. I’m not sure why it’s not okay now.

The me you knew before is not me. Can that just be okay? When the doctors walked down that hallway and said “I’m so sorry…” my heart shattered into a million razor-sharp pieces and my world went black; when I picked up the pencils to try coloring it back in, it was impossible to make everything match the original because you can’t photocopy life. What is here now is different, but I’m still in here somewhere.

Look Now From The Place Where You Are

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New beginnings sound like something exciting, something adventurous. In order to experience a new beginning, however, an ending must be acknowledged and accepted. Truly believing there is no way to alter an ending, especially when that ending was not how you wanted things to end, is outrageously difficult. It is hard for those who have not experienced it to understand, but even when that ending is death of someone you love, it’s very difficult to accept the finality of it. The acceptance comes in fits and starts. There are fits of raging against the world that it shouldn’t be this way. There are desperate cries of sorrow and pleas for an altered ending. I am becoming convinced that the only way to defy the disbelief, to nudge into the acceptance, is to focus on what God has planned for your future, even when it wasn’t the future you planned. In fact, especially when it looks like this isn’t the future you wanted, it’s important to lean into God’s new plans and have faith in them, even when it feels like there is no hope.

Several times in the last three weeks, God has brought a specific passage from Genesis into my path. Imagine that: Genesis, defined by the dictionary as “the beginning or origin of anything,” is the place I’m found studying and pondering.

Abram, eventually to be renamed by God as Abraham, has been waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promise to him. When they arrived at what Abram must have assumed was the Promised Land, his nephew, Lot, took all of the best areas of land and left Abram with the rest. Abram must have thought something like, “Your promise was for leftovers?” but:

”The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”“
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭13‬:‭14‬-‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

In a different translation God said ‘Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are.’ He was saying don’t look behind you because there is nothing left there for you. Don’t look ahead into what you think should happen or should have happened. Look from the place where you are and, in that, keep having faith that I will do as I promised. My promises were never contingent on whether this would happen; I already saw this coming and I have prepared.

One of the most difficult things about grief is not constantly looking back at what was and also not looking forward at how wrecked what-should-have-been now is. It’s really hard to look from the place where you are. It feels as if disaster surrounds you from behind and ahead. Everything in the now is challenging and leads you to wish for what was and worry about what will be, but we are called by God to be thankful for what was (what we were blessed with in “the before” because it was beautiful and we loved it and them) and to trust His promises for the future.

One of the things He has steadily promised me was provision. I constantly feel internal pressure to do something to make sure His promise comes to fruition. I’m in a challenging place right now and I’ve been instructed to wait on the Lord and to trust and believe in His promise. I’ve been called to be still, which is not a strong attribute of mine. In my heart I truly do believe in Him and His voice. Still my nature consistently challenges me with “what are you doing about it?” Even when I know there is very little I can personally do to alter outcomes ahead of me.

I’m also challenged by purpose. I was a wife, a mom, and a “Lolly” (grandmother) and those were my identity. I’ve lost an identity before and it hurt tremendously, causing me to question who I was as a person if it was not this. I am a nurse by licensure but I’ve known for a long time that God was redirecting that calling on my life and had new directions for me to walk. I thought that direction was wrapped around being a good wife, mama, and Lolly, but a huge part of that identity is gone now that I am a widow.

I’m faced with the question of where that leaves me because it feels as if there is a gaping hole in part of who I am. Multiple people have said things to me about “finding a new husband one day.” This leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. While I do know that people mean well and, to them, they are offering me a new sense of hope that one day this hole will be filled, my husband cannot just be replaced. I don’t think that, when one loses a child, people would just say “well, just have another one; that’ll make you feel better.” And while I understand that I do not have any idea what God has in store for the rest of my life, that is absolutely something in which I have no interest at all right now. Honestly, if that ever was God’s intent and part of His plan for me, He would have to essentially, figuratively, drop someone in my lap for me to even consider it; even then it would be a challenge to navigate my way through the emotions that would surface as a response.

The overarching theme here is that I have to look now from the place where I am. I cannot look back toward what shouldn’t have happened (only at the joy and blessings that my husband brought to my life.) I cannot look forward as if it were a puzzle I am capable of figuring out; I say this meaning that, although we do make plans, I cannot determine the outcome of my life. I don’t know if I will die tomorrow or not for fifty years so trying to make a plan that encompasses what the rest of my life will look like is foolish. I have to look from where I am now. One step at a time, one day at a time. There are no shortcuts or crystal balls. The world works in such a way that new beginnings don’t just come the day that you are born. Learning to walk is a new beginning. Starting kindergarten is a new beginning. First love is a new beginning. Marriage is a new beginning. Having a baby is a new beginning. Divorce is a new beginning. Scott was a wonderful new beginning but now I am, once again, at a new beginning.

Becoming a mama was a new beginning for me, almost 26 years ago. When they moved out, it felt like an ending but it was really just another beginning, a different but still lovely path that has led to one beautiful granddaughter (so far.) I have to learn that my husband physically leaving this earth as another beginning. I didn’t like when my kids moved out on their own. I still miss them when I’m not with them. The same for my husband. I never wanted this particular new beginning. But I had to continue when the boys went out to spread their own wings. I had to learn to look from the place where I was then and begin to take steps toward being a mom from a distance and what that would look like.

Today, I’ve already begun my journey as a widow and I’m still figuring out what that looks like for me. I don’t know exactly where it’s going to take me. I do know that God already knows exactly what that looks like in my future and I wholeheartedly trust that he means it for good and not for failure. That’s where I’m standing right now, looking from the place where I am, knowing that I will be okay. I will have joy. I will have purpose. And I will always have a God who loves me and wants what is best for my life. I’m going to follow that lead.

Reinvention

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It might not seem like it, but what you’re looking at is me reinventing myself.

I started this project about a week ago. When my husband and I bought this piece, we wanted to paint it white but never got around to it. I’m getting around to it now, even though he’ll never be here to see that I finished it for us.

God speaks to me most often and most personally during creative processes. This is why writing is so cathartic for me, as well. I would be lying if I said that I know how every bit of information He spoke today relates to my grief process, but I’m quite sure they do. Some of them are already quite obvious; see if you can pick them out. Some I don’t really get yet but I expect Him to keep talking as I work my way toward figuring out how this is going to turn out. Below are some things that He told me today while I was working on this furniture rehab:

  1. There will always be naysayers telling you that you’re doing it wrong. There are two categories of these people: the ones who’ve never gone through doing this and the ones who are “experts” and like the way they did it better.
  2. There will always be imperfections. Some are there because of the way the wood has imperfections and some are because I missed spots or don’t like how I painted them. I’ll either be doing touch ups for the rest of my life or I’ll accept it as it is one day. I will probably vacillate between both of these choices.
  3. It needs more than one coat of paint. In every single area. Some areas will need more than that.
  4. When I feel like it’s completely done, I’ll have to gently take a razor blade to the fragile glass parts, but that’s isn’t going to stop me from getting a little paint on them now; I’m doing it anyway, even when I’m scared I might mess it up.
  5. I haven’t moved the breakables out of the curio part because I’m afraid they’ll get broken outside of it.  At some point I’ll have to remove them to paint the shelves on the inside.  That time is not now.
  6. I might sand down some of the parts I painted at some point for a different “feel” or “design.”  I can’t decide all of that right now or even until I think it’s done, so I’m not thinking about that right now.  I won’t know how I want it to look until it’s closer to being what I want it to be.  That’s okay.
  7. Sometimes I paint carefully. Sometimes I just smash and glob it on. That doesn’t really have anything to do with the part I’m painting. It has more to do with how I feel when I’m doing it. Sometimes I don’t feel like working on it at all, so I don’t. It will get finished whenever it gets finished.
  8. I don’t have any idea of what this is going to look like when it’s “done.” Sometimes, as I get further along in it, I feel like I can see a glimpse of what it might become.  Sometimes I think it’ll look okay; other times I think it may always be a disaster that I can’t fix.
  9. Some parts of the wood are darker, just by the nature of the grain. These parts are harder to cover with paint and will require more work.
  10. There are places that are hard to get to properly without taking the doors off. Despite knowing this, I still do not have the energy to take them off yet.
  11. Eventually I will need to buy new hardware for the knobs and handles, finishing touches. Since I know that, I’m not worried about getting paint on them now while I’m trying to redo the rest of it.
  12. Today it looks more complete than the last time I worked on it. That doesn’t mean that it’s finished. If I stop now because it looks better, I’ll never achieve what I wanted to before I ever started it.
  13. I didn’t create or build this piece of furniture. It’s something I acquired. That means there will always be parts of it that I wish had been built differently. The yellow wood and gold paint were parts of that. They’re a part I can change, so I am. The carved in parts are something I cannot alter so I have to just do the best I can to make it look like something I can find joy in.

All of this came just today, in a couple of hours of allowing my mind to be open to the work. For me, the work and the Word comes through creative projects but for others it comes differently. Whatever your process is, find time to let it work. And yet, if there are times you just don’t have the energy or mental bandwidth to deal with it, take a break – for however long you need. I think today’s work is going to be useful in the long run.

I’m also working on other things at home. I’ve worked on cleaning my bedroom, my bathroom, and my kitchen. I’m making my bed every day. These may seem like small things but, for me, they were big because my life felt like utter chaos. There aren’t before photos of those “projects” because I’d honestly be embarrassed for you to see the clutter that had developed. I’m having to get to a simplified place in my life so that I can even see where the pieces are supposed to go, like sorting puzzle pieces into edge pieces and various color piles before you start to assemble the entire picture. None of this is a “yay, me” statement. I’m telling you so that, whether it’s grief or depression or looking for purpose in your life, you’ll know that this is what worked for me; it’s a place to start if you don’t have a clue where to start. For me, the most important part is that you don’t have to do it all at once. Sometimes I do one small thing, like putting dishes in the dishwasher and waiting down the sink area and counters. Other times it’s cleaning off just my dresser, or emptying one clothes drawer, taking out what no longer fits, and reassembling it with what is left knowing I’ve decided that I only have to do one drawer today. Then some days I have the energy and the desire to do more than just that. I’m trying to make a point to do ONE thing each day, at least, even if it’s just one drawer. If I encounter a day when I can’t do even one, I’m giving myself for letting it go until the day when I can. This morning I also just cleaned my range hood, nothing else. For today, that may be all I am able to do. And that’s okay.

After first day of work
Today (still not even close to finished…but I’ll get there one day