I read that someone calls it “decorating the waiting room.”
That’s what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m sitting around wondering when I’ll be able to see him. Like pacing back and forth, hoping the doctor will come out any minute and say that someone you love is stable enough for you to go see them.
And, truth be told, the pacing is doing me no good at all but I somehow cannot stop myself from wearing a hole in the flooring. A long, straight path back and forth, back and forth with strides sometimes quick and short and others slow and long-paced, but just back and forth nonetheless. All I 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 to do is wait…wait until I get called to come on back to his room.
The last time they called me back to his room was agony, but I know the next time won’t be. I won’t harm your thoughts with the photographic memory that I have of the last time I saw him, alive and thereafter, but despite that constant visible reminder I am unable to believe that it was real, that it really happened, that he could possibly be truly gone. And so I wait, I pace dutifully back and forth waiting for the sign that it’s time to go see him.
The thing is, I could be waiting a really long time. I’m 50 so, theoretically, I could possibly only be halfway through my life. While I know most people don’t live to be 100, that’s the timeline I have to be prepared to live through. And I know my husband would absolutely hate it if I was just surviving it and not finding a way to live it.
So, sometime, I have to start decorating the waiting room. I have to start doing things that don’t even sound enjoyable to me at all right now, with the belief that it will be something that brings me joy someday. God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. For He knows the plans He has for me: plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future.
I can’t just pace back and forth in this waiting room I am living in and focus constantly on when we will be together again. It brings no good to the situation, has no benefit, and is actually harmful. If I were to decorate in here, maybe not only I could have joy but perhaps others here could, too.
The question is, what supplies will I need to decorate? Where and how, pray tell, do I get them?
The bigger problem than that is apathy.
Apathy:
- absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.
- lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.
- Also ap·a·thei·a, ap·a·thi·a [ap-uh-thee-uh]. /ˌæp əˈθi ə/. Stoicism.freedom from emotion of any kind.
I’m ashamed to confess to my current and constant state of apathy. I felt the same way as I faced a bout of major depressive disorder the last time. I know, trust me – I know – that I have a plethora of things to be thankful for. I have the most amazing kids and granddaughter in the world. I have an extended family (siblings, parents, aunts & uncles, in-laws) who care about me and check on me all the time. I have friends and family who haven’t forgotten my loss, do not try to diminish it, and who don’t expect me to hurry up and “get over it.” I still have a roof over my head and it is the same roof that Scott and I chose and bought together, which comforts me. I have a LOT to be grateful for, so much more than many people. And I got to experience the love of a lifetime – also something that many never will.
But somehow my brain functions, right now, in such a way as to tell me nothing matters, even as I try my hardest to remind myself many times every day how many things and people there are that do matter. I know that this means that my brain is sick.
I’m going to preface this next part with this: I am safe. I am not considering a spiritual change of address. I look forward to it but I am not planning it to be in my own time instead of His. I promise I am safe.
But I want to talk to you about how people look at severe depression and even suicide. This isn’t a choice. This isn’t something you can “try harder” to pull out of or “pray more” to successfully leave it behind. Trust me, please, when I tell you that I have tried hard and I have prayed and prayed. Mental health issues are real and just because you cannot see the wound, doesn’t mean it is not there.
When someone has cancer, we feel compassion for them. We encourage them to pursue treatment. We tell them we’re going to love them through it. And we understand that it’s not just “all in their head.” Just because a CT scan cannot show you evidence of depression doesn’t mean that the illness isn’t physically affecting the body and the mind.
The person with a major depressive disorder episode isn’t just “sad.” It also doesn’t mean that they don’t love you when they’re having thoughts of leaving their pain behind. When a cancer patient is told there is no further treatment doctors can do to help, we know how much we will miss them but we give our blessing if they choose hospice. We tell them it is okay to go. We understand and don’t want them to continue to be in pain. And I’m not saying that we should encourage people unaliving themselves over depression; I’m saying that we should try to understand that this is an illness. It changes the way life looks and feels. It’s painful. And on top of all of that, people tend to diminish it by thinking it’s able to be controlled with “happy thoughts.” I’ve been here twice. Rest assured, that’s hogwash.
When I say I’m having trouble finding enjoyment in life, it absolutely does not mean that I love my family any less. I am more grateful for my family than I could ever explain. And I still am unable to shake off the way I feel. I cannot just perk up. Oh, I can fake it for awhile (and it’s exhausting) but it doesn’t leave. I take medicine. I see a therapist. I’m praying and I’m in the Word. I’m doing all of the things I’m supposed to do to fight this. Still I feel a weighty despair that rarely lightens and never subsides.
It’s not been six months yet and I’ve been given instruction from several people on how to turn myself around. You’ve got to get out and do some things you enjoy. (I don’t enjoy them now; I’ve tried.) You need to spend some alone time with God. (I have spent so much alone time with God through the middle of the very long nights and every single weekend that I may have forgotten how to talk to people sometimes.) Don’t focus on it so much; take your thoughts captive. (It is almost impossible not to “focus” on something that literally changes every single moment of your life and your future. Every. Moment. And I’ve prayed that God would help me take the thoughts captive and redirect me. I speak His Word aloud against the constant barrage of nightmares and day thoughts that attack me. For everything there is a season; apparently this is my season of loss and it’s going to continue to be until it’s not anymore. I do not have control over it.)
I’m physically exhausted. I would sleep all day, every day, if I could yet when I do I’m plagued with nightmares sometimes and others I just cannot sleep at all, despite the fact that my body often feels as if I have no strength to stand. That’s not all in my head either.
But the point of this writing today is to decorate the waiting room. HOW do you decorate when you feel like you can barely lift your arms and don’t even want to look at pretty decorations?
Grief is debilitating. It stops your life at the exact same moment as they tell you that the person you loved more than life is gone. Your job is to stay alive until it feels like your heart has begun to beat again. And, apparently, that takes a very long time. I’ve come to decide that the depth of the loss determines the weight and length of the grief cycle. Mine is about five elephants, give or take. And my daddy once said to me “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” So I’m doing the best I can to chew at least one bite every day, more if I can manage it.
Perhaps when I’m down to only one elephant left, I’ll be able to decorate the waiting room.
One additional point for today: being a Christian doesn’t make life easy:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
If you’re wondering why I’m a Christian when it’s still this hard, or how I could really be a Christian if I’m not handling this better, understand this: you can be the Christianest Christian there is and still struggle to get through things. And if someone not being able to “get past” their grief confounds you, count yourself blessed to have never experienced such a loss. Or count yourself unlucky to have never known someone over whom you would grieve so deeply. So why don’t you find a way to help them decorate the waiting room?
And what I do know, as a Christian, is this: even when I can’t see Him, He is working on me and for me. I do not travel this dark road alone. And He will absolutely carry me to a way to get out.
God is in the Outcome 