learning to live with grief – Page 12

May 26th, 2023

GRIEF TRIGGER WARNING (This means to swipe past this post now if my pain right now is too much for you, especially if music is the trigger for you that it is for me – there’s nothing wrong with protecting your own heart and you should. This one is tough for me so it may be tough for you, too, especially if you’re an empath. Read ahead at your own risk.)

When I wake from nightmares in the middle of the night, praying as I reach for the clock that it will be 5 a.m.or later, that’s when it’s worst, I think. He isn’t laying beside me and I know it before my eyes open because I just saw his face again, not in the way that I wanted to.

It’s worse tonight because I don’t even have the release of tears, of a “good cry.” Sometimes the numb and the gravest sorrow intermingle and then it still hurts deeply because the tears refuse to come and help me let it out a little. I can’t sob over his loss so the anger comes back at some point. I’m not there now, just yet, but I’ve already learned the patterns. I know it’s coming.

Anger protects me even though I hate how it feels. I’ll want to scream. Not a “woe is me” scream but the blood-curdling kind. The kind that says I’m out of control because everything around me is. He was taken from me before we had a chance to finish this dance. He was ripped away when we were still in the prime of our beauty. But I think we would have always been in “the prime.”

I’m not angry at Scott. I’m not angry with God. This world is filled with evil all the way back to the serpent who slithered into the garden. Satan is the god of this world and that’s why I can’t wait to leave here one day, to have all of the people I love in one place, together again, where there is no sadness, no mourning, no loss, no pain. I am not meant to go now, understand me. He left me here because there is still work to do, and if I listen then He’ll show me what it is.

But right now the anger won’t come yet, either, so this numb is only the kind that is silencing but still painful. And so I turn to the only place, the only One, who still guards my heart.

He can handle my sadness. He can deal with my heart wrenching pain. He can bring peace, even though it’s temporary when it comes, for now. I go to the foot of the cross. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, Lord. Lift me above the raging waters that threaten to drown me. Rescue me.

“Take me to the King. I don’t have much to bring. My heart is torn in pieces; it’s my offering. Take me to the throne. Leave me there alone, to gaze upon your glory and sing to you this song….take me to the King.”

This chorus has been in my head all week. I haven’t had the strength to listen to it until now. I’ve heard it many times before all of this happened but never felt it so much, never experienced the raw emotion behind the lyrics until now.

The Bible is the same way. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover before (not always in the order it’s written) and have read many passages enough that I can lipsync them when someone starts to speak a verse. But sometimes God gives me new perspective on what a passage is saying when I am going through different joys or trials in my life. The Bible isn’t static. Oh, His word is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, but it isn’t always spoken in the same tone. Different seasons of life will alter the punctuation, the way it is spoken to your heart. If you haven’t read it in awhile, take it out. See what He’s trying to tell you today and, although He won’t say something “different,” you’ll read it in a new light with the changes you’ve experienced in your life since the last time you read it. Ask Him to take you where you need to be and don’t stop after reading one sentence, but let the story of that passage be revealed to you. For me, sometimes I read at first and cannot figure out why this pertains to me, to my situation, but it always comes to me later when that happens.

I know that, one day, this song won’t bring me pain anymore; it will bring me peace. Peace because I will know that even in my darkest hour, He was finding a way to speak to me. Finding a way to reveal Himself. Finding a way to remind me that He is still here and that all I have to do, when I feel empty and have nothing left to give, is to seek Him. To go to the throne of His glory. On that day, when it no longer hurts, this song will represent yet another promise that He always will.

He is here, hallelujah.
He is here, amen.
He is hear, holy, holy.
I will bless His name again.
He is here; listen closely.
Hear Him calling out your name.
He is here; you can touch Him.
You will never be the same.

May 11^th, 2023

Scott and I had the most beautiful love story.

I had been a single mom for years. I had given up on dating. People who worked with me then could tell you that I had decided I would be happy to live the rest of my life just taking care of my boys and reading books. I was done – stick a fork in me. Being in love cost too much and I wasn’t a rich woman anymore. I was drained. I didn’t know then that there was someone God was wrapping His arms around right then who was done, too. And God already knew that He could blow those theories out of the water with what he had planned for Scott and I. We couldn’t have even imagined how good it was gonna get.

I had become fiercely independent in the years I was on my own with my boys. I could do it all. I could change my own tire and my own oil. I could rip out the insides of the back of my toilet and replace them (with the help of my baby sister and a bottle of red for amusement…we didn’t even need the wine because we were pretty amused and amusing). I could work like a boss and could mom like one, too. I was trying to prove that if Superwoman existed, here I was. I didn’t need a man. So there.

Scott was the quintessential southern gentleman. Chivalrous, kind, thoughtful, and he literally put everyone before himself. How anyone would ever have let him go was always beyond me but, when I found him, I truly thanked God for the broken roads. He still opened car and rooms doors ahead of me, pulled out chairs, wouldn’t let me walk on the outside of the sidewalk…all things I had been teaching my boys already hoping they would one day turn into the kind of man he was (spoiler alert: they did, and they all saw him doing these things as a man’s example and not their just their mama reminding them).

We met in a little tiny office outside of the emergency room at the hospital where I already worked and where Scott had recently been hired. I don’t even know what it was. I was staunchly opposed to ever being in a relationship again and in walks this man who didn’t do or say anything outlandish but to whom, I swear to you, I was instantly conjoined in a way I couldn’t explain. A friend who was in the room teased me afterwards for making googly eyes at Scott and I told him he was crazy because I didn’t do that. But I was somehow instantly twitterpated (my beautiful mother-in-law’s words soon after we met). For the next two weeks I could scarcely think of anything else. I sought reasons to go to the ER when he was working and flirt with him shamelessly. Scott would later tell me he already felt the same connection but, being much more recently divorced than I and still very haunted, he thought he was just imagining that I kept showing up to see and talk to him, that I was just being nice to the new guy (who didn’t even work in my department). We were both jaded but God was putting the pressure on because we were straight-up already connected in a way I will never be able to fully explain. I can tell you that, if you don’t believe in love-at-first-sight, you’re wrong. We both felt it.

I often joked in the following years that I had to chase him for two whole weeks before he’d even give me the time of day and ask me out on a date. He would staunchly deny that and tell me that he thought about it constantly, too, but just knew “someone like me” would turn him down. Someone like me…he always made me feel that way, like someone he couldn’t believe he had. But he had my whole heart and soul. I was the lucky one.

Our first date was dinner at the Brown Lantern and then a walk through Lowe’s to find a ceiling fan he needed at home. We each didn’t want to go home so we went to my house and watched a movie on my couch. When he left, I remember asking God what He was doing because I didn’t want to hurt again and I knew that was what love does but somehow this felt different. It felt like…right. It felt like a gift. It felt like the rest of my life. God, I wish it had been the rest of my life. But I know that he wouldn’t have wanted to be here without me either.

About two weeks of random bouquets of flowers and dates, and Scott stealing my car keys while I worked, taking it to completely detail it and leave flowers inside and on top of it before putting them back right before I left work, later…he told me he loved me. And I didn’t say it back. I panicked. I thought, we’ve dated for two weeks, this is too fast, this is crazy. And then I called him and told him I loved him back – not because I felt pressured by his words but because I admittedly couldn’t explain how they were true but our hearts were already sewn together by a thread that we would turn into marriage one day.

We met each others kids, five boys between us, and started having dates with all of us together sometimes. It wasn’t seamless because blending has its own drama but we were so in love that we just became more and more tightly knit with every obstacle. And there were plenty. We always persevered. Our song was I Want Crazy by Hunter Hayes.

“But I don’t want “good” and I don’t want “good enough”

I want “can’t sleep, can’t breathe without your love”

Front porch and one more kiss

It doesn’t make sense to anybody else

Who cares if you’re all I think about?

I’ve searched the world and I know now

It ain’t right if you ain’t lost your mind

Yeah, I don’t want easy, I want crazy”

And we had crazy. We had all of the above. Every bit of it. We had a fairytale.

But fairytales always have scary parts where the wicked witch gets you to take a bite of the apple. We had that, too. We both had lived through so much trauma and that doesn’t just disappear. Although mine and Scott’s love never faltered, life kept on trying to intervene and mess things up. I can tell you with 100% accuracy that Scott has loved me at my best and he has loved me at and through my worst. And his bests and worsts were different than mine, because we weren’t the same person but just shared the same heart, but I loved him wholeheartedly through all of his. Yes, we had fights. We ranted at each other sometimes over what seem like the silliest things now. Sometimes we even let the sun go down on our anger but it never lasted long. We never spent a day not loving each other. Not a single one.

Scott always made me feel like he didn’t deserve me. I always knew it was the other way around. He loved me unyieldingly, unshakeably, tremendously. He loved everyone. Scott didn’t just make friends everywhere he went – he made family. He was the most magnificent nurse because he worked tirelessly and endlessly to not only care for his patients with a fervor that made others tired just watching, but he cared for his coworkers, helping anyone in need at the drop of a hat. Every travel assignment begged him to renew his contract. They knew what they’d be missing when he left. And I don’t think I’ve ever met a nurse with whom he worked who didn’t tell me that he talked about me, all the time, and how much he loved me. I joked with him about the percentage of female nurses on these travel assignments and to watch out for their womanly wiles but it was all in jest because I knew. He always made sure I knew from him and everyone else. And before twenty years of nursing, he was a very proud member of the United States Air Force, a war veteran of Desert Storm having served two tours during the Gulf War. Scott’s entire life was devoted to service of others. I have been so very blessed to have him in mine.

He always wanted me to need him and I fought him for a good while because of my independence. It used to aggravate him that I wanted to do everything myself and he just wanted to help. The funny thing is that I don’t even really know when that stopped because he listened to me, understood the reasons behind my hard-won independence, and slowly moved brick by brick to tear my wall down. It was like, as he moved the bricks off of my wall, he laid them in a stack next to me so i would always know they were there if I needed to take them back…and then I never wanted to again. I knew I was safe with him. My heart was safe, I was safe, our family was safe. I know that I got comfortable needing him a long time ago but I can’t tell you when because he helped me into it with a gentleness that made me not feel insecure or weak for doing it. He loved me right into it.

When my beautiful husband left this earthly plane yesterday, my heart shattered into millions and millions of tiny pieces. I’ve lost my balance because he was the other side of it. I’ve lost so much that the only way I know how to give it words was to tell you what we were together. Even then, it doesn’t do us or the loss any justice. Everyone keeps saying “there are no words” and you’re right. There were no words grand enough, big enough, sweet enough, kind enough, amazing enough, to describe the man my husband was. And there are not enough words to describe who we were together. We won together and we lost together. And now I am lost alone. And each minute that passes (that feels like an hour) keeps shouting at me that there is no resolution to this. I’ve missed him when he was travel nursing but we always, every single day, talked on the phone, texted constantly, and there were visits – him to home and me to him. Today I don’t know how I will fill my time. We didn’t hang out with other people much. We had friends and we loved a lot of people but we were always content to just be together. We were always together even when we were forced to be physically apart. My soul feels the emptiness where his left this world yesterday. It feels so very dark. I’m so thankful for every single moment that we had to spend together, loving each other.

Scott was a man saved by grace. He is undoubtedly singing praises at the foot of the King of Kings. His neck and back don’t hurt anymore. His PTSD demons don’t haunt him any longer. There is no fear or anguish or pain for him anymore. I’m thankful for that. And I know how hurt and lost he would have been without me if I had gone first so I’m glad he doesn’t have to feel what I’m feeling now.

I have the most beautiful, wonderful children to walk with me. It hurts me to see how hurt they are right now and also that seeing me hurt is hurting them. But I want them all to know that I would never have given up the opportunity to have a love so very BIG, to forego the loss I am feeling so very much now.

My message to you: Love is worth the risk. If you ever have the chance to love this big, take it. It’s gonna feel messy sometimes. You’re going to feel mad, sad, frustrated, irritated sometimes. Being so close that you can’t tell your own heart from that of someone else makes those kinds of feelings inevitable. Take those things with a grain of salt and forgive. And forgive again. And again. Don’t take it for granted. Don’t waste it. Savor it.

I feel like we both knew what we had. We savored it.

Jonathan Scott Raulerson – 1/22/74 – 5/10/23