Not dumb...sad

 It's easy to feel dumb when you're grieving.

The first few days after my dad died on January 17th of this year, I had compassion on myself. I gave myself grace. I understood my blunders and held them tenderly. 

The day after he died, I lost something dear to me. A couple of years ago, my husband gave me a set of earbuds as a gift. They're beautiful; white and rose-gold, and I have loved them. They were exactly what I needed, though I hadn't thought to want such a thing. I have used them constantly and kept them carefully all this time, because they're perfect, and because that dear man saw a need in my life and filled it with something lovely. And then, suddenly, they were gone. Oh, I had the case for them, but it was bewilderingly empty. We hunted high and low, in every reasonable place, and some that weren't, to no avail. They were simply...gone. 

 

About a week later, I found one on our bedroom floor, oddly damaged. The only explanation I can think of is that it was somehow in the way of the bathroom's sliding door and got bashed...? The other one showed up a couple of days later, in the jumble of my husband's boots in the living room. ...Why?? We have no idea how either of them ended up where they did, especially the one among the boots. It's a pure mystery.

As sad as I was to have half of that dear gift damaged beyond use...I was kind to myself. I knew that my shell-shocked, freshly-daddyless self needed grace and I gave it generously. My sweetheart was also tremendously kind and compassionate over the loss. He had a new set of earbuds he'd gotten for himself and he just gave them to me, very kindly, and helped me keep searching. We both met my brain's floundering with love.

And then...I sort of forgot. 

It's amazing how quickly I forgot.

A few days ago, I made some dry, disparaging remark about people with simple minds, like me, and my husband looked at me and said, with direct, love-infused seriousness, "You are not simple-minded!"

Oh.  

Ohhh. Riiighhht. The grieving thing.

It had only been two weeks, at that point, since I lost my dearly loved, complicated, wonderful dad...and I had already forgotten to be gentle with myself. I had already, without realizing it, fallen into the habit of disparaging any fumbles in my inner world and believing the lie that I'm dumb.

I'm not dumb.

I'm sad.

I'm maybe a little bit in shock.

Because even when death is not a surprise, even if it can be called a mercy...it is still shocking to our hearts and souls.

Grief sort of numbs our minds and short-circuits the functions of our brains, and that is completely normal and absolutely to be expected. It won't last forever, but it may last for a while.

For a while, I'll experience times of this part-frozen, stutter-stepping or simply blank state of mind.

The most important people are, and will be, tenderly kind about it, and very understanding.

I want to give myself the same grace and care that they do.

I'm not dumb.

I'm sad.

I'm not dumb.

I'm sad.

I'm very, very sad.

And that's okay.

Five years today- the kintsugi life

 Five years ago today, at (the best we can figure) 10:30 or 11 in the morning, our beloved son Michael took his life. His death would not be discovered for roughly thirty-one hours. During that time, none of us knew anything was wrong. Our family's first inkling that our world was irrevocably changed was when a police officer knocked on our door to deliver the news.

By the grace of God, we are still standing.

We have seen and lived in the thick of God's merciful goodness and tender love every day of these five years.

We are, also, forever, shattered by his absence. 

Maybe we're examples of the Japanese art of kintsugi, in which cracks are not fixed to make the vessel seem unbroken. Instead, as the vessel is mended, the cracks are filled in such a way as to still be visible. While the shattered pieces are put back together, the breaking is honored. No one pretends the vessel never broke; they honor its past while assuring a future life of use and beauty.

I am glad and grateful that by sharing our sorrow publicly, people have been blessed and encouraged, and some have even chosen life over death- a powerful grace!!! I can see and appreciate and value good that has come during and through our heart-breaking loss. I can treasure it and thank God for it.

I am still...broken.

I will never be someone whose heart did not shatter.

Being who I was before is not on the table; not remotely possible. We are forever changed.

The best, the very best, that I can hope and pray for, is for this broken and gently mended life of mine to still hold beauty and to share that beauty with others.

I will always be a mom whose heart was shattered. I can also be someone who lives, alongside my forever-sadness, with faith and courage and hope and love and joy. Sometimes, joy feels the most courageous of all. 

On today's square on my calendar, my dear sister wrote "Psalm 62:5." I waited until today to look up this verse, wanting its specific blessing for when my heart needed it most.

"Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him."

What sweet, healing, hopeful, true words.

I sit at the feet of Jesus, the safest place for my heart to rest. His bottomless compassion comforts me and holds me close.

I am loved, and seen, and known, and tenderly held.

For that, I am deeply grateful.

I also miss my son with every breath.

Both are fully true, and that's okay.

I love you, Michael, my dear, handsome, deep-voiced, tender hearted Paul Bunyan of a son, with your big appetite and even bigger heart. What I wouldn't give to meet you at Gustav's or La Provence or one of your other delicious "finds" and share a great meal and catch up on life. What I wouldn't give to even take another ride with you in your pickup on a breathlessly hot day and sweat so much from the vinyl seats that I look like I wet my pants. I would do it in a heartbeat. How I miss you. <3

. 

Here are links to a couple of thoughtful articles on kintsugi as a metaphor for grief:

https://www.craftcourses.com/blog/cracks-are-how-the-light-gets-in-kintsugi-grief

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/kintsugi-the-art-of-repairing-a-soul-15b7a2883bc5

 

Grief is weird...a.k.a...My address book is a mess.

 

Who would have thought that a simple tool could hold such emotional weight?

I'm sure we've all been through that moment when we go to the address book and see the name of a dear one who is gone and feel yet another edge of that loss.

This is always a sad moment, but after our son took his life in 2018, flipping the pages to check the addresses of family members became almost unbearable. 

I could certainly not erase his beloved name from the page. 

I may never be able to do that.

I also could not keep having my heart lacerated every time I wanted to send a card to any of our other family members.

It was too much.

I found a little pocket-sized address book that I think my mom gave me one time and decided to use it. I went through the pages of the old book, transcribing names and addresses to the new one. Our last name falls early in the alphabet, so I was in rough shape for most of this project.

This is why the book is a mess.

I was still in shock, exhausted, and battered by the pain of passing by Michael's name; not carrying it forward.This was, of course, the whole point of what I was doing. It was still heavy and hard.

In the four years since that day, I have found strings of names in the wrong sections, and worse, names and addresses I somehow failed to transfer. I have had cards to dear people come back to me, because I'd jumbled the address in the new book. I lost the addresses of two long-term friends, and only re-found the through roundabout means in recent months.

I look at the mess I made of this much-needed information and I feel frustration, but also...compassion for the sad and battered self I was on that day.

Grief is messy and hard and it complicates our lives. It shows up in weird ways, throwing wrenches in unexpected gears.

May we extend gentle grace to ourselves and to others in similar state.

Four years Eight months...how am I still here? Here is the answer.

 

 

Four years and eight months ago, at almost this exact moment- 10:30 AM, on what was that year a Sunday morning, our beloved son Michael, twenty-six years old, ended his life.

The heavy weight and razor-sharp edges of this loss never change. Sometimes we feel them more acutely and sometimes they sink below the surface, but they never diminish and they never leave.

The closest thing I can think of to living with loss, especially a shocking and brutal loss, is the sudden amputation of an arm or leg. Over time, the initial wound does heal, and the person learns to adapt to life without that limb...but the arm or leg never grows back. That place is permanently empty, and that void affects life in big and small ways every moment of every day for the rest of the person's life.

This is how the death of our son feels to me, nearly five years in. 

Yes, there has been solid, deep healing of that initial bloody wound. We are not as shell-shocked and wide-eyed with horror as we were in those first days. Our lives look...normal, now. This is where my amputation analogy breaks down. Unlike with a missing limb, our devastating loss is not readily visible. Its impact is felt, though, in many ways.

I have learned that my reserves of energy- physically, emotionally, socially, mentally- are limited. Those tanks are far shallower than they used to be, and they leak.  I seem fine to those who don't know better and that confuses people. Looking at my seeming strength and capability from the outside, they may be puzzled that I don't do more. They can't see, and don't know, unless I - again - explain the tragic why behind my limits. They don't know that, emotionally, I am missing a leg and that makes it hard to run the way others do.

What enables me to function so "normally?" There are two answers to that question, both springing from the same source: Jesus.

 ***I have intense, unbearable regrets as a mom. Every parent fails their child in some ways, because we are imperfect humans. Those failures are thrown into a painfully bright spotlight when that child dies, and if they leave by suicide that hindsight only gets more vivid and harsh. No kind and comforting assurances can change the raw facts of my failures in my relationship with Michael. Nobody else actually lived that relationship. I did. Michael did. He and I are the only people who really know the ways I let him down. Yes, I fought for that relationship and did some things very right and loved him and hung in there with him when it wasn't easy. I did the best I knew how, to love him well. I loved him and he loved me, and I found out from others after he was gone that he was very proud of me, and that means the absolute world to me. I also let him down in important moments and ways that only became clear in blood-stained hindsight. 

There is only one thing that makes this hard truth bearable: the mercy of God. The first time I deliberately waded into these hard waters of truth, a friend threw me a lifeline of God-laced hope: "That's rough. I'm so glad God has mercy on our failures." Those simple words were a spark of help and hope that I needed desperately. To this day, this truth is the only thing that helps me keep breathing when those regrets hit hard. If I could look Jesus straight in the eyes and say, "Lord, look at the ways I failed my boy," I think he would not pat me on the head or try to brush away my regrets. He would look at them honestly with me. He would speak hard truth, and as he did so many times in Scripture, he would say it with love and follow it with mercy. He might say something very similar to what my friend said; something like, "Yes, beloved, while you got some things right you also let Michael down in ways that hurt him." And he would turn to me, and rest his hand gently on my shoulder and look me in the eyes and say, "Beloved, I forgive you for your failures. They are covered by my mercy. I know they pain you deeply, but I will hold that pain for you." 

There are aspects of our loss of Michael that are actually unbearable. This is how we are able to bear these unbearable things: Jesus carries them for us. When I am overcome by the searing weight of pain or regret, I let the pain out through tears and then I turn to Jesus and say, "It's too heavy for me. Will you carry it for me, please?" This is what I do with my regrets as a mom. The weight is unbearable, but I am not alone and I do not have to try to carry it on my own. Jesus carries all my sins and failures, and this one is no different. He looked down the halls of time before I was even born, saw every single way I would ever falter and fail and said, "Beloved, if you'll let me, I will carry that for you."

 

***"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18) "When you go through deep waters, I will be with you; when you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown." (Isaiah 43:2) "Yet not I, but through Christ in me..." (lyrics from a song, paraphrased from Galatians 2:20)

These words of life and truth have kept me sane and breathing for the past four years and eight months. The only reasons I am functional at all are the powerful tenderness of Jesus, that carries me when I can't walk and holds me close when my heartbreak boils to the surface, and his love that holds my deep and painful regrets and covers that bleeding wound with his mercy. 

God doesn't shy away from the hard truth of our failures, but while he looks at our messy lives under the clear, revealing light of his holiness, his eyes do not hold scorn or disgust or condemnation. He looks steadily at us with clear eyes that lay bare our most uncomfortable truths. He may look at us seriously or sadly. He may get intense in his urging us away from paths of destruction. But all of that, always, is fully infused with his intense love for us, and our pain and regret and repentance are met with unbelievable mercy. 

This is how I am able to live with apparent normalcy-

The mercy of God for my failures.

The tenderness of God for my great grief.

The comfort and strength of God to hold me close and keep my chin above water.

His capacity pouring through me, to enable me to carry on when I do not have what it takes.

The mercy of God and his tender care for my heart are the answer; the reasons I am still standing. They are the reason I am not only sane and mostly functional, but able to laugh and love and live.

You are not alone.

The past week:

On Wednesday, we learned of some heartbreaking things happening in our family.

On Thursday, I heard of a serious situation in the life of a young person who is like family to me.

On Saturday, at four o'clock in the morning, I was driving a family member to the emergency room.

On Tuesday, we got the news that a long-time family friend had suddenly died.

And that a family member's brother had died.

All of this...in just one week.

It's a lot.

 

Last summer and into the Fall, we got news of a death among our family and friends at least once a week. In the space of six weeks, six women that I know lost their husbands. 

This constant news of death is heart-breaking and heavy.

Also...we're not unusual. 

If you're feeling weary...you're not alone. People speak of "compassion fatigue." There must also be such a thing as...tragedy fatigue. For many of us, these past two years have been a nearly non-stop stream of tragedy and heartbreak. 

News of a trauma or death is like taking a body blow. It hits, and leaves a mark. Some blows are lighter, while others bruise deeply. Over time, we heal from such blows. These past two years have been like being stuck in the ring with the world heavyweight boxing champ, in a bout where the bell never rings. For many of us, the blows just keep coming, with  little chance to catch our breath, let alone heal.

It is taking a toll. We are weary and sad and our hearts are very sore.

At the same time...this is the marrow of life; standing in the hard places with one another.

In the wake of our son's death three and a half years ago, people were lovingly careful of me. They did not come to me with sadness or hard news. I was deeply grateful for their thoughtfulness. I was carrying all I could carry. While I am still, always, devastated by our own loss, it is good to see that I have healed enough to walk with others in their pain. I am glad I wasn't sheltered from the news of pain and hard concern in the lives of people I love. I am glad to once again be someone a friend can come to, with a heavy heart, asking for prayer. It tells me that I am, in fact, healing.

If you are exhausted from the endless stream of bad news, you are, sadly, not alone.

Also- good news! You are not alone! My friend, you are not alone. 

We can either plod along in a stunned parade, staring blankly at our own inner wastelands, or we can put our arms around each other and walk together. I think of soldiers from some old-time war, making their way back from the Front. I picture one guy wounded in the leg, while the other has an arm in a sling and a bandage over his eyes. The one guy puts his arm around the shoulders of his friend, to take the weight from his injured leg. In return, he acts as the "eyes" for his friend, so he doesn't run into obstacles.They could each struggle along alone, but instead they make that trek together. 

Our "wounds," and the heavy loads we carry may be different, but we can help each other along. We can, at the very least, help each other to feel less alone. When we're able, we can put a shoulder under the burden of our friend and help bear the weight for a while. 

Sometimes, all we can carry is our own suffering.

Sometimes, we are able to help carry the suffering of another.

Always, it is good to remember that we are not alone.

We are not alone in our suffering and in our care for the suffering of others.

If you are in a hard and heavy place today, and feeling alone, may I just say...I see you there. 

My heart goes out to you, with all that you are carrying. 

I see you.

And I pray that the peace of God will gently gather you up and carry you.

I pray that you will feel his loving comfort, so tender with our wounded places.

I pray that you will know that you are seen and loved, and that you are not alone.

The Spear That No-one Sees

There is a spear shoved through my middle,
jagged, splintered, rusted, rough
skewering me to a moment in time:

The sober-eyed officer standing just inside our front door,
kind in his terrible duty.

"Michael has been found deceased...
It was suicide."

I am impaled, forever suspended
in the thick of that crushing moment.


A savage blade
shoved violently,
twisting and tearing,
through my heart's core.

And yet...

Because I seem so outwardly fine, so normal...

I move, talk, breathe, chat,
cook, smile,
write, love, laugh,
find joy in simple daily things...

Few may realize how,

...every moment of every day...

I still struggle to understand
how to live in a world

where our son is dead.


Sometimes,
even I forget

the jagged shaft
protruding
from my body;
it's heaviness and heft,
the relentless pressure
as it shoves aside my heart and lungs,
leaving me aching and short of breath.

Every moment.
Every breath.
Every beat of my heart.

In those rare moments,
I frown upon myself for being less,
not doing more.

Forgetting how
behind it all
sits Michael's mom,
shaking her head

...shaking...

Bewildered.
How can it be true?

Pierced to my bones
Frozen
Trapped in the echo

"Michael has been found deceased...
It was suicide."