He's the youngest now-A loss is not just a moment in time: the loss of one child and life with his siblings

 A lot of things hit differently with our loss of Michael, in relation to our other kids.

 This picture was taken back in 1998, when we joined my grandma, some of my cousins, and their kids on a float honoring our grandparents for a small-town parade. (And yes, little thirty-year-old me was pretty proud of how those costumes turned out) The "corn" has now been married for ten years, the "pea pod" is getting married this Fall, the baby "turnip" is married and a mom of two, and the "raspberry" was our Michael, gone too soon.

When he died, he was halfway past twenty-six. He was the second-oldest of our four kids, and six years older than the youngest. She's now twenty-seven. He seemed so much older and grown-up back then, but now...they're all, even the "baby," older than he'll ever be.

We've had two weddings and will have another later this year. Without him. It's hard and awkward and painful, hand-in-hand with fully joyous celebration. I had a hard, beautiful, searingly tender moment at our younger daughter's wedding a few years ago, when at the last minute we thought to ask Michael's oldest friend to walk me down the aisle. We both looked absolutely stone-faced in the pictures, as we struggled fiercely with tears. It was wonderfully right, and tremendously meaningful, and also...so hard.

Michael now has a nephew who will turn two next week, and a niece born this Spring. I'm glad he got to be an honorary uncle to his friends' kids ("Unca Mitch" to the littlest, who couldn't quite pronounce Mike), as he didn't live long enough to be an uncle to his siblings' kids. They'll never know him. He'll never know them. How, and at what age, do you tell your small child that there was another uncle, but he died? At what age can a kid handle knowing that their other uncle died by suicide? Our kids who have children will have those difficult conversations to navigate, someday down the road. That won't be easy.

So how do I, how do we do it? We try to pay attention to our feelings in these important situations. We talk about it when we need to. When such a thing comes up, I check in with that child, like recently asking our son, "How are you doing with not having your brother in your wedding party?"  I'm not there to advise or correct, just to listen; to given them an opening to talk about it if they want to.

When I meet our kids' adult friends, new friends made since 2018, and I tell family stories, I carefully don't mention Michael, or things like having had four kids. The stories of their brother and his life and his death are theirs to tell, when and how they choose. I don't "out" their loss and pain to people they may not be ready to share it with yet. Each person has their own journey with loss, and I think it's really important to respect one another's comfort zones and ways of coping.

A death is not a moment in time; a fixed point from which everyone, eventually, moves on. It continues to hit and ripple, throughout the rest of life, for those left behind.

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.

New grief on top of old

[This was written less than a week after my dad passed away, on January 17th of this year. This photo, of me with our son Michael and my dad, is both precious and painful to me. It was taken in 2016, two years before we lost Michael, and now...they're both gone.]  

Grief lands differently, when it lands on the barely-healing scars of other grief.

 The healing that has taken place is not necessarily undone, but the fresh hit strikes very tender places. It lands on fragile new skin and deep old bruises and already-frayed nerves.

The fact that I have experienced deep, beautiful healing and learned to rest in God, in real and meaningful ways...does not mean that fresh loss does not make me sad. Every loss, especially big loss, still brings all the genuine and normal waves of heartbreak. 

Even when the path of loss is familiar, we still have to walk it. We don't get a "skip to the end" card, just because we've taken the journey before.

Making the slow, heavy walk of sadness with a fresh loss is not a measure of faith or lack of faith. It is normal and human and healthy. 

It is a "yes, and..." experience, like all grief.

It is, "Yes, I am grateful to know that this loved one is no longer suffering, is with Jesus, is dancing with joy and celebrating with loved ones gone before," and, "I am really sad and my heart hurts and my skin feels fragile and I can hardly tolerate food and sleep is difficult and this is so heavy and hard." 

My dad, brilliant, exuberant, opinionated, endlessly enthusiastic, filled with childlike wonder and curiosity, energetic, knowledgeable, gifted, challenging to live with and so talented in so many ways, has been bed-bound in a nursing home for over five and a half years, with few words and growing confusion. If memory serves me correctly, he went into the nursing home on the first anniversary of our son Michael's death. That was quite a day.  

While we are deeply grateful for the sweet times we've had with Dad in these past few years, and profoundly thankful for the kind, faithful care he received at the Veteran's Home...it was hard for all of us, him most of all.

So when, early last Friday morning, he slipped the bonds of this earth and journeyed to Heaven, it was a mercy, as well as a painful loss. 

How do I feel? I have no idea. I feel numb and I feel every-which-way.

I went to a costume party as my old self

 In our small (very small) town, there is a group called Birthday Girls. Any woman from the community can be part of it. It was started several decades ago by Zonia, who is now in her eighties, and as colorful and creative as ever, to bring women together for a bit of fun. 

Many people, in adulthood, don't get celebrated...ever. I love that, with this group, any woman can come and be celebrated. It's lovely.

For October's gathering, we had a costume party and potluck lunch. Almost every lady dressed up, which made it fun. There were two ladies and a baby in pumpkin costumes, a Flower Child, a 1940s lady, an American Conspiracy Theorist, a bumblebee, two clowns in full makeup, wigs and appropriate red noses, some kind of alien monster bug, and a leprechaun (my own mom, who took home the prize for best costume). I looked vintage, like I'd stepped out of the 1920s or thereabouts. 

 

I spend most of my days dressed down, with a high value on comfort. I haven't dressed like this in years...in six years, actually...six years, four months, and four days. 

That's the thing; while I looked vintage, I was really just dressed as...my old self. That old self, before our beloved Michael ended his life, loved whimsical clothes. What I wore for church danced on the boundaries of "costume" at times. Not like...silly or flamboyant, but...like a character in a play, or like someone who had stepped out of another era. This outfit that I wore for the costume party today? It's truly just what I used to wear to church sometimes. Not that we went to a dressy church...at all. On an average Sunday, if there were, say...a hundred and twenty people in attendance, there might be me, the pastor's wife and maybe one or two other women in dresses. I didn't blend into the crowd, but that was fine with me. I just really enjoyed dressing up and adding a playful edge. 

I have not worn this hat in six years. I couldn't, not only because of the logistics of travel-trailer living and limited space, but because...I'm no longer the person who wore this outfit as part of regular life. Until April of this year, I would have bet money that I would never wear this outfit again.

That sense of light-hearted whimsy died when Michael did, and I was pretty solidly sure it was never coming back. If you've read the post before this one, you'll know that big things changed in my heart this April, and that a lot of healing has taken place. 

When I thought of what costume I might wear to the party, I thought of this outfit and...it felt right! It took some dedicated time, digging through our things in storage, to find it all, but I'm so glad I did. It was so fun to put on this dress, which I loved, and these shoes, which I loved, and this hat, which I loved. I missed them. I missed...me...the me that I used to be. 

It's one of the pervasive truths of grief and loss that, no matter how much we, or anyone else, wants it, we will never again be the people we were before. There is no "getting back to our old self." It's simply not possible. Trauma and loss change us, and there's no getting around that fact. Not all of the changes are bad. Often there are gifts of grace in the dark night of the soul that are truly beautiful. Whether the changes feel like devastating scars or the sweet beauties of a deeper heart-life, the fact remains that we are...forever...changed. 

What a surprise and delight, then, to discover that this part of the old me is not gone forever, or at least not entirely. I really thought she was. Now, I'm not sure I'll go back to wearing dresses and heels for church- I'm not sure my aging feet would forgive me. And I'm not sure I'd casually walk in wearing a hat with a whimsical poof of feathers on it...or even one without the feathers. It's an even smaller church than our old one, and mostly very casual, and...I'm still not the same person who dressed this way. But...we'll see. 

I don't have to know the answer right now. 

For now, it is enough to know that I dressed up as my old self...and it left me smiling.

This...kind of changes everything.

 

Something happened...something good. 

Just as, in the writing world, they say that you write from scars, not bleeding wounds, I wanted to sit with this good, and rather big, thing for a bit. I wanted to live with it; to let it season, to see if it...lasts.

I started counseling recently (long overdue, I'm sure) and have not been sure what I think about it. The big thing didn't happen through anything the counselor said, but in talking to her, I heard myself say something that resonated like a bronze bell. It was something I have known, that saved my sanity six years ago, but I hadn't thought to apply it to one particular point of pain. 

In trying to describe my inner emotional state to people, in the wake of our son Michael's suicide, I have often used two metaphors.

I speak of being strongly compartmentalized; of how Kristie was here, speaking to you and going about daily life, while Michael's mom dealt with the awful, relentlessly practical details of after-death, and Michael's mommy was sheltered tenderly behind a closed door, huddled on the floor, wailing. We check in on her, and care for her very, very gently. Kristie is able to function because Michael's mom and his mommy were given space to experience their own parts of this awful reality. Once in a while, they all collide in an eruption of tears and raw pain, as they should. This has felt like the healthiest, most functional way for me to live with these conflicting realities. I mean...I have to go about daily life, and I'm not especially fond of melting down in a grieving puddle in public. By giving that lava-river of pain a private, separate place to exist, I've been able to carry on and do the rest.

I also say that some part of me, one-fourth of my mama-heart, has been pinned to the moment we heard the awful news of his death. That is a good descriptor...pinned. As I went about my day recently, I delved deeper into that idea and realized how very apt it is. Some part of my beating, bleeding heart has been impaled to that moment like a moth to a collector's board. This part of me has been spiked there, writhing, gasping for air, neither healing nor breaking free, for nearly six years. 

Two things occurred to me, and they have changed my inner world rather dramatically. Interestingly, the first major part of this shift came only twelve days after my most recent post; the one where I spoke of the relentless cost of not crying, and how I could, legitimately, break down and weep at any given time.

The past year has been especially hard and heavy. On the last day of January, last year, a memory surfaced, related to Michael's death, that leveled me. Emotionally, I was almost back to where I was in the weeks just after we got the news of his death. This emotional devastation brought on some health issues that plagued me for several months. While those physical symptoms eventually eased, the emotional weight continued to press me down and down and down. I wasn't depressed, really, but...crushed. I could apply all the logic and self-compassion to this memory, but the hard fact of it could not be swept away. It was like swallowing a shard of glass, and having it get stuck halfway down my throat, and finding there was nothing that could be done to shift it.

Just a week and a half after sharing that post, something changed. 

I spoke earlier about remembering something I knew. It was something my friend's husband told me- the life-ring he threw me- when I was agonizing over my mistakes as a parent, after Michael died. [Not that I blame myself for his death- we all make mistakes as parents, because we're fallible human beings. Those regrets just become blinding in the wake of a child's suicide!] When I shared this, this friend said, "I'm so glad God has mercy on our failures." Those words of hope were the first true light shined into a hard, dark place. Others had tried to help, but these were the words that helped. I have spoken often of how life-giving they were. They helped me find sanity in the unbearable reality of my loss. 

I never forgot those words, but, in the struggle of last year, I forgot to apply them to this, too.

They're just as true, and just as life-giving now as they were six years ago.

At my most recent counseling appointment, as I tried to explain why this helped, I had an epiphany. This understanding flashed through my mind, and I said:

"When God said he would carry my pain, he meant all of it!"

I heard myself say those words, and it truly felt as if the God of the universe was saying them straight into my brain and out of my mouth! 

It was a holy, healing, glory-filled, beautiful moment, and I think I'll never be quite the same. 

This was the vital thing that I had failed to understand.

While Michael's death, and every painful thing around it, is horribly true and there's no brushing away or softening or sweetening any part of it....I don't have to carry it alone!

This is not denial. This is not pretending it's not true. I will never, for a single moment of the rest of my life, be anything less than fully aware that my son is not alive, but (and this is one of those earth-shaking, Jesus-sized, holy "buts") ...the truth of it may be unavoidable, but the crushing, soul-sucking, awful weight of it...is not mine to carry!

It was the crushing, devastating weight of the pain that took me down last year.

I forgot, and I hope now that I see it, I will never forget again, that the weight of my suffering is not mine to carry. 

When God said he would carry my pain, he meant all of it. Truly.

"Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows..."Isaiah 53:4-5

"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens." psalm 68:19

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28

"You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?" Psalms 56:8

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

~~~

This moment of clarity was absolutely revolutionary for me.

I also did not immediately run around telling everyone.

Why?

I've mentioned that I have a monthly cycle of emotional capacity, mental health and physical energy. It took me a year or two to figure this out, but it's proven true. The low point of all these facets of my life falls on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of every month. Michael died on the 24th of June, and we found out the next day. I did not decide that these days would be extra hard every month; they just were, and over time I noticed the pattern. Just as with all bell curves and pendulum swings and dives into deep water, where there is a low point, there is a corresponding high point. At the other end of my monthly swing, at my high point, I am much happier and energetic and able to accomplish more. 

The day this reality-altering light dawned on me was the tenth of April, firmly in the sweet spot of the "high" between my monthly lows. Because of my nearly six years of experience with this cycle, I wanted to see how this change would weather through the coming down-swing. 

My heart has been through too much to casually bank on an insight caught during a sparkling high-point.

I treasured my epiphany. I gazed at it in tingly wonder. I breathed grateful prayers to the God Who Sees Me. I sank into the rest of its truth and started to heal. But I still kept this beautiful card close to my chest.

A week or two later, I had a whole new, beautiful realization.

Remember Michael's mommy, in her tender, safe little room, clutching her head in her hands and wailing? I suddenly realized...she's not alone! All this time, with all the tender love and care, I've pictured her there alone. Not lonely or forgotten; always held with tender awareness, but just...alone in a loving, private space. The other day, I suddenly had a whole new picture, and even typing these words, my eyes well with wondering tears. I saw Jesus walk softly into that room, gather Michael's mommy tenderly onto his lap, and cradle her close to his heart. He doesn't shush her, but, with such precious compassion, he holds her close and warms her, and tears trickle down his own cheeks.

She is not alone.

The One who wept with Mary and Martha, even when he knew that in like five minutes, he'd have their beloved brother walking back out of that tomb...weeps with me, gently, and with such compassion. My wait will be longer than theirs was, before I see my beloved son, but while I'm waiting and hurting, my Jesus holds me close...and he weeps with me.

~~~~

Here I am, more than a month later, still in wide-eyed wonder at this beautiful, heart-rescuing gift of mercy. I have come through the next low in my patterned swing, and...I felt okay. I felt better than okay. On the morning of the twenty-fifth last month, I checked in with the state of my heart and I felt... light-hearted!!!  For nearly six years, even in moments of sweetest, most fully-celebrated joy, there was a background weight on my heart. I have not felt light-hearted, whimsical, playful or silly... for almost six years. I have fun clothes it would not have occurred to me to wear, because they're playful and whimsical, and that part of me felt...dead. But now...that whole part of me feels alive again! 

It's not even as if nothing hard has happened, to challenge this resurrected life in my heart. I recently went through a rough week, when I felt battered and bleeding by ways other people chose to handle problems with me. I was tied up in knots, unable to sleep at first. It was painful and hard. I was angry. I was very hurt. And still...that weight that had pressed me down for so long...was still gone.

That spike that pinned my suffering heart to that devastating moment at 6:30 PM on June 25th, 2018... is gone. My Jesus has taken every facet of the crushing devastation I carried...and he's holding it for me. The compassion of Jesus is different from how humans, even the best, most loving humans, try to help. He never once dismissed or diminished the reality of my pain and the reasons for it. He doesn't try to change how I feel or convince me to believe an alternate reality. He sees all of it, with the truest of eyes, comes alongside me and says, "I'd like to carry that for you. Will you let me?" And then he keeps walking alongside me, in compassionate togetherness, radiating the most tender love, as he carries all my heavy things. All of this is another facet of the comprehensive, beautiful love he wants to pour out on every one of us. It is there, for every person on earth, if we'll just open the door and invite him in.

He comes alongside us, with such tender strength and says, "Lay your heavy cares on me, let me carry them for you, because I love you." 

That's my personal paraphrase of 1 Peter 5:7, which says, "...casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you."  

(Yes, the apostle Peter wrote those words, but God prompted him to write them, because they're a truth that we need.)

As I have experienced recently, he actually meant what he said. He will do it! 

He's doing it for me.

And now, for the first time in nearly six years, I feel light-hearted.

I feel alive!

NOT Crying is exhausting

 

 

This is something that can maybe only be fully understood by people walking through a similar fire: that as draining as it can be to let the grief pour out, holding it in is exhausting in a whole other way.

Today, Michael's mommy came out to play. I wrote about this concept several years ago, but I'll explain for anyone who hasn't read those words.

The way I have survived our terrible loss, and the reason I am able to function on a daily basis (in addition to the precious grace and comfort of Jesus) is my ability to compartmentalize. The home in which I grew was not a good place to let "unwelcome" emotions (anger, frustration, etc.) show on the surface. I learned to bury them deep and hide them.

Curiously, this hard-gained skill became a great help to me when our precious Michael took his life in 2018. In the first few days, my fiery pain was right out in the open for all to see. As soon, as I had to leave the house, though, and interact in public, I had to have a place to put that consuming pain. And so...I compartmentalized into three facets. 

As I explained it at the time, and as still holds true, Michael's mommy is curled in a safe, protected room, howling and wailing her pain. Michael's mom carried on, dealing with the practical realities of his death; things like meeting with an attorney about his small estate, dealing with creditors, organizing a viewing and then a memorial service, and ordering a headstone. While Michael's mommy writhed in pain, and his mom dealt with these hard, but necessary, tasks, Kristie ran errands, spent time with family and friends, and just...carried on with life. At all times, all three of me are very much alive and active, though Kristie is usually the one people see. Sometimes, if conversation turns that way, Michael's mom will rise to the surface, welling my eyes with tears and making my voice tremble. Michael's mommy, though, I usually keep tucked away where her terrible suffering is private and safe.

Not everyone...few people, in fact...can really handle the raw, naked pain of others' intense grief, or handle it in a helpful way. The heart of Michael's mommy is so vulnerable in its deep, relentless pain that it must be protected from anything that hurts it more. 

This is what has worked for me. It may not be right for everyone, but it works for me.

It is also...exhausting.

I tried to explain this to a friend recently, and she was surprised. She said that she'd have thought that crying would be more draining. She's not wrong. Letting the pain rise to the surface and boil over is certainly draining. Holding it back, though, is exhausting in a whole other way.

I could plop down and cry at any moment.

Yes, after five whole years, the pain is that ready and present, when pinged by well-aimed triggers.

Five long years. It feels like forever and like yesterday. A moment; one harsh, in-drawn breath.

I think that people imagine the goal of grieving to be reaching a place where the pain no longer ruffles the water of daily life. I can't imagine a time when my dear son's life and death will no longer weigh on my every moment to some extent. As long as he's dead, I will not be truly okay. I don't walk around feeling the intensity of our loss every moment, but it is also never absent.

It is this weight, the constant, relentless truth of his death, that presses on me. Even when I am laughing, with sparkling eyes, with dear family or friends, cuddled on the shoulder of my dear husband, or gazing with wondering joy on our precious new grandson...the truth of Michael's death is still real, and still heavy. Whether at the forefront or in the background of my thoughts, it is always there.

Holding that weight, but keeping it set apart in a protected space, draws on my reserves of energy, like a bank of blinding spotlights plugged into an extension cord. As long as the lights are the only thing drawing on that power source, everything will seem fine. For every other thing that is plugged into the same source, though, the strain on the system grows, until things start to sputter and fail.

To step out of metaphor and into my real life: I seem fine most of the time. In many ways, I am fine. Granted, my stamina and capacity are noticeably less than before, but within those bounds, I do well enough. The problem arises when too many strains are placed on the system. The weight of my grief presses harder on me when I'm tired. 

Today, I was very tired. 

I have been going hard for too many days, with not enough respite or rest.

Today, I felt the hard, gray weight of my grief, pressing on my shoulders, clinging to my back, dragging at my limbs, trying to pull me down. Usually, I shove it back into its assigned space and firmly close the door. Today...I just didn't have it in me. I was so tired, on top of everything else, of the struggle to not feel. And so...I gave up.

I plugged in my earbuds, pulled up that certain playlist on my phone, and opened the door of the room where Michael's mommy lives. I took her hand and gently invited her out into the open. I cried.

And cried. 

And cried and cried and cried.

This is what I mean when I say that Michael's mommy came out to play. It means that either I have made a space for the grief to rise, or it has ripped to the surface from some other cause.

It means that I dropped my stoic determination and let myself feel for once.

It is both draining and a huge relief. 

In a way, I was less weary after this extensive romp with my hard emotions than I was before. The weight of it just gets so crushing when I don't let it out from time to time. It was a relief to rip the lid off and, as they said in the old days of the American West, "Let 'er rip!" 

Where is the hope or the useful arrow in this? Well...a couple of things:

*If you carry grief (or trauma or depression or clinical anxiety...) it's important to remember that your physical body carries this weight. It needs to be fed and watered and rested, or its ability to hold up under the load will be compromised. We need to care for our bodies so they can help us carry this weight. If we're unusually tired and worn down, we should expect the grief to rise to the surface, and give it room to do so, when and where and how it will feel safe and healthy to us. Be gentle with yourself. Give yourself the comfort, care, and permission for rest that you need.

*If you know someone who is grieving, or carrying some other heavy emotional load, give grace to their limits (when they say they can't do something...believe them), don't try to "fix" it when their emotions make an appearance, and do not hold onto the expectation that they will return to their "old self." That person doesn't exist anymore. It's harmful and hurtful to be pressured to pretend that we are the person who never weathered this terrible loss. We are forever changed. There is no going back; only trying to find a grace-touched balance of sorrow and joy, moving forward.

~~~

I wrote this post last August, two months after the fifth anniversary of Michael's death. I don't remember why I didn't post it then, but here it's sat as a draft, all these months. I heard something today that reminded me of this post, and I think it's a helpful addition to the conversation.

This morning, I listened to episode #656 of the podcast called The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey. There was a guest host for this episode, a woman named Toni Collier, who interviewed Dr. Curt Thompson. The conversation was so healing and so helpful to me that the moment it ended, I sat down with a notepad and pen and listened to the whole thing again, taking notes.

One of the things they discussed was the cost of not feeling. I could sure resonate with that! They talked about healthy, emotionally safe ways to bring the grief into the open. They talked about many things, and I took many notes. One of the final comments by Dr. Thompson was so healing for me. He said that the goal of grieving is not that we'll no longer feel sad. He said, "He (God) is not just trying to get us to work through our grief. He's trying to turn us into people who are unafraid of it."

Unafraid of grief. 

That is a goal I can stand to live toward. 

That feels honest and real to me.

May we all find safe people and places for bringing our grief into the sunlight. May we heal and grow to be unafraid of grief; to accept its reality as a normal part of the human experience. May we give grace to one another as we feel our real feelings and live our true stories. May we love each other well.

[The photo at the top of this post shows the first blossoms on my Grandpa Dick's Rainier Cherry tree. He's been gone since 1996, so this tree is growing elderly. It grows by the slowly crumbling root cellar my grandparents once used for storing root crops and home-canned fruits and vegetables. The gray behind the blossoms is the concrete of the root cellar's roof. I love this image- this delicate, fruitful, hopeful beauty growing out of this gnarled old tree, above the cracked and weathered cellar. As the old saying goes, where there is life, there is hope. Here's to finding small, sweet breaths of hope as we navigate this hard, gnarly journey.]

Where have I been? Death and bots

It has been a long time since I posted on here. There are a couple of reasons. 

Last Fall, my mother-in-law had a quick succession of health events and then passed away. 

It was a very hard ending, for her and for us.

This is grief piled on grief. It's heavy. 

This hard, painful loss came at the end of a year that was already very hard for me, and I've been in survival mode until very recently. I thought of things I'd like to write and share here, but I just didn't have it in me to make it happen. I'm slowly doing better now, most of the time, and so...here I am.

The other reasons is...bots. 

It took me a while to figure out what was happening. I check the stats for my blog from time to time. It doesn't show me anything personal about my readers, just indicates from which countries my blog is accessed. Suddenly, there were hundreds and hundreds of "looks" at the blog, all originating from one country.

I was puzzled. Either my words on grief suddenly went viral in Singapore, or...something was wrong.

I did an internet search and found that this is a large and growing problem. There are bots that people use to scan every word on every page that others have written. Maybe it's part of gathering fodder for AI. I don't know.

What I do know is that while this would always feel intrusive, and it's frustrating that there's not really anything I can do about it...to have something like this happen with the words my grieving heart has bled onto these pages is awful. 

This blog means something to me, something special and important.

The people who come here and read what I've shared matter a great deal to me. Nobody comes here for casual reasons. When I look at those stats, and note how many people have visited, I pray for them...for you. I pray for those with hurting hearts, trying to make sense of the incomprehensible and find ways to keep breathing and living. I pray for comfort and hope and peace and strength to carry on. I pray for healing of broken hearts and broken families. I pray for those who come here with generous, compassionate hearts, wanting to learn how to walk alongside their grieving loved ones in helpful ways.

When people have told me that what I've written here has helped them in some way, that is deeply meaningful to me. 

This is a place where I can talk about hard and painful things, in the hope of somehow helping others find hope or understanding or just to know they're not alone. 

Having these hard, heartfelt words casually plundered feels terrible.

It may not be a personally hostile act, but it can't help but feel very personal to me...because these words and these topics are very, very personal for me.

I don't want this intrusion to ruin this good thing.

And so... I will carry on anyway.

For you, the real, hurting people who have somehow found my small corner of the internet and have read my words, I am so glad that you are here. I am also deeply sorry for the pain in your life that led you here. I hope that something I've shared has been of some comfort or help to you. I wish I could give you a hug and sit gently with our shared heartbreak.

For my own loved ones who read my words...thank you. Your support means the absolute world to me.

For those who read what I've shared so that you can love others well...your hearts are beautiful. I dearly hope that something I've shared has been helpful to you.

Thank you for being here.

No New Favorite Pictures

When we passed the five-year anniversary of the death of our son Michael, in June of this year, I flinched away from sharing a collage of favorite photos from his life on Instagram or Facebook.

It suddenly hit me, with painful clarity, that they would be the same exact pictures I'd shared for the fourth year, and the third, and the second... They're wonderful pictures, from various moments in his twenty-six years. I treasure them.

What stopped me? 

There will never be a new favorite picture of our son.

This is it; this fistful of most-favorite moments. The stack will never grow taller or wider. 

If I share favorite photos every birthday and deathday, they will be the exact same pictures, over and over again, because the chance for capturing new moments died with him. 

Having that painful truth hit me from this fresh angle made it impossible for me to even go look at my desktop file of his pictures. It has, in fact, taken almost three months for me to be able to look at pictures since this realization hit me.

The pictures are so precious. I love them.

There will never be more, and that is...hard.

To you, dear readers

I just wanted to drop a note here to you, the readers of my words:

I have prayed for you.

 

Few come to this blog for casual, happy reasons.

Many people who read what I write are probably wading the cold, dark waters of heartbreak.

A couple of days after I share a post here, I come back to see how many people have read my words. I look at those numbers, and I think of the weariness and sorrow they likely represent, and I pray for every person represented by the data.

I pray for comfort, and rest, and hope for you and for your families.

I pray that you will feel seen, and a little less alone on this hard road.

I am grateful for every one of you who comes here and reads what I have written.

Your presence here comforts and encourages me. Thank you.

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

 

Talking to the grieving

**This was written about eighteen months after Michael died, so it carries the intense emotional energy of that time. I am not in exactly this same emotional place anymore, but I thought these words might still be important or helpful for others. They are still very true of where I was at that time.**

 

From that first terrible day, I have tried my hardest to not resent the clumsy, thoughtless things people sometimes say. And God gave me grace for that; filled me with the ability to leave all this room for people to stumble awkwardly around our tragic loss. Still, there were some people who made that very hard to do.

There were things that I was prepared to hear; things I expected people to say, so I was braced for it. "But you still have your other kids." It still stung to hear those words, but I had expected someone to say them so it was not much of a shock. To my surprise though, I only heard them once, from someone I truly care about and who was just trying to find words in the face of my pain.

One of our early conversations as a family, in those first jagged days after we got the news of Michael's death, was about this very thing. We said, "Let's decide now to just have grace for people who will say stupid things that hurt us."

This was important, both for the sake of those around us and for our own well-being. If we responded harshly to people who tried to offer comfort in unfortunate ways, we would have to deal later with the damage to those relationships. That would take even more from our critically overdrawn emotional reserves. To lash out would hurt others and it would also hurt us, and we were already so wounded.

Also, we made a safe space within the close confines of our family, Lee and the kids and I, to vent about those harmful words. This was part of what helped us weather those hard conversations. Knowing that we could go home and blow off the hurt, anger and disbelief by telling our closest people about it was part of what helped us hold that line of determined grace.

Another thing that firmed my resolve to take this road of grace was remembering clearly how many times throughout my life I have been the one trampling tender ground with heavy feet and dumb words. I have blundered all over people's raw hearts, with the best of awkward intentions. I cringe to think of those time. That shamed regret fuels and strengthens my determination to respond gently when the same is done to me.

Still, there are times when it is very, very difficult not to lash out and ricochet hurt back to its source. There are some painful, painful things that have been said to me. Some of them have been said by people who truly love me, as they tried to make sense of this unbearable loss. Those are ridiculously beyond my capacity to handle with compassion, and I have to take them straight to Jesus.

When I talk about the way that I have handled these hard and hurtful things, people sometimes wonder why I do not address this issue directly. Why do I not confront the people who speak these deeply wounding words? It's simple. I can't. For someone like me, for whom confrontation is an intensely vulnerable, threatening idea, going straight to the source is no simple matter. That is me in regular life. Now, there is me in the severely wounded state of bereaved mom of a suicidal child. 

My resources on every level have been deeply damaged. Just everyday life takes everything that I have. I have to carefully budget and manage my physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social resources every single day. I do not have the resources for confrontation. To put myself and another person through even a simple conversation about how, despite how much they care, they have also hurt me deeply, would bankrupt my emotional resources. Because then I would not only be hefting the bulk of my own emotional struggle, I would also have to deal with their wounded sorrow, which only adds to my already heavy burden. I would most likely be thrust (as I have been before) into the position of having to make them feel better for how they hurt me. That is, if they immediately recognized the hurtful wrongness of what they said. If it were to go down the road of their justifying what they said and why it's really fine because they care and their intentions were good, that shoves me into having to defend my having been hurt. This, also, has happened before.

And frankly, I just don't have the energy. Just thinking about the possibilities enough to write it out is draining me, like the light dimming in a room when clouds cover the sun.

There is even a risk in writing about this issue here on my blog. I write about the real things, not only because it helps me, but because a number of people have reached out privately and told me that my sharing helps them, too. Where is the risk in this? The risk lies in the need of others to be reassured. Any time I talk about this kind of thing, people start wondering if they're one of the people who has trod on my toes or stabbed me in the heart. And they want to be reassured that it wasn't them; that they have not caused me more pain on top of all the other pain.

And so they leave a worried comment, "I hope this wasn't me." "I hope I haven't done this."

What am I supposed to say?

The compulsory Nice Girl answer is clear, "No, of course not! You would never do such a thing."

But why must I continue to spend my limited emotional energy comforting other people in the face of my loss?

And what if they are one of those people I'm talking about? What do I say then?

"Yes, actually, you were a huge thoughtless clod and you crushed my already bleeding heart."

No, I am not going to do that, for all of the very good reasons I articulated above.

So here's the thing: if you read my words and you feel a compulsion to ask, whether because you need my reassurance, or even from a sincere desire to know and to learn and to make amends...please, just don't.

If you were one of those people, we are fine.

Whatever hurt has been dealt me, I have taken to my loving heavenly Father and He has given me grace to forgive.

Here is what I would suggest...

If you have any doubts about things you have said to me, or to anyone else who is grieving, then chances are there is a better way you could have handled things. Look at your own words through a lens of truth. 

Were your words gentle? Were they steeped in compassion?

Were they... necessary?

I will give you this two-cents worth of advice:
If you feel a need to wrestle with a death and try to make sense of it, please, please, please do not do so by talking about your theories with the person whose loss is maybe the greatest.  Please.

Please. Talk about it to other people. Talk about it to God. Or to your dog. Or just...someone else.

Trying to figure out a death by talking to that person's nearest people is just not very kind..

Being willing to let your questions go unasked is one of the most loving and generous things you can do for the bereaved, especially in the case of a suicide.

Part of the reason for my starting this blog was so I would not have to answer those questions over and over.

But really....should they even be asked?

Think about the why. Why do you want to ask this question? Is it because you are struggling to make sense of it all? Trust me, the nearest and dearest of the deceased are wrestling with that in bigger ways than you can probably comprehend. 

 Is it because you have a theory as to why the death happened? Leave it unsaid. 

How could hearing your theories possibly be helpful? Think it through. What are you expecting? Are you imagining that...you expound your theory, and that dead person's loved-one nods, the light dawning, and says, "Oooh, wow. I had not thought of that. Now it all makes sense. Suddenly, now that you have showed me the secrets behind their death, it no longer bothers me. I think I'll be fine now." That is not how that story goes.

Seriously, think! Ask yourself that all-important why.  Why do you feel such a need to ask that question or make that comment to that person in the midst of their grief? Why?

Talking to grieving people may not be your best choice, especially if you are just processing at their expense. Why must they be the sounding board for your grief over their loss? Why must they be forced to listen to your theories and field your questions about their shattered hearts? What answers do they owe you? What response are you looking for?

Trust me, it is not comforting to hear our dead child blamed for our complicated relationship. 

It is not helpful to hear someone be astonished at our stupidity for not seeing it coming. 

(It is not helpful to have such thoughtless comments by others repeated to us- we don't need to know!)

It is not helpful to be advised on how to walk this hellish road by people who are not on it. Not helpful.

Grieving people are rarely looking for advice!! Trust me.

This is not your chance to tell me about everyone else you know of who has killed themselves.

How is this supposed to help me wake up every morning and remember how to breathe?

This is not your chance to tell me what I will feel and how I should handle it. 

This is not your chance to process through your feelings about my son's death at my expense.

I fielded so much of this; so many questions and theories and just words in the months following Michael's death. I tried to see this as a gift I could give to people- to help them through this hard thing. I saw that  people felt a real need to connect with me, Michael's mom, specifically, and God gave me grace for those needed conversations. 

There were also many, many conversations in which I was put in a position to explain and explain and answer and comfort and help other people as they struggled with the suicide of our son. 

It became too much.

Frankly, I think this is one of the many reasons God removed us from our beloved small town and thrust us into an RV many miles away. 

People, using me, the mother of this broken, dead son, to help them work through their questions and puzzles over his suicide...

God gave me grace...and then he gave me a break. 

More than a break; he gave me escape. He gave me rescue. He gave me rest. 

I have heard a set of questions that can be wisely applied to any conversation, and they especially apply when talking with the bereaved:

"Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?" 

[edit: since I wrote this, I have actually had conversations with some loved ones about things they said that hurt me and it's gone really well. I couldn't do it in those days when my heart was bleeding and I could hardly breathe. It took time, and healing, and had to come in a safe moment, at a time when I could handle the conversation. I am grateful to have been able to have those conversations and to have had them go lovingly and well.]

Never the same, never, never...

When I think the words, "Never the same," I hear it like this refrain of the song Never Enough from the movie The Greatest Showman.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                No matter the cause of the trauma, those who have experienced great disruption of their lives are never quite the same afterward. Our lives have this sharp point of demarcation between Before and After. We may look essentially the same to others, but in profound and fundamental ways, we are forever changed.

This may show up in a variety of ways: mental health, physical health, stamina, temper, capacity. From conversations in an online grief group, I learned that many who have experienced a sudden, shocking, and/or profound loss find themselves dealing with  degrees or kinds of depression, anxiety and health problems they never had before. 

Our emotional bandwidth, especially in those first months and years, is substantially less than before. Our stamina in  all areas- physical, emotional, mental, social- is dramatically less. Our interests, our enthusiasms, our capacity for creativity...all these things take a severe blow. Some may recover, in part or fully; other may never return. 

In those first early days of our great grief, I remember thinking that I felt like champagne suddenly robbed of its bubbles and froth. I felt flat and dull and devoid of sparkle. I wondered if it would ever return.

There are times when I seem like my old bubbly self, but they're rare and somewhat of an illusion. Even at my most excited, I still hold a grave ballast that never leaves. 

Though I trust God whole-heartedly; though I choose to live riveted on hope and joy...I am still... never the same. This is not a personal failure; it's simple fact. Great loss changes us, permanently.

For the grief-adjacent-  those who are close to people who have weathered great loss- this is important to know, and to never forget. Please, leave room for the grieving to be who they are now, with no pressure to be who they once were. There is no getting back to who they were before. That's simply never going to be true. 

Please, don't put pressure on others to ease your sadness, discomfort, and concern by being who they used  to be. I know it's unconscious, but people have this longing to see their loved ones "back to their old selves," back to being okay. That is unfair, unrealistic and unkind. 

There is no going back. 

There is only finding livable ways to go forward.

Please, leave space for others, and for yourself, to figure out who they are, who you are, now.

The changes are not all bad. Often, there is greater compassion, courage, and tenderness. There is often a new determination to love well and to live boldly. There is greater wisdom in handling relationships and in not wasting the time we have with our living loved ones. 

There is loss, and there is gain, but both reflect permanent change. 

Those who have lost are...never the same. 

 

 

Why God did not answer our prayers for peace

 We prayed. Oh, how we prayed.

When my dear husband came to me in October of 2017 and told me that his job was killing him, and suggested a complete upending of our lives, I went into high-level stress. I was appalled at the idea of leaving our home of over twenty years, our lives in the wonderful small town where we'd raised our four kids, our son who still lived in town, and our daughters and other son who were a short day's drive away- the youngest still in college and coming home for summer and winter breaks, my work in ministry at our church, and my community of wonderful friends- women who were true sisters of the heart. I had a whole rich, rooted life there; a life of connection and purpose. I was known and loved and welcomed there. I had not imagined we would ever leave. I pictured growing old together in that same house with its worn-out carpet and its view of sunsets over the western hills. I could not fathom leaving all this, but when my husband asked me to consider it, I said that I would. I committed to praying about it. I believe that my exact words were, "I can't leave my whole life because you're having a bad day at work...(what a sweet, compassionate, loving response, right?)...but if God tells me to, I will and I'll do it without complaining." That was my bottom line: if this was God's plan, not just my husband's, I would agree and I would not fight it or complain about it. I had learned to trust God, at least that much.

Thus began months of intense prayer. I could see how the unbearable stress of the job was tearing my husband to pieces. I also hated the idea of leaving. I pounded on the floor of heaven, begging God for peace for him, for wisdom and strength to endure; for the godly character to persevere in a challenging situation.

It didn't come.

When I speak of that time in our lives, I have had people respond in ways that disparage the character, strength, or faith of my husband. That makes me so angry. Anyone who was not actually inside that situation has no idea what it was like. He did, and does, have strong faith. He diligently sought God, prayed earnestly, and continued to show up faithfully to this job that was destroying him. There were a number of fine people in that place, who were good to work with. He was just put in a position where it was nearly impossible to do his job, based on decisions made by other people. He cared deeply about the well-being of those who depended on his role, and having his hands tied so he could not do what was needed...was unbearable. His integrity was the very thing that made it so hard.

We had more than one conversation about the tension of not knowing whether he needed to dig deep into God for the grace to carry on, or whether God was using the stress as a sharp stick to prod us out of our nest. For those first months, we honestly didn't know which it was.

Years ago, my childhood pastor told a story about how eagles will line their nests with down from their own bodies to make it soft and warm and safe for their babies. As the chicks grow, and the time approaches for them to leave, the parent starts removing that comforting fluff. Soon, sharp ends and elbows of sticks emerge, making it less and less comfortable to sit in the nest. Only this discomfort could get the babies to leave their life of ease and comfy provision and embark on their adult lives.

Now, I don't know if what I've remembered is ornithological fact, but the framework of the story has stayed with me and it came back to me in those months of desperate seeking. Did my husband just need to take it to Jesus and trust him more? Or was God really using this intense discomfort to pry us out of our settled rut and move us in a new direction?

A few months into this ongoing conversation, two things happened that gave me great clarity. First, my husband told me that he'd started having chest pains every morning before work. This was a classic symptom of heart attack and it scared me. He went to our doctor and had a thorough work-up. The conclusion? There was no sign of heart disease. It was "just" stress. The stress of his job had become that unbearable. The second turning point was when I realized that my appalled horror at the idea had faded away and I had peace about it. I had exactly zero desire to agree to any of this. When I realized that I, rather suddenly, felt a measure of peace about it...I knew that was the work of God on my heart.

 Why did God not answer my desperate prayers for peace and all the other things my husband needed, in order to survive his job? Well...because him staying in the job was no longer God's plan. He allowed it to become aggressively uncomfortable for my husband, to prod him in a new direction. He allowed the stress to have a serious effect on my husband's health, to move my heart out of its selfish clutching of the familiar and comfortable, to a place of willingness. For the first few months after he shared his idea with me, I raged against it in my heart. I was resentful and very scared. We had told very few people, only our kids and a few others, what we were considering. Of course, there were lots of thoughts and feelings about it, and I was the one having all those conversations. It was hard. There I was, trying to find answers to questions about something I had no desire to do or to defend. 

When I learned that not only was my dear husband feeling the pain of a heart attack every morning, but that it was tied directly to his job stress, my own heart changed abruptly. I contacted our kids, told them what was happening, and said, "I care very much about how this change affects all of us, but Dad just shot to the top of the list. I will do whatever it takes for him to be okay." Of course they agreed, because they love their dad. We talked about how our family is one that makes sacrifices for one another; about how their dad had stayed in the same place and the same job, even through times when it was the last thing he wanted to do, solely for their sake. We both wanted them to get to grow up in one town, not having to move around and be the new kids in new schools, trying to find new friends and places to belong. He did that for them. He gave twenty-four years of his life so they could have that stability. As I said to the kids, "It's his turn."

As my heart changed, we moved forward with our plans. It was still hard, and scary, and full of blistering unknowns, but at least I now believed it was, somehow, God's plan for us. We got our house ready and listed it for sale. We moved ahead with research and plans for the new shape our life would take. 

This is the year in which we lost our older son. In the midst of unbearable stress and immense change, we got the news that he had taken his life. The timing made it, yet again, abundantly clear that this new plan was God's doing. We got this devastating news four days before my husband had planned to give his notice at work. Basically, after we were leveled by the nuclear bomb of this heart-breaking loss, my husband never had to go back to that job. He did go in a few times, and tied up the necessary loose ends, but that road came to an abrupt end. All those months of discussion and earnest prayer and slow acceptance and preparation led to this great mercy- him not having to go back to work after our hearts shattered.

In the five years since that time, I have thought that God did not answer my prayers for my husband. I knew God used those unanswered prayers, and the extreme discomfort, to pry us out and move us in this new direction. I thought that his answer had been productive silence.

Suddenly, this morning, the lights dawned. Actually...God did answer my prayers!!!!

I begged God for his protection and help for my husband; for wisdom and safety and peace and integrity and direction. I thought God didn't answer my prayers...because I was looking for the answers in the wrong place! I kept looking at our current situation, expecting God to pour his provision into it and fix everything!

As I thought about it this morning, I realized that God did answer every single one of my prayers. The provision of peace and wisdom and every other thing I begged God for did come. It came when I asked, but it came where I wasn't looking. It came on the new road, poured out to carry us well in the new direction God had given us.

I picture me, standing at a Y in a gravel road. My back is turned to the intersection, and I'm staring back the way I've come, yelling at God, "Where are you??!!!" Behind me, standing on the new road that branches off of the old, stands God, smiling with gentle love, "I'm right here," he says.

 

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.

When broccoli feels aggressive

[I wrote most of this post last year, on June 25th of 2022, the fourth anniversary of the day we learned of our son's death. As it turned out, I did have Covid- for the third time- and it laid me flat. I didn't have the mental or emotional wherewithal to come back and finish this post at the time. Now I do, and I have, and I think it's worth sharing. As I post this, we are staring down the straight stretch at a weighty fifth anniversary of our loss. It is a good time for me to revisit what I learned last year. May we be gentle with our own hearts, and give them room to just...need what they need.]

 

Is it because I'm sad?

Because I'm sick?

Either? Both? 

In the face of this fourth "deathiversary," four years since our beloved son took his life, being sick feels just plain insulting. 

Yet here we are.

My dear husband has Covid again, given to him by an inconsiderate co-worker. (People! Seriously! Stop going to meetings and events, feeling ill, and *then* going to the doctor!) I have had three negative Covid tests, but I definitely have ...something. Maybe a cold? Not sure. 

I already have feelings about what food to eat when I'm passing a heavy emotional milemarker. These foods need to be gentle...comforting. Comfort food is a gift. It is a simple, tangible way to be gentle and kind to our physical bodies as they carry the weight of our emotions.

Knowing that this deathiversary was on its way, I planned ahead for what I would cook; gentle old favorites, made ahead so I could subsist on leftovers through these couple of hard days.

Chicken soup with gluten-free noodles. Homemade biscuits. Creamy noodles with broccoli and ham.

Leftover from earlier in the week, everything-free waffles with link sausages.

 

That all sounds delicious, doesn't it?

Well...not anymore. My waffles, made from a recipe of my own development, are one of my favorite foods. In fact, four years ago as we reeled in shock and pain over the news of Michael's death, my waffles were one of the few foods I could (barely) stomach.

They seemed like a shoo-in for this week. Nope. Yesterday morning, I had to force myself to finish my breakfast...because I am sick, on top of sad, and my body objects.

The idea of protein right now, or vegetables, is not only unappealing. It feels...aggressive. My body is deeply offended at the very idea of sausage or chicken (or heaven forbid- beef!) and the thought of broccoli? One of my all-time favorite veggies? Horrible. 

 My body assures me that any attempt at eating broccoli will be taken as an act of aggression. It has issued a firm request for what earlier generations would call "light fare." Since toast is not an option for me, this will look like...broth. With gluten-free noodles. And fruit. Fruit sounds acceptable.

People have asked me how the anniversaries of Michael's death go; how we observe them and how they feel. Here is my answer: inconsistent and reliably unexpected. 

I can plan and prepare. I can consult the deep places of my heart and arrange my world around what feels comforting and safe. 

For all my planning and care, though, there is no way to prevent "life" from rudely intruding into this sacred space. 

Three years ago, on the first deathiversary, my dad was admitted to the nursing home. He still lives there. The weight of that, on an already painful day, was a lot to carry. This year, it is the nagging weight of illness, and all its added implications and stress, that has twisted these days out of shape.

These hard anniversaries, like death itself, hit in unexpected ways.

I think we all, as our own hard dates approach each year, try to anticipate what will be the "right" way to handle them. Some plan heartfelt observances, or parties overflowing with love and memories. Others plan seclusion and rest. What I have learned these past four years, and especially this year, is that, no matter how well we know ourselves and our grief, and how carefully we plan, the reality of the hard days can still come at us sideways. 

Sometimes, waffles are soft comfort. Sometimes, they feel like soul betrayal. The best we can do is listen to our own hearts, prepare for what we think might help...and be ready to roll with what we actually end up needing. A gentle willingness to adapt is one of the best gifts we can give to our own hearts.

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.

The "yes-and" of holidays and grief

 Holidays bring into sharp relief the "yes-and" nature of living with grief, the hard, now uncomfortably familiar dance of holding joy and sorrow simultaneously. 

On a large scale, every holiday shines a light on the one who is missing and prods that deep, sore wound.

On a smaller scale, the wretched weather pummeling the Columbia Gorge has prevented us from gathering with our other children to celebrate Christmas.

The yes-and of this Christmas is layered. It holds the same sharp edges of the past four years, of feeling the heavy loss of our elder son while also celebrating and savoring with our other loved ones. It also holds this added weight of sadly longing to be with our other children...while treasuring having spent Christmas day with my mom and stepdad, who are 81 and 92 years old. 

Yes, I am heart-sore and teary over the frustration of our happy plans with our kids...and after decades of living too far away for this, spending a winter holiday with my mom is absolutely priceless. 

One way I cope with this awkward juggling act is something I've written about before: I do something tangible...physical...visible...to acknowledge the hard things. This is nothing big, that would be obvious to others. It is just the way I make room for the true story going on in my heart. When I give real space to the hard and painful weight I carry, it actually frees up room for...joy. 

Today, this looked like the careful choosing of jewelry.

This has been, from the first early days of our loss, the most common way I honor my heart's suffering so I can function. Instead of just stuffing the feelings down, I give them official, private recognition. 

I had the joyous opportunity of going to Christmas morning church today, with my husband, mom and stepdad. What a precious joy that was! Also...we were supposed to spend today with our younger son, our younger daughter and her husband, looking forward to our elder daughter and her husband joining the party tomorrow. It is hard to lose that. It is precious to be here.

Here is how I told my heart's story today:

The colored bracelet and the black one with the heart are about our children; the one who is gone and the ones we planned to be with today. I carried all of them very much in my heart today. The little gift-bow earrings were a deliberate choice, reminding my heart to not dwell only on what I don't have. I sometimes need a reminder to also be happy; to let the joy be big and real, too. The other earrings are small black crosses that I bought in the first wave of our grief. I often wear them when my heart is heavy. The bracelet with the silver feather  is my "hope" bracelet. You know the poem that says, "Hope is a thing with feathers...?" The feather on this bracelet makes me think of hope. I almost always wear it when I wear the silver heart bracelet, a reminder to myself that while our loss is devastating and real...hope is also powerful and true. 

If you are also walking this hard yes-and of grief in this season of special holidays, I just want to say that I see you. I see the weight on your heart. I feel the energy it takes to smile and to celebrate and while you truly love this special time, the extra effort it requires leaves you exhausted. I see the careful dance you do of making sure your special people know how you love being with them, while also holding the deep ache for the ones who are not there. 

Hold on, dear ones. 

This is hard. 

You are doing a good job.

It is okay to feel happy in spite of your sadness.

It is okay to feel sorrow in the midst of happy celebration.

We hold both joy and sorrow at the same time.

It is difficult, but it is what we do.