Pizza Stones and Camel Straws

I could have made the title of this something deeply melodramatic, like, "When the pizza stone broke like my shattered heart." My wry sense of humor won't let me go that far, though in a way it's true.

My pizza stone did break. My beloved Pampered Chef pizza stone, dark with years of use, deeply seasoned with memories; all those years of pulling homemade pizza from the oven to feed my eager family.

This morning, I'm making biscuits, and it hasn't gone well. It was nothing big, just that string of petty frustrations that get under my skin. I spilled the dog's water dish, spilled more water down my leg while putting away dishes that weren't quite dry, knocked things over, dropped things into the sink and onto the floor. Petty things, but so many of them, one after another, was getting under my skin.

Hungry and harassed by all these irritating incidents, I stood for a moment, leaning against the counter, head bowed, eyes closed. Praying? No. For just a few seconds, I let it all wash over me. I thought of how, if I didn't have so many food restrictions, I would just give up and ask Lee to take me somewhere for breakfast.

Much as I would love to drive into town, find some cute little diner and sit down to a stack of hotcakes and a pile of hash browns with bacon...I can't.

If I want to eat, I have to cook, even when everything goes wrong.

So...I pulled myself together, pushed back the waves of self-pity and moved on.

We have a little gas oven in the trailer, one that we have to light each time we use it. I got out the lighter and opened the oven door....and saw my pizza stone on the oven rack, broken in two.

It's nobody's fault that it broke. It just happened one day while I was gone.

I stood there with the pieces in my hands, struggling with tears.

Before you think, "Wow, she's weirdly attached to her kitchen equipment," let me tell you about straws.

Not drinking straws, though the whole nation is worked-up about them right now.

I'm talking about the "straw that broke the camel's back" kind of straws.

The whole point of that analogy is that the straw itself is insignificant. What is one single dry wisp of grass among thousands? What is one more petty frustration, piled upon a whole string of other small irritations?

But what about one more small loss, one more small heartbreak, on top of a mountain of other losses and shattering heartbreak?

The thing itself, the thing that breaks me, is often something small and rather meaningless.

Last week, it was a drink shaker.

You know those plastic tumblers with lids, that people use for mixing up protein drinks? That was the thing that made me cry. A drink shaker was my straw; the thing that broke me.

Was there any special significance to the shaker itself? Maybe a little. It was Michael's, and made me think of all the times he must have used it. It reminded me of the years he invested in body-building, and how intently he'd researched fitness nutrition, to give his body what it needed to be strong and resilient.

Still, that would not usually be enough to break me. It's a fairly small thing, on the scale of things that hurt.

Except that, this time, that piece of plastic was my straw. It was that one more seemingly insignificant thing, piled on top of so many others, that suddenly became too much.

For three weeks, I had been reveling joyously in getting to see so many of my precious people...and then having to say goodbye to them all over again. I had been fully immersed in the life that I miss so much. That week, we had emptied one of our storage units back in Oregon and hauled a load up to our long-term storage in Washington. Added to the physical exhaustion was a heavy emotional burden, as a good share of what we moved were Michael's belongings. All of them. Everything that is left of the life he had built.

I had soldiered on for days on end, bravely facing those remnants of his life, handling mementos of his passions and dreams. Lifting, packing, moving. Every piece of that sad puzzle was a small hurt, added a small weight to my heart.

As I sat in my mom's living room, going through yet another box of his things (hunting for the title to his pickup), the pain was building. One book, one dish, one piece of mail with his name on it at a time, the suffering of my loss crept in on me. Finally, when I picked up that silly drink shaker, it all became too much and I broke. I sat on my mom's floor and cried, for all we've lost and all that's ended; all he worked for and dreamed of that will never be.

It's just a drink shaker; just a pizza stone...just a straw.

The point of the camel analogy is not that single bit of straw, but the thousands and millions of straws that came before.

The pizza stone is just a pizza stone.

It is also one more loss.

On top of loss after loss after loss after heart-breaking loss.

After selling our family home, moving into a travel trailer, and wandering a thousand miles from our children, family and beloved friends...after leaving behind community, work and ministry that I loved...after having my entire life ripped up by the roots, torn into a hundred pieces and cast to the wind...after receiving the news that our son was dead, and that death had been his choice...after loss after loss, after letting-go after letting-go after letting-go...my heart is raw on this topic.

Strong as I seem, I am deeply fragile in ways I never was before.

After enduring so much loss and letting go of almost everything and everyone that matters to me, any fresh loss, no matter how small, hits me hard.

The nerves of my heart are raw, my reserves are fragile and low.

And so, some days, a broken pizza stone is enough to break my heart.

"Don't let it ruin your vacation..."

A while back, I started to write about things not to say to a person who is grieving. People have asked me to help them know how to respond to loss and, as this is an important part of that, I feel I should share what I've learned.

What I learned while trying to write that post is that I have a lot of unprocessed, painful emotion around some things that were said to us in the past year. I pulled open that internal door and was floored by what poured out. I am not ready yet to talk about those things publicly.

I do think it is a deeply important conversation, though, so I thought I'd start talking about it through a trauma that is not quite so fresh.

Some of you know about a traumatic experience that our family had in the summer of 1994.

Lee and I had taken our two little children camping, along with our first Golden Retriever, Mandy.

We had camped at the Standish Hickey State Recreation Area on the Eel River in California.

I think it was on the second day of our time there that we walked over to play in the river. We have some wonderful pictures of our little two- and four-year old kiddos playing in the sparkling blue water in their bright orange life jackets.

What the pictures don't show is what branded that day on all our memories, for life.

As we were enjoying our fun water time, Lee suddenly said, "I think those people are calling for help." I had not heard anything, but he had. We gathered up our little troop and headed upriver. The shore was rocky, so we were wearing sturdy shoes. As we got closer, Lee heard what the people were shouting. He gave me his watch and rushed into the water, swimming across the deep hole to where a frantic man and woman stood, on the far bank.

A family with four or five growing boys was having a fun camping trip in the same park. One of them, a boy of around twelve, wanted to play on the river, so he took one of those floaty-mattress pool toys to use. He went in where the water was shallower and started floating down. At some point he fell off, and ended up in a deep pool.

He could not swim, and neither could his parents. They crashed through the shallower water upriver and scrambled along the rocky bank. They could see him down in the water, but they could do nothing to save him. They stood on the bank, helpless and desperate, screaming for someone to come.

Without hesitating, Lee dove down to the bottom of the hole and pulled up their boy. He was not breathing. We had no experience or training with life-saving, but Lee started doing what he could, trying to express the water and give him mouth-to-mouth. We were all so focused on the boy that it took Lee's startled shout to make me realize that the dad had disappeared into the water. Maybe he had a heart attack or stroke from the intense distress. We don't know. We only know that he was there, and then he was gone, sinking to the bottom of the same deep pool that took his son.

Leaving the boy up on the rocks with his mom, Lee again dove down to the bottom of that deep hole. He brought the man to the surface, but Lee was tiring so quickly that he could not hold him up pand bring him to shore. He had to let the man go. I told our little Heather, four years old, "Hold onto Mandy and Michael. Do not let them in the water!" I told little two-year-old Michael, "Stay with Heather!"

Though I am a poor swimmer at best, I headed into the water.

There was no-one else to do it. I had to.

I dove down, pushing myself all the way to the bottom of the hole, grabbed that big man by the arm, and hauled him to the surface. I have always been convinced that God sent angels to help me that day. The guy was tall and heavy, probably well over two hundred pounds...and I pulled him from twelve feet down to the surface, with one hand. Angels.

I towed him over and passed him off to Lee and the man's wife, then struggled back to the shore where our little kids waited. I barely made it. I was exhausted by the time I staggered from the water.

Like I said, we had absolutely no experience or training with life-saving, so it had not occurred to either of us to take off our shoes before diving in. We just didn't know. Wearing heavy sneakers to swim and dive, under intense stress, will do you in.

We had no background to help us. We were simply the only two people on that whole stretch of river, besides those frantic parents.

After I made it back to shore, another guy showed up and swam across to help. Soon, others came. I remember shouting, "Call 911!!!" over and over, until someone assured me that one of the others had gone to make the call.

Soon, the sirens came screaming. Professionals helped bring father and son across, using our kids' life jackets to help float them, and rushed them away in ambulances. It was much too late, as both were gone before we pulled them from the water, but still every effort was made to bring them back.

The ambulances left, and the crowd milled around, excitedly talking over what had happened. I saw this wife and mother standing, stunned, alone in the crowd. I went to her and wrapped my arms around her. I think I was the only one there who realized who she was. She held onto me so tightly.

That whole scene is a vivid scar on all our memories. For me, the worst parts are the memory of the man's face, as I pulled him up through the green water, lifeless.... and the desperate embrace of that suddenly bereaved wife and mom as I held her close in the faceless crowd.

For Lee, it was the trauma of being in the middle of such intense loss, and then the fear that he could not make it back across the river; the horror it would be to his own little family if he drowned in front of us. The possibility was all too real. It had just happened to this other family, and he was exhausted from all he'd done to help.

For the kids, the trauma lingered also. For Heather, it was the terrible responsibility of keeping a strong dog and a very young brother safely on the riverbank, while watching both her parents disappear into deep water, then struggle to make it back to shore. For Michael, the intense desire to do something was so strong that he actually thought he'd been out in there river with us, helping.

As I hugged that mama close, and thought of the immensity of her loss. I started to shake. Shock was setting in and I couldn't handle any more. I was only twenty-six. I did not know what else to do. I pulled away from that poor lady and we went quietly back to camp.

There was no question of staying. How could we possibly go back to having fun after such an experience?

A man we knew stopped by as we were loading up to leave. I think he worked for the Department of Fish and Game and had some law enforcement background. He was surprised to see us getting ready to go.

Here is where we reach the point of this story; the Things Not To Say part:

"You're going home? Why?"....

"Don't let it ruin your vacation."

We both just stared at him in disbelief.
I'm not even sure what Lee said in reply.

How do you even answer such a thing?

There we were, a young couple who had just pulled a dead father and son from the river bottom, whose two young children had just watched people die and seen us nearly drown trying to help, and.......don't let it ruin our vacation????

We did.
We let it ruin our vacation.

All we could think of was that sweet lady who had just lost her husband and her son within five minutes, and of her other boys, bereft of their dad and brother. We were in shock and deeply shaken. We headed home.

We left so quickly that we were long gone before the news reporters came looking for "heroes" to interview. The guy who swam over to help after Lee and I had pulled both of them from the river was credited as the big man who tried to save the day. Whatever. We shuddered at the thought of having to talk to anyone about it. It was horrifying.

But...don't let it ruin your vacation.

I think of that wife and mama every year when the middle of July rolls around, praying for her and her other boys, wondering how they're doing. I wish I could have held myself together a little longer; held her close for a few more minutes...helped her more.

I hope she's okay. I wish I could give her a hug.

Here's the thing: We should be impacted by tragedy and trauma and the sorrow of others.

Yes, it is terribly uncomfortable to be up close to suffering, but it is cowardly and selfish to sweep it away with dismissive words. Those kinds of words add damage on top of heartache on top of trauma. They leave scars.

It should ruin our vacation.

It should touch our deepest core and move us to reach out in love and mercy.

It should change us, and if we're wise, we'll learn from it and grow deep with compassion.

It should ruin our vacation, and it should change us for life.

~~~~~

*In memory of Gary and Linus Carter, who lost their lives that day, and of their family, who lost so much in one tragic afternoon.*

Real life

Everyone who loves me wants so badly for me to be okay. Their hearts ache for my loss as a mom, and they long for me to have happiness.

I'm often pretty quiet when I'm not doing well, partly because I don't want to make people sad.
Also, partly because when my resources are low, I'm especially unable to handle a flood of helpful (unsolicited) advice on how to do better. I usually just lie low for a while, until things improve.

So how am I doing?

I'll tell you.

I'm not doing the best that I could be doing.
I'm doing kind of the best-ish that I have at this moment.

I've been better.
I've been worse.

Sometimes, I have days when I do all of the things to help and support my own well-being.

Other times look like tonight- listening to Andrea Boccelli while washing dishes at 1 AM because that's when I finally managed to drag my most-reluctant self into the kitchen to do them.

Sometimes it's different.
Sometimes I listen to Piano Guys. Or Lauren Daigle.
Sometimes I wash the dishes at midnight or eleven-thirty.

Here's the thing...

Underneath all of the extra complications, I am still me and I still struggle with the same things I always have. It's just exaggerated now because of grief and loss and all that goes with that.

I'm not feeling especially sad right now. I'm just tired and overwhelmed with all that needs to be done. It wears me down and makes it hard for me to do the things.

I don't share my struggles as an appeal for reassurance or sympathy (though I am so grateful for all the love and kindness you dear people have shown me on here) but to tell the honest story of what this journey is like for me. My hope is that maybe someone else who struggles will read my story and know that they are not alone. Or that opening the doors on my life will help others grow in understanding and compassion. Those are the reasons I write- to build understanding and to offer encouragement and hope.

So...this is a glimpse of my real life when I'm not soaring in victorious glory.

This is what it looks like, tonight, this week, for me.
And if that's what it takes for me to carry on, that's okay.

One of the most important things to do when you are going through a hard time is to extend immense and gentle grace to yourself.
Be kind to yourself about where you are and how you're doing.

You are loved, right where you are.
You are enough.

Grief Sleeping

Sleep while grieving?

You don't.

The end.

.
.
.
.

Okay, eventually you do. But not for a while, and then not well.

After some times goes by, you flip to the other side of the coin and develop a deep need for more sleep than you ever needed before.

At least, that's how it went for me.

Scattered, shattered snatches of sleep those first few nights.
Then, the weary press of exhaustion reaching for but rarely finding that elusive prize.

Rest. Deep, soul-replenishing, life-refreshing sleep.

Later, I (and our girls, too) found that the need for sleep is much  greater than it used to be.
Our bodies and minds want more, substantially more than before.

Except...it's still not that soft sink into blissful, sweet-dreamed oblivion.

Not yet.

I stay up too late, most of the time, running from what my mind does when I stop moving.

I am so tired.

When I remember or am able, I do all of the things, in the right order and a timely fashion. I choose some favorite jammies; soft and comfortable- the kind you can't wait to crawl into. I turn off all of the screens when that reminder sounds on my phone. I take the several supplements we have to relax and to calm and to encourage sleep. I make a large mug of relaxing tea- usually Traditional Medicinals Lavender ~ Chamomile, with a spoon of good honey and a splash of coconut milk. I get comfy while I drink it, reflect on the day and record good words in my Blessing journal. I read my Bible, and then ease my way gently to bed at a surprisingly early hour.

Even then, most often, the moment my body stills, my system is jarred to wakefulness by upsetting thoughts. Not always about Michael, it can be anything that will kick my adrenalin and rev my system. There's no chance to "take all thoughts captive" when the first thought punches my adrenal system in the chest and throws it into high gear. I pick up my electronic "book," kept bedside for just this reason, and try to soothe my mind back down with a faithful old friend, or words from God's Word. After a while, when my thoughts have stopped ricocheting around my mind like panicked fawns, I try again. Sometimes it works and I sleep. Even then, all this takes time, cutting my nights shorter and shorter and leaving me tired before I even wake up the next day.

I have this fantasy that if I was really doing it "right," really dwelling in God's presence in a deep and purposeful way, I would be flooded and sustained with such deep, pervasive peace that I could slip softly to sleep without a single ripple to the surface of my thoughts. It's probably true. I'm just not there right now.

I cringe as I write this, certain that someone (probably several someones) will eagerly leap to flood me with helpful suggestions to solve my little problem. So sure there's a simple answer.

If you are feeling that urge, please don't. I know you leap with the best of loving intentions to fix what's wrong, but trust me...what I write is not a plea for advice. It is one battered refugee, plodding the no-man's-land of grief, posting a notice to share with others what it looks like here.

Not only for my own sake, but for the sake of everyone who is grieving, or dealing with issues of mental health or chronic illness or disability or motherhood or just life...please don't be so quick to shovel out advice, dust your hands and hurry on with your day. Whether it's because you honestly believe you know the one magical answer that will solve everything, or because we as humans are so deeply uncomfortable with unsolved problems and unfinished stories, pouring out advice usually does more to harm than to help. Fending off well-meant, unsolicited advice saps what little energy we have. Most likely, if there were a simple solution to our struggle, we would have already done that thing and moved on to better days.

Instead, please be willing to sit right here with us, in the great discomfort of the unsolved and unanswered. Just be with us, and really hear what we say. And let our honest words be met with only love.

Grief Dressing

No, this is not about salad toppings for sad people. ;)

From those first days last summer I have thought about clothes in relation to grief.

Color~
In the old days, people "wore mourning" when someone died. There were specific rules, a general understanding about what was worn, and by whom, and for how long. For a spouse, a woman would usually go into full-black clothing, sometimes also with a heavy black veil. Anyone who saw her knew at a glance what she was going through. For someone less closely connected a man might wear a black arm band or hat band; a woman might wear gray or lavender clothing-the shade being lighter or darker, depending on the closeness of relationship.

I think that there was a real benefit to that system. Anyone could tell at a glance that here was someone in need of extra kindness and understanding. It was also a way to show respect to the person who was gone; to honor their memory.

Now, there's no real way to do that; no simple visible way to let the world know you're suffering.

I actually did look online to see if there are just, like...."I'm grieving" buttons or something.

There are.

But looking at them, it seemed too flippant for the depth of my loss; too cutesy.

For the first several weeks, I did my own private version of mourning clothes. I wore a lot of black and dark gray, dark burgundy. I didn't go out and buy new clothes, but just chose things I already owned in those colors that fit how I felt.

Later, I started to wear the broader range of colors in my usual wardrobe, but in those first weeks the dark colors just felt right. I wanted strong outward evidence of the heavy load my heart carried. It was one of the things I did to honor the private state of my heart, and it felt right to me. It helped.

Comfort~ 
I was already fairly invested in the comfort of my clothes, but that shifted to a whole new level in the wake of Michael's death. I was in such unbearable emotional pain that my body could not stand any level of extra pain or discomfort.

In that place, I needed physical comfort in a deep way. The shock and grief were so intense that I felt like my molecules were barely hanging together; as if my physical and mental self might disintegrate into jagged shards and go spinning away into the storm.

I could not handle uncomfortable clothes.

I wore only soft things that did not bind or constrict anywhere. With every nerve in my body in high panic from the shock, my skin needed only the softest things touching it.

This went on for a long time.

There came a day when I suddenly lost all patience with any of my underwear that were too small or that rode up or bagged, or just caused me annoyance in any way. There was so much incredibly big, unbelievably hard stuff in my life that I could not stand having basic garments that added to my burden in even the smallest way.

I threw out half of my underwear. Yes, it was sort of a dramatic, "I am DONE with you!!!" moment... which also made me smile at myself for making such a scene over underwear. And I ordered new ones, making sure to get the size and style that work best for me, in colors that I like.

I also treated myself to a couple new pairs of socks; the special ones with the thick, cushy soles. They're like walking on little pillows, and they're really soft inside. It was like giving my feet a hug.

One of the most important things I have done through this whole time was to be very loving toward myself. As I shared the other day, I made sure to eat things that felt soothing to my soul. I also saw the value in making sure every part of me, from my bum to my toes, was only touched by  comfort, surrounded by softness.

Every aspect of my being sustained such a severe and lasting shock that I have needed to give thought to every kind of mental, emotional or sensory input. My systems were on extreme overload and none of them could handle anything jarring or abrasive.

Soft, gentle, comforting and comfortable. These were the things that I needed.

~~~~~

Easy, comfy clothes and underwear that do not annoy.
These made a difference in my ability to cope with this intensely hard journey.

Who has time for underwear that add insult to injury?

Grief Reading... not what I expected

There are so many great books out there about the grieving process.

I own some of them, either gifts from loving friends or things I've bought for myself.

I have started reading a couple of them.
.
.
.
But that is as far as I've gotten.

I just can't do it.

It's not that I can't handle reading about grief. I cannot read anything remotely challenging. I don't mean hard or heavy topics; I can't read even positive things that I will have to process.


The combination of intense loss and immense life change with profound physical, mental and emotional exhaustion has left my brain a soft little pudding.

When I told our youngest daughter recently that I was reading Little Women, she said, "That tells me exactly how you're doing." This is something that my family knows.

Just last Spring, I had this conversation with my dear Lee. I gave him the secret key to knowing the state of my inner world. I was sharing with him some ways that I was struggling under the emotional strain of those days, and I said, "What have I been reading?"  He thought for just a moment. "The Chronicles of Narnia....D.E. Stevenson." "Exactly." "Ooohhh!!!" He totally got it in that short conversation.

If I am under stress, I can only read gentle, comfortable old-friend books. The quickest way to know how I'm doing is to look at what I'm reading. (Currently: Jo's Boys- a sequel to Little Women)

It can be frustrating.  I want to be reading deeply helpful books that will encourage me and guide me along this hard, strange new road...but my brain simply cannot process the words.

One of these days, hopefully, my inner world will settle down enough that I can prowl the pages of all those great books and drink in their wise words.

For now, I just have to be patient and read the things that are gentle on my mind and comforting to my soul. Comfort food for the mind. :)


Things I read in times like these:
Louisa May Alcott [Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, An Old Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins]
The Chronicles of Narnia
L.M. Montgomery [the Anne of Green Gables Series, Emily of New Moon trilogy, the Blue Castle]
the Mitford books, by Jan Karon
The Secret Garden
Pollyanna and its sequel
books by D.E. Stevenson, one of my favorite authors
the Miss Read books
Understood Betsy
the Riddlemaster trilogy- Patricia McKillip
The Blue Sword - Robin McKinley
the Little House on the Prairie series

I'd be interested to know how this impacts others. What are the books you return to when life hits hard and the way is heavy? What lifts your heart and takes you to a happier place?

Grief eating...carrot sticks and gummy bears

Grief eating? It's just all over the place.

I've been thinking about this post for a while, partly to clarify something I said in an earlier post, and partly just to talk about it.

When I was writing about the wonderful people who brought food those first couple of weeks, I made a comment about what a comfort it was to see my family fed, even though I could only eat carrot sticks. "Johnson Girl Disclaimer" (my mom and sisters will get that- the Nice Girl compulsion to explain so nobody's feelings are hurt)-  it was not that I was being pitiful, like, "Oh, poor meeee. The food is food that I cannot eat. Poor me, eating these lowly carrot sticks." The meals were lovely. It lifted a huge weight off of all of us, having meals brought. None of us had it in us to think, plan, shop or cook. Those meals, and the groceries and supplies that people brought to us were a godsend!

Here's why the carrot sticks: they were one of the few things I could stand to eat.

For the first two weeks or so, the horrible shock and unbearable grief sat in my throat, choking me. I could barely eat, and when I did eat (even something small and gentle, like one square of an allergen-free waffle) I would feel sick to my stomach for quite a while.

Our family often uses bits of dark humor to help us cope with things. The day after we got the news of Michael's death, I remember saying, "Well, this should be a good weight loss plan." Dark humor.

But it was also true. A few times a day, I would choke down a piece of waffle, one small carton of (dairy-free) yogurt, or a few carrot sticks. Those were about the only foods I could stand to put in my mouth. And then I would feel sick for an hour or two, until eventually my body would calm down, like, "Oh. Okay. That was not a hostile enemy poison attack. That was just yogurt." About every two days or so, I could actually eat a meal.

Everyone was worried about my not eating, but my body was in such a state of horrified panic that food was more than it could handle.

My husband, my mom and sister, and the kids, and my friends, were all worried and watching to make sure I ate, and I was keeping an eye on my husband, worried for him. I was relieved to see that he was actually able to eat meals. I mentioned this to one of our girls and she said, "Yeah, he eats, but a lot of his food ends up thrown away." "What do you mean?" She explained. Sure, I would see him with a plate of food; see him sitting down and eating with the family. What I had not noticed was that, as soon as a card came in the mail, with beautiful words of compassion, or someone stopped by to bring flowers or food or hugs and tears and prayer... the emotion would hit him so hard that he could not eat another bite, and would quietly go drop his meal in the trash. For both of us, the tidal waves of emotion made eating a problem.

I also ate a lot of gummy bears in those first days. In fact, one of the darkly funny moments, to us, was this:

My husband and our eldest daughter came in and saw me sitting at the computer. Them: "What are you doing?" Me: "Eating gummy bears and shopping online for cremation urns." Them, with wry humor: "Of course you are."

I needed to find an urn for our son's ashes. Horrible, hateful nightmare of a task. I also needed to eat lunch. The emotion of the search made me queasy, and the only thing I could stand to put in my mouth right then was gummy bears. So...I had gummy bears for lunch and hunted through the online jungle for just the right urn.

I've actually drawn a comic about this, and some of the other moments of this journey. One of these days, I'll share them on here.

Anyway, as predicted, this horrible loss was a "good weight-loss plan." And then it wasn't. Because everyone was so worried about me, I kept a watch on my weight just so I could reassure them. Overall, I lost about seven pounds. Since I'd started out about twenty-ish pounds over my ideal healthy weight, this was not a problem. My weight was not my main priority at that point. I kept an eye on it to be sure it didn't get dangerously low, but how my pants fit was by far the least of my worries.

I had been shaken and shattered so completely on every level that I needed to be very gentle and nurturing with myself. I was suddenly, deeply fragile and every single nerve felt raw and battered. I needed soft voices, kind words, comfortable clothes and comforting food. Comfort food was a legitimate need.

Here is something I'm proud of: even though I needed comfort food in a real way, I did not actually fall back into my old destructive eating patterns. In the past, I definitely used food to deal with my emotions. The day we put our dog to sleep, back in 1995, I ate almost everything in the freezer- even the old nasty frost-caked ice cream. I would pile food in until I could no longer feel the sadness. I would eat until the physical pain drowned out the emotional pain.

God and I have worked long and hard on this issue. To have experienced a trauma like the suicide of our child, and to come through it without reverting to those old habits feels like an incredible accomplishment to me!

Here's the thing, though...grief hits everyone differently. Some people stop eating and become dangerously thin. Some people eat their way through their grief and gain a lot of weight. It is not the same for everyone. In the past I probably would have had opinions about how other people handled things, judging whether they did it "right." I am so over that! This horrible experience has taught me a depth of compassion I did not have before. I look at how each grieving person struggles along, and I feel tender toward them. We are all, every one of us, just doing the best we know how. As my middle sister said recently, "Sometimes, people are doing their best and their best isn't very good, but it's still the best they have for that day." She's so wise.

There is not one, right way to do grief. It is so personal and so individual.

My way was hardly being able to choke things down, and then eating gentle comfort foods for many months. Eventually though, a diet of comfort food will catch up with a person.

Also, my health and eating were impacted by a whole different issue: RV life. Once we sold our home and started living full-time in a travel trailer, we both started to put on weight. When you live in about 275 square feet, you really don't move much. If I were not in all sorts of trauma, maybe I would be one of those energetic, motivated people who work out passionately, and vigorously counteract the effects of tiny-space living. Or maybe not. Maybe I'd still just be me. I am starting to make some positive changes now, cutting back on sugar and going for more and longer walks.

One of my favorite things about God is His gentle compassion. Through those long months of soothing my hurt with food, He just loved on me. Only after about seven or eight months did He gently start to nudge me about the food issue. Gentle is really the word. First, it was just coming across the phrase, "God of comfort" in something I was reading. When I read it, there was a gentle little touch on my heart. Soon after that, a pastor mentioned in a sermon that as He is the God of Comfort, we should really be turning to Him and not to other things. Again, the gentle nudge on my heart. I started thinking about that, and felt God encouraging me along that path; toward seeing Him as my source of comfort, rather than food. A couple of weeks ago, one of our kids said that God had been bringing her to the same message, in almost the exact same words. More confirmation that this was God's voice leading me.

I felt so loved. There was never, in all those months or in His redirection of my thinking, one hint of condemnation. He did not shame me. He truly is all-loving and all-compassionate. He knows the deep suffering of my heart and mind even better than I do. He has been so gentle with my broken heart. At the same time, He knows that there are better, healthier ways and when the time is right He gently leads me toward them. He loves me so much and He grieves for my sorrow. He also loves me far too much to let me continue on paths that will hurt me in other ways. He gave me time to get through those first agonizing months, just cradling me close to His heart. Then, with such love, He started easing me into ways that will lead to wholeness and health.

I think that one of the most important things, for those who are grieving, is to be gentle with ourselves. And for those around us to be gentle with us. We are all, every one of us humans, just doing the best we know how. Sometimes, our best may not be very good, but it is still the best we have to offer in that moment. We need to just love on ourselves and let ourselves be okay with where we are. And then, when God nudges us to move in a better direction, we need to lean on Him and let Him lead us there.