Unwelcome Mat

I heard God call me to sit with Him today. I knew I needed it. My counselor reminds me frequently to go there when I’m weary and need renewal. It’s so hard for me to do, though. Whether it’s my nervous system that’s still so out of whack after all the trauma and grieving, or if I’m upset with Him and can’t listen. Maybe the reason it’s so hard to do is because I’m afraid I’ll be in trouble with Him. But today, I did. Eula, Daughter of the King. I sat with Him and I told Him all my hesitations.

When I am still, all the confusion and pain runs through my mind. While I wait to hear from God, I fear I’ll be clobbered by righteous correction for not being a perfect person. It’s a long way from what I know to be true of my identity in Christ, but everything in my life is topsy turvy right now, and I don’t know much of anything for sure anymore, now that I’ve lost Rob, my whole world.

So, I sat in my chair. Forced myself to stay there. Crying. Telling Him all of this and more. When I ran out of steam, I sensed God tell me, “I see you. I hear you. I’m holding you. I’m carrying you.” Soon, there was an image in my mind of a bird with a broken wing. Unable to fly on its own. Carried gently by someone stronger. Always with the birds. That’s what I gravitate to, though I’ve never known why. So does Katy right now. The hawks. And now feathers. Some say they’re angels’ feathers, reminders that Rob is still with us. Near. Watching. Praying. Helping somehow. It’s not very Baptist, but it seems to be true.

The things I’m learning.

I began to journal. “I am wracked with guilt,” I wrote. Though I sat at his hospital bedside for fourteen hours, ten of them after he was in a morphine-induced coma, I wasn’t there when Rob took his last breath. Experiencing low oxygen and fatigue, four weeks out from my own hospitalization with covid, the combination forced me back to Katy’s mountain cabin. I never saw Rob again. He died with Katy and his sister at his side. When he was gone, Katy made the call to me.

What kind of rotten wife am I that I didn’t put my needs aside to sit with him right up to his very last breath?

“I’m listening,” God said again. No condemnation. No disappointment. No finger pointing. Just acceptance and listening. Nobody knows how to do that like He does. As much as I want Him to say something, it’s a relief to just talk while He listens. Listening like that is a holy skill. Go figure.

I began to wonder. Would it have mattered to Rob in the condition he was in—wanting to go Home, ready to be with Jesus, anxious to be released, already in His Savior’s arms as Katy and I realized when we walked into his room and saw him—would it have mattered to him in his last, sleeping hours, whether I was there beside him or at the cabin avoiding being hospitalized again myself? Heavily sedated, did he need me there at the moment he took his last breath and was finally free of the suffering, released to his dad and brothers and Jesus?

I don’t know.

I talked to Katy about it later and she reminded me that we made the decision for me to leave together, and it was the right one. She also reminded me that Rob was the most pragmatic man we know, and he would have expected me (and her) to do the practical thing when a decision had to be made. When it was made clear that he wanted to go Home, my children and I supported that decision together. When it was obvious that my body needed rest, we made that decision together, too. And when the hospital refused to let more than two family members in his room, we made the decision that Rob’s sister would take my place and wait with Katy (and Lee by phone) until I returned. Rob went Home before I got to return.

I understand now that I didn’t leave because I’m a bad wife. Or because I was afraid. Of course, I was afraid. But I expected to be with him to the end, knowing it would happen once the ventilator was removed. Well into the night, we all waited with him in person and by phone, weeping, praying, and listening to him breathe in peace. I stayed as long as my body could that night, the night he was dying, hours after we gave him what we didn’t want to give him.

We took abuse from the hospital staff who judged our intentions. I answered horrible questions about a funeral home, asked while Rob was still conscious. I signed paperwork with hospice at the foot of his bed because we weren’t allowed to come back to his room if we ever left it. I listened to that terrible chaplain yell at my husband in what she called “prayer.”

There was all the loneliness I felt in isolation in my own hospital room weeks before, separated from him for nine days, and the five weeks afterwards when we held our breaths praying and hoping and begging for him to be healed only to see hope blow up in our faces. The heartache we felt knowing Rob was fighting for his life alone in Show Low. The terror I often experienced, worrying about losing him. The forced separation by the medical industry and government control, the heart stopping updates we received twice a day from Rob’s sister, his advocate, and my own recovery without him beside me. My unacknowledged text messages to him, and his silence because he couldn’t communicate anymore.

Horrible as that whole experience was, none of it was the hardest thing I’ve done during this whole nightmare.

This is.

Mourning him.

Missing him.

Living without him.

All of this that I’m doing every day.

After he died, after he was released from his suffering, ours—and mine—began. The sorrow, confusion, wracking grief, loss, loneliness, isolation. All the paperwork I had to handle for months afterwards while my heart was shattered and my brain was scrambled. The memorial video we worked on for weeks right after we lost him. Packing up our cabin and selling it with our furniture. Bringing everything else down here and putting what was left of our life together in storage. Selling his truck. Trading in the Tahoe we drove back and forth across America together for three hundred thousand miles, and replacing it on my own. The drive I made to and from Florida for his memorial. And the counseling sessions that help me cope with it all.

This is what I’ve done alone, without Rob here beside me. Because he needed to go, he had to go, and I loved him enough to say goodbye.

I sat there in my chair, with God as my witness, and released that tormenting guilt. The five month struggle I've had, so common to those left behind, I’ve decided to leave behind. The truth of how God has carried me through all of this finally connected my mind to my soul. And I knew Rob would be proud that I finally understood it all.

No one, including me, has the right to judge me. Not the old friend who spoke unkindly at Rob’s memorial. Not the staff at that hospital where he died. Not even those who mean well but don’t understand. No one has walked where I’m walking, day after day after grief-filled day. This journey is unique to every person. I’ve realized I have to do this my way.

I have paid an enormous price for loving the way I love Rob. I always will. Because he’ll always be a part of me, even though we’re apart for now.

But today I am giving the left foot of Baptist fellowship to that deceiver, Guilt.

You’re not welcome here anymore. 

My thanks to Sharyn Morrow for the perfect photo seen above. The original can be viewed at this link:
shoegazing, with snow | sharyn morrow | Flickr