Metamorphosis

It’s like a horrible metamorphosis, this new life I didn’t ask for. I read that I’ll never be the same again. I’m already not the same. I don’t think I can even remember what ‘the same’ used to feel like, it’s been so long since I did something as boring and predictable as sitting on the same sofa with my husband.

My husband. My partner. My love. My world. Gone.

I can’t describe how hard it is to take this in. I keep trying for . . . some reason. But every time I look at his photo, he looks so alive. Except he’s not really looking at me now. Every time I pick up his favorite shirt and smell it, it’s almost, almost, as if my face is against his shoulder again and I’m breathing in his scent. Except the shirt is empty and folded and in a second I’ll be sobbing and put it back in my drawer until the next time I decide to torture myself again.

I’m watching a funny movie, trying to distract myself, laugh again, and suddenly something reminds me of what we once had and I’m bawling. Missing Rob. Right in the middle of a punchline. A light went on in my mind and I saw as if for the first time that he’s not here. Only it’s the millionth time I’ve seen it for the first time. He will never be here again. I say it out loud so that maybe I’ll believe it and maybe when the light goes on the next time I can answer, “I know. You can’t shock me anymore.”

But it doesn’t work. It just makes the hole in my heart bigger and the pain deeper and I wish I’d never repeated that five times out loud. There must be a short in that light—every single freaking time it goes on, it shocks me all over again.

I’m moving forward. At the speed of sloth. I’ve come far, I guess, but I think it’s only because of how many days have passed since Rob . . . passed. God, I can’t believe I’m writing that. Some nights, like this one, I just weep and wait, hoping for hope, praying I’ll stop crying, find some calm in this storm.

I know I’m not alone. Jesus lives in me. God is holding me. My family is here and we support each other. But the one I most want to be with is missing. And I miss him. I keep saying it into the air, hoping it will reach him and he’ll hear again how much I love him and wish this had never happened.

There’s no way around this grief, my counselor says, you can only go through it. Be compassionate with yourself, she reminds during every session. It hasn’t been that long. You’re doing it. You’re doing great. The encouragements . . . encourage. They help me allow this grieving to take as long as it takes, even though I feel like I’m never going to get through it.

But there’s a sad irony in knowing I’m normal. That this is what grief looks like. That I’m doing great.

I don’t want to be great . . . at this.

My gratitude to the talents of Richard Leeming and for his permission to use the above photo for this blog post. You can view the original by following this link: light | Richard Leeming | Flickr

The Silence of God

Guitar strumming. Angelic singing. A melody I’ve heard but can’t quite name drifts down the hallway where I stand brushing my hair. Allie sounds so much like her mom, I think in surprise. Returning to the music room, I laugh at myself. The singer is Allie’s mom. I sit on the piano bench opposite my daughter and listen while she finishes the song that dares to believe all will one day be well.

Tears fill both our eyes. It’s a prayer. A hope. But it offers no answers to our questions. No explanation of how or when we’ll understand and especially not why. It’s more of a lifeline while we bob here aimlessly in these dark waters. Hold on, the lyrics suggest. Don’t let go. You’re gonna make it even if there are never any answers.

Katy turns toward me, and we begin to talk. About our loss. Our disappointment. Our faith in the crosshairs. Praying is difficult right now. We don’t know exactly what it is anymore. The last time we tried, we lost Rob anyway. Explanations fall short. None of us understands why things turned out this way.

There’s only One Who knows. And He’s not explaining.

Where I sit on the bench belonging to the baby grand piano Rob bought for me, I confess to her that I can’t play it right now. Music touches so deeply it hurts. I know it’s a comfort to many, but I’m not one of them. Reading lyrics is fine, but I mustn’t allow my heart to be caught up in either the swells or the whispers of music’s voice. I would surely drown in the emotion.

Yet, there’s a song she wonders if I’d like to hear. Or read. The title says it all and I ask her to show it to me. Finally, someone speaks something into my pain that validates both this wounded place where I live now and the God Who stands speechless beside me.

 

The Silence of God

It’s enough to drive a man crazy; it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And when heaven’s only answer is the silence of God

It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they’ve got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
‘Cause we all get lost sometimes  . . .

There’s a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He’s kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His friends are sleeping and He’s weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that He bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not

The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God

~Andrew Peterson

 

I’ve read more than once that this place where we live now, this grieving place, is holy. The invitation to sit beside someone who has lost their world is a sacred one where witnessing their sorrow is a gift to both. I did not know that until I found myself on this side of grief. Weeping with those who weep is what Heaven does. It’s also what friends do. So, if you’re one of those who has sat and wept with me, I am thankful beyond words for you.

I keep thinking about Rob’s love of all things Tolkien and C.S.Lewis. About Aslan, the lion, a type of Christ in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. And a conversation in that book about this powerful creature—whether or not he is “quite safe.”

The answer surprises. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.”

God is not safe. He doesn’t fit in a box. He cannot be controlled or manipulated. But He’s good. His heart is compassion. His character is sacrificial. He sympathizes with our weaknesses and identifies with us in our suffering.

My daughter wonders if the reason we can't hear Him speaking is because He's crying too hard with us. I wonder if He were to tell me why we had to lose Rob if it would really make any difference. I don’t know. My heart hurts too much to understand anything right now. All I know and have known through all of this is one thing—God is good. It’s the only thing I’ve been able to hold on to, despite all my tears and demands and accusations against His decision and His silence.

I know He is good.

And that somehow that will make a difference in my healing.

The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.

Becoming Untrue

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?"

A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

The first gift Rob ever gave me was a paperback copy of The Hobbit, precursor to Tolkien’s trilogy. I looked at him with a smile on my face and a question mark in my eyes. I was used to reading romance novels, not fantasy fiction. Inside the front cover he’d written, “To The Kid ~ Love, Roby.” It’s been forty-six years and I still have that book. When we moved to the mountains last winter, Rob tried to throw it out. I understood why. It looks pretty beat up. The cover is worn and coming off and the pages are bent.

“You don’t want this anymore, do you?” he asked, paperback suspended above the trash bag. I told him to put down the book and no one would get hurt.

It was a bit of an enigma to me when I first unwrapped Rob’s gift. I read it because my new boyfriend gave it to me, but I didn’t understand the story. It wasn’t my kind of fiction. I can’t relate to creatures with big furry feet, wizards with weird names, or decipher maps with elfin hieroglyphics on them. But Rob loved that novel. He’d discovered it during his remote year in Alaska with the Air Force, and wanted me to love it, too. I did my best to enjoy the story, listening politely years later while he and our children discussed the little book leading up to Tolkien’s trilogy. Now my grandchildren are captivated by the same series that still isn’t my taste.

The bond between Rob and Lee and Katy and their love of all kinds of literature has always been so strong, I’ve sometimes wondered if I was adopted. My Cinderella slippers don’t come in Hobbit sizes.

But that’s kind of like our love story. Rob was twenty when we met. I was sixteen. I loved country western music—the only genre he disliked. His barracks room was filled with albums of rock, pop, classical, bagpipe, and chanting monks, but not one Johnny Cash vinyl. I’m surprised we ever became friends. And we almost didn’t, not once I found out he was from Florida, land of old guys in plaid Bermuda shorts playing golf all day.

“That’s not what Florida’s like,” he told me, slightly offended. “Florida had ranchers and cowboys before Arizona ever bred its first Holstein.” Which, I’m pretty sure is a misquote on my part, but it went something like that.

I quickly forgave him for being a Floridian and fell in love with him when I saw him play church softball and discovered what a great athlete he was. What an arm. Amazing. I still can’t throw a ball—something our dog, Brody, knows better than anybody. He misses Rob almost as much as I do.

Between us, we had a varied list of interests. Rob loved classic literature, classical music and history, 1950’s horror movies and hunting. I loved French, Reader’s Digest and cooking, funny movies and card games. Forgiving my lack of a decent education, Rob quickly fell for this piano playing teenager. Our common ground was our love for each other.

But I never enjoyed The Hobbit. Or Lord of the Rings.

Not even when Hollywood got hold of the trilogy and catapulted it into a theatrical phenomenon. I tried. I even watched one of the movies, but I just didn’t get it. To this day I mix it up with all of the Chronicles of Narnia. Honestly, I think Bilbo and Frodo were all hiding in the wardrobe with the White Witch and Mr. Tumnus, the faun. You gotta admit it makes sense.

Maybe that’s why Rob didn’t think I wanted that paperback anymore.

I wish I’d been able to get lost in the tale of a small, insignificant introvert who just wanted to be left alone to enjoy his comfortable life. He hated adventure, probably even calling it the “A” word, like I do. He didn’t think he had anything to offer anyone except a pantry full of wonderful food. And he didn’t appreciate life grabbing him by the throat and throwing him out into the world to learn to survive without the security he’d always enjoyed. He certainly did not consider himself to be heroic or courageous or even minutely brave. He was just a quiet creature, minding his own business, whose life was suddenly interrupted and changed forever—without his permission.

I can’t relate to that at all.

Now, more than ever, that little book is a treasure to me, with its worn cover and torn edges. You can imagine why. Not only does it bring back sweet memories, it’s one of the few tangible things I have left of the quiet life we were leading before it all got hijacked by death and separation.

The questions hang, unanswered, above all our heads, my children and me. The unfairness of losing the finest man we’ve ever known. And there are moments, every day, when conversation stops and we stare off into space, trying to come to grips with this tragedy that still doesn’t seem real.

Tears flowed freely one night recently while I was on the phone with my son. Circling the same “why?” questions the way hawks circle above my daughter’s house, Lee interrupted my bottomless grief with a Tolkien quote.

“One day, Mom,” he said, “everything sad will become untrue.”

My bewildered brain tried in vain to comprehend. I knew I should have read that book again. Lee explained.

“The hurt and the suffering will one day be as though it never was,” he said. “Death didn’t win, even if it feels like it did. In the midst of all our sorrow, the story isn’t over. The day is coming when Death will finally die and we’ll all be together again.”

There is another dimension to life. The one where Rob is. And my grandparents. Your parents. Your child or sister or brother. We can’t see it, but it’s more real than that little paperback. I don’t believe it’s far away. It may be as close as the hand we hold in front of our face. In that dimension where Father, Son, and Spirit are, everything that has broken our hearts will one day be undone by God. Undone. As if it never happened. Death loses, we will be reunited, and never again will we be separated from those we love.

“God was holding Dad close,” my son continued. “He was weeping beside us—and, at the same time, He was destroying death and making all things new. I can be consoled right now by knowing that one day I’ll see that death didn’t win. The hurt and the suffering will be as though it never was," he repeated, "and we’ll be able to see in all these things that Jesus is victorious, even though it doesn’t look like it right now.”

It doesn’t look that way. It doesn’t feel that way. I was silent while I thought about what he’d said.

“That’s how I think the story ends,” he finished.

Suddenly, surprisingly, the definition of hope . . . changed. Rob is not dead. He’s very much alive. And one day this interruption, this parenthesis in our story, will disappear as though it never was.

Our broken hearts will be made whole again.

 

“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue?”

Yes. Everything.

With thanks to Tim Sackton for permission to use his photo as seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: The Hobbit [349/366] | Day 349. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Jo… | Flickr

Until The Wind Changes

My heart aches tonight. 

It’s been aching all day. Weekends are hard for some reason I haven’t quite figured out yet. There’s a lot I haven’t figured out. Why I stay up too late when I should be in bed. Why the sunlight on my face when I wake up makes me cry. What I’m supposed to do with the rest of my life.

I’m two months into the upheaval, nine counseling sessions down the road, and every single day I look into that photo of his face and ask him why he isn’t here. Tell myself I can’t believe he’s gone. I keep waiting for him to open the door and walk in. I pick up my phone realizing I haven’t heard from him and start to punch in his number when I remember. I roll over in the night and reach into empty space.

This is going to take a while. There’s no timetable. Just one foot in front of the other.

I know people survive this. I’ve asked a couple of them how. Their answers vary, but in general the response is that I will never get over it. I will never forget. I will simply learn to live with the pain, which of course, is not simple. But I’ll learn to live with it, nevertheless. Like a chronic back injury. Or rheumatoid arthritis. Or a broken heart. The grief spasms will become less intense and further apart, but the triggers will always . . . trigger.

For me, that happens a lot when I’m in our Tahoe. There are nearly 300,000 miles on that truck, and Rob and I put most of them on it together. Sometimes I find myself driving down the road and remember the way he always told me about the wind when we were out driving around, and the next thing I know I’m crying. He knew the direction the wind came from and where it was going. It’s all I can do to figure out where true north is. The conversation was so predictable that, after all those years together, I began to roll my eyes and wait for the science lesson.

I’d give my right arm right now for him to be here next to me explaining the change in the wind.

I’d give my right arm if God would explain the change in the wind.

He doesn’t explain much. I think if He did, I wouldn’t be able to understand it anyway. I guess it’d be like listening to someone talk to me in Portuguese. I think whatever life is like on the other side of the veil where God and Rob are, it’s very different than what I can see and feel where my clay feet are stuck to this ground. Kind of like when I try to watch a sci-fi movie—I can’t relate to the story line because I don’t live there. And everyone has three sets of eyes.

I comfort myself with that odd little piece of logic. Sometimes. Mostly, I just find myself staring at pictures on my phone of my husband and me and our dog, standing in front of that fireplace last Christmas. How could things have changed so fast? We were surrounded by half-opened boxes in that photo. Like Mary Poppins, it turned out we were only there until the wind changed.

The wind can change directions in one heartbeat, I discovered.

How am I supposed to go on without him? My world has held Rob McLeod in it since I was a teenager. Suddenly, and against my will, I have no choice but to make a new life for myself when I was perfectly happy with the old one. I didn’t ask for this. It wasn’t even on the radar. But here I am, waking up to that stupid happy sun every morning telling me to rise and shine.

Let me be perfectly clear. I have never risen and shone. That was Rob’s job. I always mumble and drag.

As unfamiliar as I am with how this grieving thing is supposed to work, others are also in the dark about it. They say I’m in this or that stage of grief when actually there are no stages. It’s just one big melting pot of emotion. Some worry that I’m not finding more happiness in my day, giving me the impression I’m not trying hard enough for them. Others try to provide answers known only to God.

Everything I’m experiencing is the normal and horrible truth about grief. I received Rob’s first life insurance check last week and cried my eyes out. I didn’t want it. I want him. Another widow I know said she had the same reaction when it happened to her. Yesterday I took some empty boxes to the storage units that represent what’s left of our life together and filled the hallways with the sound of sobbing. Fortunately, I was the only one there. I think. Right now it’s hard to watch movies because we enjoyed doing that together. It seems every storyline reminds me of what I’ve lost. Romances are out. Happy families make me cry. The only good flick now is one where the main characters hate each other. There’s no chance that will make me miss Rob.

I miss his arms around me. God, how I miss his arms around me.

I used to have a home. A partner in life. A best friend to talk with and laugh with and fight and love with. Now I have three keys to spaces filled with cardboard boxes and bookcases and a heart full of memories too painful to look at.

In the last hours of Rob’s life, a hospice worker stepped into our space and put my name on their mailing list for the next year. Now an unseen counselor sends me letters of support, assuring me he’s thinking of me in my grief journey. At first, I didn’t want anything to do with this communication. After all, I’ve never even met the man. But every computer-generated note includes pamphlets that describe what I’m probably experiencing, and they’re always on target. And validating.

I got another one last week. This isn’t the kind of reading material I’d gravitate toward normally, but since I, like so many, am unfamiliar with what grief really looks like, I’ve been devouring the information inside.

You can expect, the brochure began,

That your grief will take longer and more energy than most people think.

Your grief will involve many changes and be continually developing.

Your grief will show itself in all spheres of your life: psychological, social, and physical.

Your grief will entail mourning not only for the actual person you lost but also for all of the hopes, dreams, and unfulfilled expectations you held for and with that person, and for the needs that will go unmet because of their death.

Your grief will involve a wide variety of feelings and reactions, not solely those that are generally thought of as grief, such as depression and sadness.

The loss will resurrect old issues, feelings, and unresolved conflicts from the past.

You may have a combination of anger and depression, including irritability, frustration, annoyance or intolerance. 

You will feel some anger and guilt or at least some manifestation of these emotions.

You may have a lack of self-concern. 

You may experience grief spasms—acute upsurges of grief that occur suddenly with no warning.

You may begin a search for meaning and question your religion and/or philosophy of life.

You may find yourself acting socially in ways that are different from before. 

Society will have unrealistic expectations about your mourning and may respond inappropriately to you.

I can’t help but wonder how Rob would be handling his grief had things turned out differently—if I’d been the one who didn’t make it and he did. Maybe he’d have kept it in the Grief Box, pulling it out when he needed to, closing the lid whenever another box needed his attention. Men from Mars are like that—one subject at a time. Women from Venus are the total opposite—I know. Shocker. We don’t have boxes. We have miles and miles of tangled wires, all connected to one another.

This is a tangled journey I’m on. It’s not predictable. It can’t be scheduled. It’s unfamiliar. It’s the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. It’s confusing. It makes me and others uncomfortable and sad. I feel like I was caught in a tornado and dropped here, wounded and bleeding, surrounded by the fragmented pieces of my life.

The wind did that. It changed direction, and we couldn’t get out of the way.

I wish I’d paid more attention during Rob’s science lessons.

Almost

We had all these dreams. We always wanted to live in the mountains. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just not the desert. And, for me, at least, for many years, not in the tropics. 

When I was a kid, I wanted to live on a farm. Instead, I lived in a trailer park. But I dreamed of open spaces. Land and horses and cows and chickens. Trees to climb and adventures to dream up. It never happened. When I got to junior high, my grandparents moved to Payson, Arizona, and my family and I began to spend a lot of time in the mountains with them. Suddenly livestock was old news. Juniper and pines, aspen and firs were the new dream.

“I’m going to live up here someday,” I promised myself. Near the smell of juniper, the comfort of fireplaces, far away from city lights that dimmed the view of the stars.

Then I fell in love with a soldier. When we got married, we followed his best job offer, and settled in his hometown in Florida. But after a couple of years, we began to dream of the mountains together and tried to move to the northwest. We wrote to cities like Seattle and Portland, and McLeod, Montana (just because we found it on a map and liked the name.) But there were no jobs for new firefighters in any of those places, so we stayed in the tropics. We had two kids. Made do with vacations in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains every year. I became content. After all, Florida had field fresh strawberries, beautiful tomatoes, and wonderful friends. I let go of the dream.

Then the letter came. Arizona’s Flagstaff Fire Department was hiring. We discovered an anonymous gift of five hundred dollars cash in our daughter’s diaper bag one night when we got home from church and a note telling Rob to fly out and test for that job. Which he did—not get. And suddenly I wasn’t content in Florida anymore. We almost had it. Almost moved to the mountains. It was so close, we could touch it. Almost.

Rob went to paramedic school. Was promoted to lieutenant on his department. We tried for the dream again. After all, he had even more experience now. Maybe we could compromise and just live closer to the mountains. The next year he tested for Chandler Fire Department, and we moved to the desert. At least we could drive to the pines on his days off. And we did. Frequently, and for many years, always dreaming of someday owning a home on the Mogollon Rim or the White Mountains. We raised our Florida babies in the desert Southwest. Eventually Rob retired. Our babies had their own babies. We settled in as grandparents and gave up on the mountains.

Until last August. When, once again, they began to call us and we decided to go.

We had rented a big house in Greer for a month, a tourist village that our daughter described as “a little piece of heaven.” Enjoying the cool breeze on the front deck one afternoon, Rob and I looked at each other and said, practically in unison, “We could live here.”

So, we sold our house in a hot market, shook the desert sand from our shoes, and headed north in time for Thanksgiving. By the end of the month, we closed on a sweet place on the Mogollon Rim, a favorite place to explore. We had an acre and a half in the pines with a view of nothing but woods from our back deck. Rob ordered the sign he’d always wanted for the front of his dream property—a three-foot-wide piece of juniper with the words, “McLeod’s Keep,” carved into the golden face of the wood. Every good Scotsman has his own Keep. We had the deck refinished, replaced outdated appliances, put up a new fence on the back acre, and got estimates for a roof to shade the deck.

And then it snowed. Coyote tracks followed our fence line most mornings, punctuated by random deer prints and droppings, and we looked forward to our first spring when unfamiliar bushes would bloom their true identity and we could look for elk while we drank coffee at that patio table we planned to put outside the French doors leading from our bedroom. We wandered through nurseries in the frigid cold, picking out the firs and aspen and red oaks we’d plant to make the place our own when the weather warmed up.

We kept making plans and living out the dream. For five weeks.

We bought heavy coats. Hiking shoes. Scoped out all the trails we wanted to explore throughout the woods surrounding our land. We decided our next vehicle should be another truck—which made Mama happy. Fuel efficient cars are looked on with suspicion when you’re mountain people. And we were mountain people now. Rob had a warm hat. I had warm gloves. We were clearing out the garage of boxes so we’d have a warm truck on twelve degree mornings.

We didn’t know how to live in the cold, but we were going to figure it out together.

We almost did. We almost saw our dreams come true. Almost belonged to that little piece of heaven. We took the risk for one last adventure. Left the desert behind. Downsized our belongings and upsized our property. Settled in a new town, found new breakfast joints, made two new sets of friends, and looked forward to making many more. Spent every waking moment unpacking a house full of boxes so we could hurry up and enjoy our dream come true.

But we never got to sit on our deck. Or stand out there at night to stare at the Milky Way. Never enjoyed a cup of coffee out there. Never explored the back roads together. Never put up Roby’s juniper sign. Never bought another truck. Never lived there again after we got sick. Because Rob never got out of the hospital.

We took a huge risk together and we lost it all. I lost it all. When I lost my darlin’.

For five short weeks, we owned that little piece of heaven, and then it was gone. It’s hard to watch now while others who took the same risk we did make it work. The mountains are filled with their success stories—just not ours. But we gave it our best shot. Went all in. Never looked back.

And then it backfired. Blew up in our faces. Stole everything from us and more.

“That was a pretty spectacular fail,” I whispered through my tears one morning months afterward. From where I stand alone now, I wish we’d figured out the truth and hadn’t taken the risk. Hadn’t tried for the dream ever again. Finally realized we weren’t meant to be mountain people after all. Maybe then I’d still have Rob.

But we almost made it work. Almost sat on that deck. We almost belonged to the mountains.

“Almost.”

It’s such a sad word.

Return Mail

my dearest eula,

i was there.

i saw you crying.

i felt your pain.

i'm holding you close.

i’ll never let you go.

i'm holding Rob close, too. i’ll never let him go, either.

i can’t explain right now. one day i will. for now, believe me when i tell you that I Am here. and this is temporary.

I Am sitting with you.

I Am weeping with you.

death was never my plan.

i will change that. one day everything that is sad will be made untrue.

I Am fighting for you. and Rob.

he sends his love.

i love you, too.

and I Am very proud of you, my daughter.

all my love forever,

Papa God

 

p.s.  I don’t actually have a circular file.  and you can tell me anything—i didn’t like that whole open up the ground and swallow people thing, either.

Sit With Me

“How long has it been?” he asked.

“Eight weeks.”

“Two months isn’t long,” he responded.

Yes. And No.

It’s twenty-two blogs long. Nine weeks today. Sixty-three days since I last held Rob’s hand. The one I placed his wedding ring on. And another five weeks prior to that since we last shared a home together, sick as we both were.

That’s a lot of time to be afraid and pray and then grieve. One day rolls into the next and soon it will be ten weeks since he left us. Then eleven. You know the rest. And every day that stubborn sun keeps coming up, trying to tell me to keep going without him because I have no other choice.

Grieving is exhausting. Emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and to my surprise, physically draining, as well. My counselor keeps reminding me that while I’m grieving, my immune system is low. My sleep schedule is, well, unscheduled. Thoughts are scattered. The only things working well are my tear ducts.

“It takes a lot of energy to maintain relationships right now,” she said. “You won’t be able to keep up with all the things you used to manage with the limited energy you have at the moment.” I’m trying, though. I’m hugging my family. Talking to my daughter and son every day. Laughing at the antics of my daredevil grandbabies in Kentucky. Playing cards with my granddaughters. Watching my grandson climb trees. Herding sheep and pigs and chickens and ducks and one bossy turkey when the family is out of town. Livestock are good for my soul. And hilarious.

There are a lot of good moments in my days. But I’ve talked a few times with my mother-in-law who buried her beloved husband nine years ago. “You never get over the grief or the loss,” she told me. “You just learn to live with it.” That’s what I meant in my last post about waking up every morning and knowing this is a life sentence. I’ll never see Rob on this earth again. I had no idea it felt like this until I got to this side of grief. No one knows what this side of grief feels like without being here, and I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

But there are a few of you who, despite never having been in my shoes before, choose to sit with me in the middle of my sorrow, a witness to the anguish that I often feel, and cry with me. You listen to me without judging me. Put your arms around me and give me the hug that is rarer than it used to be. Pray. But mostly, you sit with me. Quietly.

I have never done that with anyone before. I have never seen anyone go through this before and I’ve never sat with them while they did. I wrote nice notes. I sent flowers. I even quoted Bible verses. But I never sat with them in their suffering. And for that, I am really sorry.

This is a holy place, this seat of suffering. It’s also lonely and sometimes misunderstood. Scary, even, to witness, since we’re all terminal. I hope that in the future I will remember what I’ve learned from this side of grief and show up with arms to hug and lips that are sealed as I take my seat next to another in their suffering.

You who have sat with me have taught me a great deal about love.

Dear God

dear god,

i know you’re busy up there. running the world. and the universe. and stuff. i know i’ve been bugging you a lot lately with all my annoying questions and accusations and outlandish behavior. maybe you’re preoccupied with keeping an eye on covid and poverty and people who aren’t mad at you, so you just don’t have time to sit down and talk to me.

or maybe it’s not your style to pop in and out of people’s homes just because they’re crying and missing their beloved and stuff like that. maybe it would scare the bejesus out of them if you showed up in person. i guess i can see how that would just add to the inventory up there in heaven if you, first, scared people to death down here by making a personal appearance, and then, second, loaded up the front entry of the golden gates with a gaggle of shell-shocked arrivals.

but it’s hard not to take it personally when i sit still and ask you to make me aware of your presence.

and you don’t.

i’m doing my best to sit still. but this whole grieving thing is new to me and my mind wanders and pretty soon i’m opening my eyes in the room which totally defeats the whole "set the scene" thing i was trying to do. and then i see a picture of rob on my dresser and my heart starts cramping again, and pretty soon i’m crying and doing all that outlandish behavior stuff i just mentioned.

remember that sign i hung above the tv? the one with that verse from exodus? "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still," it reads. i am, you know. being still and waiting. because you said you’d fight for me. are you doing that? because it doesn’t feel like it.

it feels like my family and i are just muddling through this together. hurting all the time. confused all the time. feeling like we’re being punished for something when we don’t know what we did that meant we had to lose rob. i always heard that you’re done punishing your kids now that jesus took it all for us, but if this isn’t punishment, then what is it? a learning tool? it’s a pretty sucky learning tool, if you ask me. i’m starting to wonder if you got your teaching credentials online or something. this is a lousy way to educate the ignorant. i’d rather have remained ignorant of death and loss and widowhood.

i cried it out again last night, or at least i used up the tears i had on hand, and i was so tired and ready to go to bed and i thought it would be nice if i could try to sit still and close my eyes for a few minutes and feel your presence, since you’re so opposed to that whole visibility thing. i’m so tired all the time. tired of waking up knowing it’s just another day without rob. another day of trying to navigate this road without my other half here to help me. which reminds me.

why is it not good for man to be alone but perfectly fine for woman to be alone? i’m pretty ticked off about that today, too.

i sat there for a few . . . okay, a couple . . . maybe it was sixty seconds. but you didn’t show up. i saw a wolf spider run across the rug but that’s about it. if the bug guy hadn’t come last week, i’d have been listening to crickets. is that any way to treat your daughter? ignore her when she gives you an invitation to hang out for a minute? what’s so terrible about making your presence known, anyway?

this is probably a waste of time, writing this letter to you. it’ll probably just land in your circular file. we’re all having a really hard time talking to you right now and when we do, the silence on your end hangs heavy.

what’s so important that you can’t stop by and explain a few things to me? some explanation would go a really long way right now.

are you busy playing golf with rob?

it’s pretty lonely here without him, you know. and it feels pretty lonely without you here, too. i guess you might be mad at my lack of faith. and all the accusations i’ve thrown your way. but i doubt it. if anybody can handle my anger and hurt and outrage and guilt and cold shoulders and sorrow and agony and confusion—it’s You. you never hold grudges. not since you came to live in me.

people are telling me that when i write, i end up answering my own questions. maybe. i’m a writer, you know, so ending a blog or a letter with a nice, big bow is how i roll. i know you live inside me. i’ve heard and read that you’re near to the brokenhearted and to those crushed in spirit. i qualify on both points. i heard you weep with us and bottle our tears and that your Son was called the Man of Sorrows. by the way, i’m really sorry about that.

i’ve sensed you a few times since i lost my darlin’. it was nice for a few minutes. and it was a sensational story to tell to others. but it didn’t last long enough. nothing on this planet that’s good lasts long enough. time is a traitor and no friend of mine.

i just wish that if you actually did show up last night that you’d let me know it. i know that the pretty bow i should end this with today is that you live in all your kids and every time i have a need, you send one of them to hug me or call me or write to me or invite me to come hang out with them—god with skin on. maybe that’s all we get on this side of those heavenly greens where you and rob like to play golf together.

i just wish i’d gone to sleep last night after experiencing a few moments with you. in person.

or maybe. what i really wanted was for rob to show up. 

maybe that's it. sorry for bothering you. tell my husband i said, hi, would you?

sincerely,

eula

p,s. thanks for getting over that whole ‘open up the ground and swallow up all you dirty rotten sinners’ thing. if i can’t be honest with you, who can i talk to?

Band-Aids

How do you offer comfort to a grieving woman? She’s your friend. So was her husband. Your heart is sad. Hers is broken. Life will never be the same again for either of you. You long to help. Somehow. Terrified that anything you say can and will be used against you. What if you say the wrong thing? Or don’t say the right thing? At the right time? 

What does she need? You don’t know—even she doesn’t know. There’s just pain everywhere for her. She’s never been here before. She doesn’t know what to do or say to you either. Can she trust you with the shattered fragments of her soul? Will you try to fix her when there’s no fixing this? Can you sit with her during a flood of anguish and confusion that makes both of you sad and maybe uncomfortable? Or will you panic in the discomfort of it all and try to cheer her up, offering a band-aid while she's bleeding out? 

Maybe you should ask her how it’s going? Dangerous. The old paths of greeting are fraught with landmines now. Or remind her to take one day at a time when it’s all she can do to take one breath after another? Tell her to look on the bright side by saying her husband is in a better place? That God did heal him? Someday she’ll see him again. Will that suture the wound?

Death throws everyone into uncharted waters. Prayer seems to be the only safe offering. Condolences say, “I see you and I’m sorry about what happened to you,” but feel inadequate. Cards and flowers are the same, a consolation to some, yet not others. Stocking up on Kleenex may be a good idea—you never know when or where a kind gesture will trigger tears. Everything triggers them for her. A lonely drive she used to take with her husband. The sight of lovers holding hands while they walk. Elderly couples blessed with twenty more years together than she had.

Maybe if she was reminded to practice gratitude for what she still has left, then she’d start to pull out of this free fall. Then everyone could breathe a sigh of relief and go back to normal. Advice is rarely any help to the listener. No one is expecting her to recover right away. She knows that. But how long is too long to feel sad? A couple of months? Years? It’s a good sign when she’s smiling or makes a joke. Good. She’s hanging in there. Moving on. Getting a grip. Oops. Nope. There it comes again and . . . she’s down. It’s getting a little old, isn’t it?

Living one day at a time in her world means waking up every morning knowing that this is a life sentence. He’s never coming back. He’ll never hold her again. She’ll never caress his face or smell his coffee or ride in the car with him again. His story has ended leaving hers without a plot.

She’s doing the best she can to put one foot in front of the other, force herself to do the normal things that are familiar, at least. Routine is good, she reminds herself. She needs reliable things in a world that doesn’t make sense anymore. Get up, get dressed, get out, connect. You’re doing great, she thinks, straightening her bed, looking at the sunshine through the windows, making unending phone calls that seal her husband in his grave. Surviving every new day, breathing with a knife in her heart.

There’s no guidebook for getting through this one, either as her friend or for her. That ‘stages of grief’ model? It doesn’t exist. Pain is unpredictable. There’s no roadmap. No shortcuts. No one’s experience is identical to anyone else’s. This is a walk in the dark, feeling her way blindly through disorienting circumstances. She was robbed of everything familiar to her, especially her true love. Even his wallet was stolen while he lay unconscious in the ICU. Salt in the wound.

So, what does she need to hear? What comfort exists that could ease her unending pain? Has anyone discovered anything that will break through her suffering fog and reach her weary, shattered heart?

“I love you.” “I’m praying for you.” “Holding you close.” “Keeping you right here.” “Thinking of you.” “You’re always on my mind.” “I’m here if you need someone to cry with.” “You are so loved.” “Tell me about it.” “May I sit with you for a while?” “Do you want to meet for coffee/lunch?” “God puts you on my heart constantly.” “I left something for you at the front door.” “I made this for you, praying for your comfort the entire time.” “I’d like to pick you up and spend some time with you.” “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you. There’s no need to respond.” "I so want to give you a hug and just be there." "Thinking of you every day and sending love." "Praying for your night. Always right here." "Prayers stay constant." "You haven't left my heart. Love you." "Carried you thru the night."

And if any of these things are spoken, all the better. She misses the sound of his voice. You can offer yours in the void.

None of these assurances fix anything for her. Instead, they remind her she’s still important to someone, and there are no expectations of her while she tries to find her footing again. No impatience. No advice. No one knows what these shoes feel like except her. There is no judgment about what she’s supposed to learn from this tragedy or what the future may hold for her. She’s doing everything she can to stay here in the moment while avoiding regret over the past and fear of what’s down the road. Though she searches to make sense of this senseless death, offering life lessons is wounding, not helpful.

Acceptance. Tenderness. Offering the relief that you understand this will take as long as it takes. And for as long as that takes, hearing the simple truth that she is loved and prayed for . . . heals.

Anything that heals is a comfort.

Emmanuel

A melody in the night that I can’t recognize. Struggling to remember the words. Finally, several REM cycles later, I remember the lyrics to the single line of melody. “You’re the light unto my path.”

When I wake up, the whole song comes back. “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path . . . You’re the light unto my path.”

But I disagree at first. “Remember the journal I threw in the trash when all the Bible promises evaporated and the doctor said Rob had one day left to live? Those were promises from Your Word.”

“That’s not My Word.”

I stop. That’s right. Jesus is the Word. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus is the light unto my path. “When I feel afraid, think I’ve lost my way, Still, you’re here right beside me, Nothing will I fear as long as you are here, You’ll be with me to the end.”

I had put my hope in the words I read, instead of in Your Word—Your Son.

I see.

Supernatural comfort and communication keep showing up. For me, it usually happens in the night. For my daughter, in the daytime, as hawks circle her home, her neighborhood walk, her drives across this desert. Rob could always spot hawks on the wing. He seemed to love them. She’s been seeing hawks ever since her father went into ICU in January.

“What do you think it means?” I ask her.

“I think it means ‘hope,’” she tells me. I nod. “We need hope, don’t we?” Our eyes both fill with tears. “We need it desperately.”

For my son, comfort arrives late one afternoon as he drops onto the front pew of the church where he is the pastor. Lighting a candle on the wall, he sits with his head in his hands, eyes closed in grief, and bravely voices the question we’ve all been asking silently.

“When are You going to show up???”

It lands on the floor at his feet. No celestial voices reply. There is only light. Burning. Its brightness hurts his eyes though they are closed in the darkened room.

His grieving interrupted by the burning sensation, he squints to see what is causing his pain. From the tiny window above the lit taper on the wall beside him, a late afternoon shaft of sunlight strikes the Gospel candle on the altar in front of him. The rays reflect against the brass ring at its top, sending a ricochet of light directly into Father Lee’s eyes.

A flame appears, unburning, Moses-style, on top of the unlit candle. Not on the Epistle candle on the south end of the table, but on the Gospel candle on the north end. This taper represents Emmanuel—God With Us. At the very moment Lee demands to know when God is going to show up for him, for his sister, for me, his mother, and for the rest of Rob’s family who are suffering from his death, the answer hits my son right between the eyes.

God With Us. He is here. Right now. In our suffering. Weeping with us, one arm around us, one arm around Rob.

Hope flies generously on the wing. Audaciously. Above us, everywhere we go.

In the dark hours of our grief, Jesus is the light for our unfamiliar path.

And in each of these reminders is a common thread of truth. Emmanuel—God With Us—is. He is With Us.

We are not alone.