Day 6

This surreal week will haunt me for the rest of my life, and yet I’ll remember your kindness vividly in the days to come.

Love permeates everything and its warmth reaches my deep wounds. Tonight, I remember that the New Testament word “Salvation” is the same Greek/Hebrew word for “Healing”. Jehova-Rapha: The God who Heals, written throughout the Old Testament. The God who heals broken hearts and broken minds. The God who binds our wounds and holds us up. El Roi: The God who Sees. The God who sees me — who sees us in our pain.

I live amongst a community of mourners: I know you’re hurting too. I know you loved her, and I know it’s so hard to fathom life without her. She was such a light, such a joy, and so… “sparkly” as my Grandpa, my mom’s dad, described. I love it – she was so sparkly.

Life is so confusing right now. It still doesn’t feel real, until it hits and it hurts excruciatingly. I don’t want it to feel real, I don’t want it to be real. None of us do.

Thank you for being here, for watching, for reading. For holding my hand, playing with my hair, and hugging me. Thank you for loving my mom.

Be well tonight and get some rest 💙 Live loved.

Day 5

I’m 27 years old: I thought my family was supposed to be growing at this point in my life, not shrinking, but I’ve lost a brother, a mother, and we can’t get pregnant. We’ve been “trying” for two years now, for all you well-intended people that keep telling us we need to have kids. I don’t like to talk about it, it’s deeply personal. But today? It’s just another wound in a long list of hurts.

It’s hard to trust God in times like these — life can be so cruel, and this feels devastatingly horrific. I see the support of God in the provision for my family, in the food at our table, in our ability to have my remaining living family here, in the friends that hold us, clean for us, and provide for us. The support is palpable, but it’s still hard to trust God. I so often say “I know God can do anything, but I am also vividly aware of what he will allow.” Here we are again, harrowing in what God will allow.

Our table felt so small after Patrick died. Our immediate family of six became a family of five, and now our family of five becomes a family of four. Oh but wait! “They’re always with you!” No, there’re not in the empty chair. It’s still just as painful without them in it. When I was a child, I used to think families of four were so little. Family of four? We had four kids in ours! And it was loud. Now, it’s so quiet. So somber. So mournful. It should be — we loved our Mommy.

It’s so tense and so stressful and so sad. A myriad of emotions waiting to burst from our eyes or escape from our lips.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Just… be so gracious. As you can read, I’m a little snippy today. I need a lot of grace. Don’t be surprised if someone deep in mourning gets a little snippy with you. It’s not you, it’s all we’ve got going on.

I know many of you reading this are likewise deep in mourning — be gracious with yourself and with your family. I’m sorry if those around you haven’t experienced much grief — it’s incredibly hard to fathom a grieving mind if you haven’t experienced a deep personal loss.

Future Ways to Help

Lawncare: My parents’ have a beautiful lawn, with gorgeous trees and plants. A lawncare service would be very helpful. Beyond a lawncare service, weeds grow so fast here — if you drop by, maybe scan the lawn before coming inside and pick some weeds if you are willing and able to.

Gift cards: Right now we have plenty of food, but in a few months, making dinner every night will feel overwhelming.

Any little act of service helps. All those small little normal tasks feel like such monstrous feats when your heart is hurting.

If you can’t physically help but still want to do something, please consider the GoFund Me: https://gofund.me/6617c101

Thank you, immensely, for everyone who has shown up to help, who has given, and who has prayed. Every little bit helps 💙

Day 4

My mind is… occupied. Lots of people coming into town, lots of arrangements to be made, lots of logistics to coordinate, lots of thoughts to think.

I started to get snippy today and short-tempered. I don’t like that, but thankfully I have a lot of wonderfully gracious people to talk things out with.

There are so many details in death. I feel so much older than I am.

Be in the youngest in my family, I will likely be involved in the funeral planning of the majority of my family, so I guess I am really learning how to do this by myself one day. I just hope it’s not anytime soon.

Anxiety starts to mature within me. Who’s next? I ponder as I look around our table. It’s scary.

I’ve been here before — it provides a nice kind of structure of what I think the mourning process will be like over the next few months, but it also brings a sickening dread — How much will it all hurt when everyone leaves and life goes back to “normal”?

I miss my mom. Sometimes it’s a searing pain, sometimes it’s a dull ache. It will be like that forever.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out — I have an abundance of messages I cannot keep up with, but I do enjoy reading them and appreciate your encouragement and support. I read them in small doses when I want a distraction.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Saying “Your mom is always with you,” is not helpful. Perhaps it will be in the future, but in the first few days it’s more of a reminder of the chasm between my life and my mom’s death.

Day 3

Tired. So tired.

It’s a liminal space where days flow together and nights seem endless due to the lack of sleep. I fall asleep, I wake up, I cry, I fall back asleep, I wake up, I cry… and the cycle repeats.

Thankfully, I began counseling/therapy at the beginning of the year to handle past trauma I felt safe enough to revisit, including the suicide of my oldest sibling. Ironically, I told my therapist a few weeks ago that I thought I was ready to “graduate” from therapy – she agreed. And then… this.

She scheduled me immediately for a session this morning and we cried as I detailed her reality and my experience. It was freeing to lay it all out in the open, but the void my mother left will always be there — my life has changed forever.

My entire [living] immediate family is together, and together feels good. It brings drops of happiness where an ocean of sorrow surrounds us.

We sifted through hundreds of photos, both digital and encased in beautiful photo albums my mom made. We crafted an obituary. We played in the pool. We cried. We talked. We mourned.

I can’t thank you enough, reader, supporter, friend. We have had such phenomenal support. Close friends and family have gone above and beyond. I can’t thank my husband enough, though he too is deep in mourning, he is so attentive, kind, and sensitive to whatever I need.

For those asking how to support us, Carrie created a GoFund Me for my Daddy: https://gofund.me/350f5f59

I am grateful a lot, I am hurting a lot.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

If you have to start a sentence with “I’m sorry to ask you this,” or “I’m sorry to pry, but…” do us both a favor and don’t ask that question. That’s your conscious telling you that, yes, it is an inappropriate question to ask.

Day 2

I answered most of my messages sometime between 3 and 5 AM, messages so sweet and so thoughtful, and then I fell asleep once more and woke drenched in tears.

There’s a difference in seeing support and experiencing it: meal after meal delivered, my home cleaned by sweet friends, people hugging us through tears.

We went to church today, twice actually, and it was so sweet and healing.

My mom devoted herself to her family and to so many — we’re benefiting from all the lives she touched. She loved them well, and now they’re loving us well.

People brought us meals immediately, but to be held by so many filled me with thanksgiving and sorrow.

I’ve always loved alone time, but right now it’s too hard — I took a bath today, thinking it would be relaxing, but I rushed out of it because the quiet was too overwhelming. Did she know I loved her? Was I a bad daughter? Too many thoughts haunt me, and my tears seemed to drown me in the tub.

“My Momma, my Momma, my Momma,” I can’t stop mumbling.

It’s excruciatingly painful. Incommunicably hard.

We feel so supported and we feel so loved. We’re all saturated in tears.

I loved my Momma.

Day 1

Ground zero.

I’m always amazed how much pain people can endure when faced with suffering.

I woke to notes of encouragement, sorrow, and prayer. My breathing fails, my eyes swarm with tears, and my body heaves with the weight of my mind.

“My Momma. My Momma. My Momma. I loved my Momma,” I chant in a voice choked by emotions and tears — words barely able to escape my mind and reach the outside world.

My Momma is gone, and she’s not coming back. My Daddy, my Daddy. My Daddy☹️ I can barely move. I don’t know how to function, “My Momma. My Momma. My Momma,” I mumble.

how do I reconcile this? It doesn’t make any sense. I know I’ll be angry with God for that sometime later, but today I’m just trying to survive. All I want to do is be with my Daddy and my brothers.

I can’t walk 20 steps without sobbing: “My momma, my Momma, my Momma.”

All I want is my Momma

Redemption is Coming

Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Hebrews 11:6, CSB

I lost faith when I went through a few years of loss and turmoil.  My mind and thoughts were tormented by the harsh reality that my friend was gone, and my brother Patrick gave up his life to shame and depression.  Unable to make sense of life anymore, my faith faltered.  I was broken and in a state that felt impossible to recover from.  My reality was horror.  How can one have faith when his or her circumstances seem to contradict that which one believes? 

We each respond differently to grief and suffering; while I struggled to believe, my mother remained steadfast.  Her trust in God did not waiver despite the reality that her baby was gone, and I could not understand it.  Thus, with water-brimmed eyes in 2019, I asked her how she could remain confident, and she provided aged wisdom:

“You are so young.  I cannot imagine having to face the things that you have had to your whole life.  I have faith because I have seen the faithfulness of God over the years.  You spent the past 15 years watching destruction without redemption.  You have been so strong.”

Her words made sense – It’s challenging to maintain faith when one’s life has been painted with suffering since its beginning.   My life has been beautiful and even amidst intense suffering has been filled with mercy and blessing, but, like many, I began viewing life through lenses of sorrow as a young girl.

We are so very attached to outcomes.  We have faith that God is good, that He is the God that delivers redemption and provides healing.  Broken endings aren’t good, and they don’t look like redemption. 

It’s been four years since my brother took his life from me and I assure you, death is not good.  Mourning never ceases.  My faith was unfathomably wounded back then.  My heart turned to dust, my mind to ashes, but dust is what God used to breathe life into man. 

We died that day, each of us who loved Patrick.  Our hopes for earthly restoration disintegrated with his demise.   We were broken beyond repair, we needed entirely new perspectives and new hopes.  We had to relearn how to think, how to communicate, how to be still.

In the years following his death, I began to seek and experience the redemption my mom told me I had not yet experienced.  I felt restoration in my own life and in my own mind.  It has been beautiful because it feels like entering Spring after a harsh Winter.  It was warm and safe and filled with healing and new life. 

I have the faith I lacked those four years ago, and now I know that I can be the one to encourage fellow sufferers to hold on: you may not have had the chance to experience redemption and restoration, but you will.  You will. 

God is with us.  He is our reward. He is our comfort, our strength, and our healing.  Even when our faith falters, He brings life from loss and healing from grief. 

God is good, even when life is not, and He is good when our nightmares become reality. 

Have faith, my friends.  Your story is not over, and your life does not have to be without redemption.  Your heart can be healed.  You can have abundant life after tragedy.  Hold on, have faith, redemption is coming. 

God With Us

Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;

he will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

Psalms 55:22, CSB

It’s easy to read verses like Psalms 55:22 when life is calm and stable… It’s not so easy to believe them when your world is falling apart.  Yet the truth remains.

When we are burdened, several choices assail us the moment we wake: will we wallow in bed while tears soak our pillowcase, will we immediately rise and numb ourselves through distractions, will we become introspective and choose how to think the remainder of the day – the possibilities are endless but nonetheless they confront us the moment we wake. Romans 12:2 details that the “renewing of your mind” enables us to discern the “good, pleasing, and perfect will of God”[1]. Casting your burden, renewing your mind – both require action.

Healing and sustainment do not passively occur in the lives of sufferers. Instead, action must prompt one to surrender the burden multiple times a day, and here one experiences the promised renewal. Earlier in the Psalm, David details the depth of his distress: “My heart shudders within me; terrors of death sweep over me. Fear and trembling grip me; horror has overwhelmed me” (v. 4-5).[2] Overwhelmed with anxiety and quivering with fear, it is only then that David declares that God will sustain him and will not allow the righteous to be shaken.

Jesus assured us that life would not be easy: “In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”[3]  Psalm 55 does not promise that we will be at ease, but rather reminds us of Immanuel – God with us.

The God who is with us in our anxiety.

The God who is with us in our mourning.

The God who is with us in our weakness.

The God who is with us in our desperation.

He is the God who is there, and the God who does not leave us there.  He meets us where we are and renews us and gives us incomprehensible peace.

[1] Romans 12:2, CSB

[2] Psalm 55, CSB

[3] John 16:33, NIV

Love Enduring

Love bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

I Corinthians 13:7-8

I wrote in a letter to my deceased friend’s parents three years ago (2020).

You hear the verses in weddings, but are they not just as applicable at funerals?

Grief is love that endures – beyond life and beyond loss. It endures. It remains. It loves against all things, against hope, and against the belief for its object of adoration to return.

In the end, it’s love that goes on.

It can make us bitter or it can make us springs of life and of hope and of beauty once more.

Where there were once caverns of bitterness, may there be fields of tenderness.

Where there were once deserts of anger, may there be harbors of forgiveness

Where there were once rivers of sorrow, may there be streams of mercy.

Love transforms us in unfathomable ways. Lost love breaks us with the bleakest measures, but our response to love and love lost distinguishes us entirely.

Some respond out of anger, some shut down in sorrow, and some pretend through avoidance. Each response is unique, with each respondent clinging to the response that feels the most emotionally safe.

Friends and strangers hold their breath and peer at grievers in hopes of a response that will provide them with an image of the grievers’ hearts.

How quick we are to observe the unfathomable, but how slow we are to communicate the tragedy. We look with bravery but cower in speechlessness. All the while, the griever, the sufferer, sits in isolation and trapped in love’s loss.

With fortitude, the sufferer remembers his or her enduring love and allows that mercy to shape the day. Love and truth tear away the temptation bitterness invites: these tools patch up lost love’s damage.

Patched, but not healed. Bandaged, but not mended. The sufferer must reach out beyond the frailty of his or her understanding and leap towards something more. The promise of more – the promise of the fullness of life.

Choosing to trust God beyond all belief, the griever leaps into freedom and the chance for redemption. The chance to experience the beauty of life and the beauty of love restored. The chance to overcome bitterness with a happiness long forgotten. The chance to live abundantly despite every odd being against the individual.

This, this is love enduring. This is love unending. This is love restoring, healing, and beginning.

I Write to the Griever; I Write to the Friend

Shame cloaks one in fear.  Fear keeps one in isolation.  Isolation repeats the cycle. 

It’s the tragic irony that prohibits us from knowing how to reach out to others when we need them most, and it’s often that same irony that keeps others from reaching out to us. 

The concealment of shame safely shields one from oneself and from others – at times I have been afraid to voice my concerns and share my story simply because the story itself frightened me.  Sharing makes life’s nightmares more real.  Other times, the fear of another’s someone misunderstanding has kept my fingers from typing and my mouth from speaking. 

But where does one turn when he or she internalizes those matters that are too dangerous to share with others?

I look to words – to books and to music, to poems and to plays – but what happens when there are no words?

The prevalence of centuries of literature whispers God’s mercy: one looks to the Psalms for comfort and contrition, the Old Testament stories and New Testament parables for history and application, and the prophecy books for detailed truth of who God has always been.  These precious words preserve timeless truth. It is God who bestows light and life into man, and man who reflects the image of God (Genesis 1, John 1). 

Mankind mirrors fractures of God’s mercy, not because God’s mercy is broken, but because we are broken and fallen creatures.  Mercy cracks through the brokenness of man, reflecting the glory of God, through the gift of man’s words. 

Words meant to heal, words crafted to explain, words written to comfort.  Words to bring the shamed out of isolation and into compassion: words powerful enough to help the confused and broken feel understood and validated.  

I didn’t get those words.  I couldn’t find them. 

When my world fell apart, I fell with it, and there were so few resources to explain.  No one writes about the loss of a sibling, though most of the deceased are survived by siblings.  It’s rare for young people to experience and detail loss. 

And grieving a “complicated death” (ie: suicide, murder)?  Some psychologists write to attempt to explain, but few first-hand accounts exist.  These deaths are shrouded in the shame of the survived, leaving the survived isolated, tabooed, and unreached.

I intend to share the depths of a griever’s experience as a sibling, as a friend, as a woman, as a youth, and as a survivor.  In weeks to come, I will share excerpts from my journals to convey the intensities of loss and the miracles of mercy. Some excerpts may be incredibly intense and seem hopeless, but these are the details of redemption and lament.

In the end, we’re each the griever and the friend.

So, let’s break the cycle.  Truth is not powerless. Isolation, shame, and fear are powerless.