journal

Day 18

One day, I will run out of pictures of me and Mom. That thought haunts me every time I write one of these posts.

I feel bad for the kids who will grow up with ChatGBT, for they may never know the therapeutic art of writing.

“From the fruit of a person’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is filled with the product of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. ”‭‭
Proverbs‬ ‭18‬:‭20‬-‭21‬, CSB

I’ve thought a lot about words recently: which words lead to life and which lead to death. Words are incredibly powerful. With a mere sentence, one can build up and encourage or one can destroy hope.

One of the first few phrases I uttered after I found out about my Mom’s death was “I can’t do this. I can’t lose my Mom. Scott, I can’t lose my Mom. I can’t lose my Momma. Not my Momma,” I voiced in horror as the concept became a reality.

I’ve thought about that a lot: “I can’t do this,” but the truth is, I can. I don’t want to and I wish more than anything in the world that it wasn’t true, but I can do it. Then, I thought about how the phrases “I can’t do this” and “I can’t handle this,” are statements that lead to death. They’re dangerous – voicing and thinking them concedes defeat before endurance begins.

Thus, I am working to eliminate them from my vocabulary. I can handle this, I can do this, and you can, too.

Life and death are in the tongue, but the tongue only voices what the mind first conceptualized. We must retrain our minds to prepare for the trials we endure.

You and I — we can do this. We are going to make it. We can do this together, we must do this together. Isolation, avoidance, and silence destroy us. Together, we can share our burdens, we can support one another, and we can learn to love and to grow amidst what feels like a nightmare.

I wish my Momma would have chosen together. I wish she would have shared. If she were in her right mind, I believe she would have. We honor her when we share our burdens — it’s what she wanted for and from all of us.

She didn’t want this, not really. She spent the last few years of her life dedicated to preventing this type of reality. That was real. Her passion was real. Her detest for this type of pain was real, but, on that abhorrent day, she believed she couldn’t handle it, and she made that decision alone.

You can handle it. I can handle it. We can handle it together 💙. In her right mind, that is what she would have wanted.

Day 17

How exhausting. How sad.

I pretended to have a “day off” today. I didn’t answer messages, I didn’t accomplish any grief-related tasking, and I pretended to have a normal day off.

Dad and I went to the grocery store, I made toast and salad when I got home, I cleaned out the fridge, I did the dishes, I took a bath, I enjoyed the solitude. I enjoyed the silence.

Scott got home from work today and I met him at the door, like I always do when he comes home, and then it hit me. Calm tears warmed my eyes. My Mom always made such a big deal when my Dad came home from work. Mom and four of us kids would giddily line up at the door and we would scream “Daddy!” as he entered.

She always celebrated shrilly when Dad came home, and Dad did the same for her. They always did that — one would get home and the other would come to the door with so much joy and excitement.

I hate that my Dad won’t get that anymore. I hate that my Mom won’t be there to greet me excitedly when I go to their house. My family loved so deeply.

This entire situation is so difficult to comprehend, so terrible to realize, and so overwhelming to endure.

But we endure. Always, always enduring. Some moments it feels less like enduring and more like living, but those moments are scarce these days.

Day 16

Silence. Quiet. Peaceful, terrible.

Tomorrow will be the first day without any guests. All have gone home, and my father, my brother, and I will experience our first bouts of alone time. It’s necessary, it’s healing, and it will likely be painful.

Torrents of grief, sacred and terrible, assuage we mourners. I’ve loved and appreciated the depth and beauty of sadness, but I still hate enduring it at this level of intensity. Sorrow opens one’s eyes to a new world and demands a new perspective from the sufferer. This new perspective can make one bitter or it can make him or her more compassionate, but it either way the perspective shift prompts a response.

Grief is traumatic. It assaults the mind and the nervous system. It manifests itself in sadness and anxiety. It steals sleep from some and it keeps others in bed for days. It produces shaky hands and sore eyes. It creates fear and mistrust. It eliminates filters and threatens boundaries that otherwise would protect its victims.

We aren’t strong, we mourners, we are incredibly weak. We are at our most vulnerable and most sensitive. We are raw. We hurt, often more than we ever deemed imaginable or bearable. Yet, we bear it.

Some watch mourners with awe and amazement — unsure how we could function. Some are offended if a mourner is snappy or not as “bubbly” as normal. Some prefer to look away, noting how painful it is to even think about what a mourner endures.

Grief manifests differently in every individual because of the uniqueness of every single relationship; while that makes each person’s experience vastly personal, a wondrous communal aspect exists when we mourn the same individual.

It’s private, and it’s not. It’s personal, and it’s shared.

Mourning callously brings out both the best and the worst in people, because we join together in our grief but can quickly isolate from offenses and hurts. We are vulnerable, we are tired, and we are boundlessly sad.

When we love each other and show up for one another and extend continuous grace — that is when we mourn well.

We mourn because we lost someone so incredibly precious, and we cannot stop loving them. Love transcends time, space, and even death. Love well.

Above all, love each other deeply for love covers a multitude of sins

I Peter 4:8

Day 15

It was real. She was real. She was genuine and she loved so much. She was kind, she was gentle, she was lovely. She was happy, she was strong, she was proud. She smiled brightly and shined iridescently.

She was my Mommy, and she was a mother and a friend to so many. I just miss my mom. Each day she feels just a little farther away. Each day it hurts just a little more. I hate this so much.

I experienced immense growth and healing over the past six years, and the past six months I had begun counseling to work through the traumas I had been stuck in. Life felt nearly perfect. It was so beautiful and so sweet. These past few years God taught me that incredible goodness transpires after formidable sorrow.

I wish this wasn’t happening, but I know that life will be good again. This sadness will always be with me, but a time will come when it doesn’t bring me to my knees every day. It will probably always bring me to my knees at random moments, but it won’t always be this horrible.

Mourning sacredly positions us between this reality and the metaphysical. Grief connects us closely to the next realm and forces us to think of a lifetime of memories, teleporting our minds into the past.

Our past was real. It was sacred, it was sweet.

I don’t know what the future holds, and if I’m quite honest, right now I am anxious about it: Am I doomed to the same fate? Is my family? Loss instantly makes one so afraid of more loss. I have reason to be anxious, but I likewise have reason to hope.

Sorrow and joy have eclipsed my life for so long. When Mom died, it felt like all the brightness vaporized from my whole world. She was so bright and so optimistic and so full of light and life. Losing her has left such an enormous void in my life and in the lives of so many others. She was light in so many ways🤍. Right now, life feels so dark, but light will return to our eyes.

I am experiencing a depth of sorrow I never imagined possible and never wanted, but I know I will grow and heal to experience a happiness and a joy I could never before comprehend.

Loss has changed and shaped my life in unimaginable ways. In ways I never wanted, but this isn’t the end.

This isn’t my family’s end. This isn’t our end.

My Mom was a glorious light, and she was one of the best parts of my life. She gave me life, not just in my birth, but in all the joy she gave me. In all of our wonderful memories, in all of our laughter, in all of our joy. She made my life fun. She made everything fun.

I don’t know how to do this without her. I don’t know how to be bright and fun and loving, not like she was, but I want to honor her. I barely know how to laugh without her. It’s so dark without her right now, but the light is coming. I want to make her proud. I want to dance in the light she had, in a way she always wished she had.

I loved my Momma. I always will.

Thank you, Momma, for being the brightest light in my life.

I love you forever,

I love you for always.

On earth or in heaven,

Your baby I’ll be.

Day 14

Two weeks.

There’s a weight so heavy on my chest I feel like I can barely breathe. It feels like I am operating at 50% of my normal capacity, if that. It feels so heavy. What does that even mean? Why does it legitimately feel like there is a weight pressed against my lungs, collapsing them? How does that work? How does the body do that?

I thought we had something special, me and my mom. I thought we had a great relationship. Now I feel like I didn’t even know her. Who was this woman I spent so much time with? I thought she liked being with me, I thought she wanted to be in my life, I thought she wanted to be here. But in the end, she wanted to leave me. It wasn’t worth it for her to stay in my life. She didn’t want to see me grow up anymore. I thought we were going to be two old ladies together. I thought she wanted me. I thought she wanted me. Did she think I did not love her? Why weren’t we enough?

I hate my name. I’ve hated it for a long time. My mom gave me this name because she hoped so badly for me… what good did that do for her? It’s so cruel to be named Hope when it feels like so many people in my world are hopeless.

“Hopey, you’re my Hope. You make me believe that everything’s going to be okay and that we’re really going to make it.” That’s what my brother Patrick told me two days before he ended his life. Once he died, I really started to hate my name.

Before that, I was always a pessimist. It felt so ironic to be called “hope” when I so seldom experienced hope myself.

Now this? I hate my name. It feels so cruel tonight.

Why did I start writing these? I keep asking myself that. More precisely, why did I start publishing these? I’ve loved writing for my entire life. I used to write fantastical stories, dreaming worlds late into the night when I was just a young girl. Then in puberty I started writing to cope with my ever-changing world. Now, I almost exclusively write when my emotions cloud my head, spill out of my eyes, and pours from an ink pen onto a blank page.

So, why did I start publishing these?

After Patrick died, I seriously isolated myself. I did not answer my phone for over a month and I had no desire to make contact with the outside world.

In our American culture, grief is so private. Suicide is beyond taboo, and people in mourning may be given three days of bereavement leave. Three days… how pathetic. Our culture almost treats grief like something to be ashamed of or to be quickly gotten over. Because of this, death and grief are seldom discussed and very few — especially at my ripe old age of 27 — people have much of a framework/understanding of mourning and grief.

Grief shouldn’t isolate. It should be something that pulls us all together, something that makes us stop and hold one another closer, something that prompts us to change our lives for the better.

As my friend Olivia Chancellor always says “Alone is a lie.” Maybe if I share my thoughts, others will have the courage to share theirs too. Thoughts can be scary and painful and feel so isolating, but alone is a lie. “Everything that is exposed by the light becomes visible–and everything that is illuminated becomes light,” Ephesians 5:13. It’s only when we share our darkest thoughts that we are truly able to heal from them.

I want to live. I want to have a life full of beauty and joy and pain and wonder. I want to experience it all. I want to be fully present. I want to experience life to the full in every possible way, no matter how it hurts.

I don’t want to move on from this. I will be carrying this for the rest of my life, and I want to grow and learn to carry this with grace and love and even hope. I want to live, and I want to live well.

Day 13

I screamed a lot in my car today. Just… screamed. “Mom!! Why did you do this?” Through sobs, “Mom, please come back, please come back!”… “Mom!!” I cried out in anguish.

But it’s useless, she’s gone.

My mind really does not want to believe it. I meet her in dreams, only to wake and feel her light snuffed out of the world. She was sitting on our living room couch in last night’s dream, and I was asking her why she wouldn’t join us at the table. I don’t remember what she answered, I just remember telling her that it did not make sense and that she should join the rest of us at the table because we love her and want to be with her.

Denial’s amazing protectiveness still shields me, for the most part, but everything feels so heavy. I feel the horror and the sadness deeply about once a day: I’ll cry, I’ll protest. I really wish this was not a part of my life. I wish this was not the end of hers. I wish it so badly that denial and numbness creep back in and calmness returns.

I feel like an outside observer to my own feelings and my own thought process. I feel them, objectively define them, and then move on.

Each day, the sadness grows and strengthens. I feel the denial slowly slipping away, and I fear when my mind allows me to fully grasp the situation. How much is this really going to hurt when my mind finally lets me feel it? It already hurts so much, but the pain will become vivid soon, and it will never, ever end.

I have so much life left to live. It feels like my life has only begun, and I will feel this sorrow for all of my days.

I’m not angry with God, though I would like to be. Anger is such an easy emotion to experience — anger is easy to fuel and easy to calm — it’s not as ambiguous as sorrow. It feels like it would be easy to be angry at God, but my every need has been met. People have been so generous and caring and kind — I can’t be angry when I perceive such marvels from God amidst all this pain.

I am confused: I will never understand why God allowed this nor why God did not intervene, but perhaps God had intervened several times. I will never know how many times my mother was close ending her life but chose not to because someone intervened. I just wish she would have told us, as I am sure we all do.

She had so many people who loved her deeply, and she could have reached out to any of us. That is a collective hurt those closest to her bear and must work through for the rest of our lives, and many of us have so much life yet to be lived.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Presence is best 🤍. Be here, share here, create space here.

Love each other well.

We used to love sharing a Chili’s molten lava cake

Day 12

This is actually my second “Day 12” post: I deleted the first one because out of my wounds, I may have wounded another. As I heard John Mark Comer state, “our wickedness is fueled by our wounds.” I was childish in venting my frustrations with a person to the public, and I owe that individual and anyone who read my first post an apology. This is not the time, place, or space to address something of that nature. Especially because I know that person is hurting, too.

It’s heavy. It’s burdensome. Thoughts and sentences and simple human interaction, right now, is hard for me, it’s hard for my family, and it’s hard for our entire community. We all need grace, and grace in abundance.

Most of the time, I simply feel sick. I have no appetite [but don’t worry, I am eating], I feel nauseous and out-of-it and sad. I feel grateful, I feel sad, and I feel numb. Humans are so complex, how is it that we feel so much at the same time?

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We have been provided for in every way from the generous people from our church: “Give us this day our daily bread,” comes alive when each meal we have has been provided, with each meal perfectly supplying enough for my family each day. That has been beautiful and heartwarming and uplifting. People have been the hands and feet of Jesus each day, serving us, providing for us, ministering to us, and caring for us, and it has been astonishing and incredible to experience.

I cannot over-emphasize how grateful I am for our community and how in-awe I am for how we have been treated and loved.

I’ve never felt more provided for or taken care of than I do right now. “God is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit” Psalm 34:18. I believe that now more than ever, despite my inevitable deconstruction. I believe it’s far easier to dismiss God than to have faith and trust in him under circumstances like these — this is when faith and trust becomes real.

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Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning — Specifically Suicide Survivors

Saying “It doesn’t matter how they died,” is dismissive. When someone takes their own life, there is no natural cause, no illness, and no accident to blame.

Someone bereaved by suicide can only blame the person who committed the act, and his/her self. Suicide creates an arduous mental cycle. For me, it plays out something like this…

• I’m angry at my mom, she did this to me

• I’m confused. Why didn’t she reach out? Anyone would have helped her, I would have helped her

• I’m sad. She was in so much pain. What was she hopeless about? Why was she despairing?

• I’m confused and wounded. I don’t know what it’s like to have or to lose a child, but I cannot imagine she would give up life with her three living children because she was so desperate to be with her son. Her son, my brother, who also took his life.

• I’m sad, and I’m guilty. Did she know I loved her?

• I blame myself. Why didn’t I notice her? Why didn’t she want to confide in me? What did I miss?

And the cycle repeats. These are thoughts are examples of how suicide survivors think and process this type of death: grief from natural causes does not require this mental load. Thus, when one says that “it doesn’t matter how she died,” it points to their ignorance of the psychological impact and damage suicide survivors suffer.

Yes, all death is painful and comparing types of deaths certainly does not help anyone, but please try to understand the differences between a natural death and someone taking their own life.

Acknowledge the suicide survivor’s pain, and acknowledge your own pain. Vulnerability leads to life, bypassing of any type (spiritual bypassing, avoidance, denial, etc) leads to death. Take care of yourself — bypassing is not worth it.

Day 7

I’ve never appreciated the term “Celebration of Life,” but that’s exactly what we experienced today.

The sacred beauty of funerals presents itself in the friends who show up, the people who tune in, and the unique set of individuals determined to listen and observe the stories of a life once lived.

Today you found out how my mom died: you learned the news we wish we did not need to share. I hate that this is part of Mom’s story, and I hate that it is part of mine.

When I think back over the years, maybe every day we had with my mom since Patrick died was a miracle — maybe it was a miracle before even that. We’ll never know, and that’s severely painful.

I thought this past year was the best year of my life. I thought we were all having so much fun. It’s abysmally burdensome to reconcile, but I do know that multitudes of feelings may commingle — joy with sorrow, anger with relief, frustration with love.

As was said many times today, “May we never be defined by our worst moments.” My Momma was so beautiful, and she loved life, and she endured an unimaginable despair. Both were entirely true.

Thank you for my Momma’s beautiful Celebration of Life. She would have loved it 🩷

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning — Specifically for Suicide Survivors

If a cause of death is not published immediately, it is likely because it is due to a highly sensitive cause of death – such as suicide – It is rude to ask the family “What happened?” prior to the family’s announcement. Curiosity is natural, but respect the family when a cause of death is not mentioned.
Do not ask someone how their loved one took their life. This is also quite rude and this information rarely helps.
Do not ask if “foul play” was involved. Suicide is one of the harshest ways someone can die — a survivor of suicide wishes more than anything else that their loved one did not take their life.
Do not ask if their loved one left a note.

Everyone wants to make sense of a horrible situation, but most questions of this nature are extremely insensitive to suicide survivors.

Future Ways to Help

Listen. Create a safe space for the wounded. A survivor may want to share details such as how their loved one died, this is a privilege and not a right. This sacred information should be honored with respect and reverence.

Reminder for the GoFund Me set up for my Daddy. Our family has an immense amount of trauma to rehabilitate from.

Thank you for loving my Momma 💙

Day 11

When my eyes open in the morning, a fresh onset of “this is life now” sets in and burrows sorrow deeper and deeper into my soul. Heaviness surrounds me in the black room and my tired eyes do not search for light, they simply stare at the ceiling, wishing my Mom was still here. Deep breath. The pain accompanies me every moment, but the dark quiet incubates it. Here, it’s raw and vulnerable and sad.

I’ve never been very good about jumping out of the bed and getting ready for the day, but now getting out of bed requires much more effort than simply awakening from a sleepy stupor.

We went to the zoo today, which I suppose is good, but I have very little interest in doing much right now. Exhaustion has set in – at first I was not sleeping, now I am sleeping at night and napping during the day. No matter what time or where I sleep, persistent dreams come alive. I am so out of sorts.

Daily Tip for Communicating with a Person in Mourning

I love your daily messages. Some via text, some via instant messenger, some commenting on these posts. I have not responded much to them, but I do appreciate them. Facebook comments are the easiest [quickest, really] to read right now, but I like the instant messages / texts too. I am just a little slower at opening those. Your messages help. I like reading about your experience and it feels validating and comforting to see your support, prayers, and encouragement.

Day 10

Day by day, more people leave, and tomorrow our last visitors will travel home. My nuclear family, all that remains, will experience one week together before some return home to North Carolina.

Then the “new normal” will really start to settle as we grasp for new routines.

My mind strives to protect me by covering me mainly in denial. Most of the time, reality feels miles away. I dream constantly of my Mother: dreams telling her why she shouldn’t leave, dreams of me finding her in witness protection, dreams that continue to deny reality. A properly-working mind knows when one has the capacity to wake up to reality, but for now my mind operates mainly from shock and denial.

I am anxious for when my mind will allow me to feel everything it must, for “pain demands to be felt,” and thus it’s only a matter of time.

Today, I am simply grateful again for everyone’s phenomenal support.