friendship

It’s been 231 days since my Mother ended her life. She was 51. I was 27.

It’s been 2,468 days since my brother’s suicide was discovered. He was 28. I was 21.

It’s been 2,836 days since my close friend drowned. He was 25. I was 20.

I could list a few more death dates, but these three have been the most sudden and traumatic. They are the most obvious and the most public form of trauma that I have endured.

* * * *

When I was a preteen and teenager, I couldn’t wait for my twenties. I couldn’t wait for the freedom that comes with growing up — being able to drive, choose a place to live, and figuring out what I wanted from life. I longed for the independence and relished the idea of being free and fun and maybe beautiful.

I started college at age 16 and was well on my track for freedom and independence — kind of. I had the most supportive parents in the world: they agreed to let me use Dad’s GI Bill and at 17 I “moved out” into a college dorm.

Dinner before Mom and Dad dropped me off at University

Each of my Sibling’s Favorite Bible Verses. Notes from my parents and brothers on the back of each letter. They made it as a gift for my first dorm.

In college… well, I was just about the most boring human you’d ever meet, ha. You can ask my good friends Brittany and Becca to verify — we called ourselves the “Grandma Group” because we woke up early and studied all the time. They’re actually the friends that pushed me to start this blog nearly 10 years ago (read my bio for more info on that).

I wasn’t fun. I don’t think I’ve ever really been fun, but I did love the freedom. Turns out, all I really wanted freedom to do was read books and drink coffee peacefully. There’s not a whole lot of peace in a houseful of teenage brothers 🙂 but there is a whole lot of love.

My sweet friend drowned mere weeks from my graduation… suddenly my exciting twenties sank into the vast ocean of grief. As JK Rowling imaginatively defines it, there really are two types of people in the world: those who see thestrals and those who don’t. Brittany and Becca lovingly cleaned my apartment when I went home for my friend’s funeral, and they left flowers to welcome me when I returned. Professors extended capstone deadlines, and Lauren even helped me write some of my final papers.

Brittany and Becca left this when they cleaned my apartment 💙

My parents moved the day I graduated college, and I wasn’t sure where I’d live anymore. I was searing from a world stripped of all confidence and hope. My friend Rachel took me under her wing and let me stay with her while I tried to figure out my next move.

366 days later, my brother Patrick went AWOL. I spent the night with him the evening before our friend’s one year death-anniversary. The morning of the one year, Patrick gave me a book, he told me he loved me, and I never heard from him again. I haven’t brought myself to read that book. Those same sweet friends showed up then too, and a few more. 💙

There’s so much shock in initial grief — you’re just so happy to see the people who are alive 💙

11 months after that, I left Virginia to join my parents for a month before I moved to Florida. I only told two people what day I would leave Virginia… I didn’t even tell my now husband, despite his pleadings to let him know when I would be gone. I think hurt a lot of people doing that, but shame kept me from allowing people to say goodbye — I didn’t think I deserved it. I thought people wishing me well would be lying… I wasn’t much of a good friend back then. My theme song was The Prince of Spain’s “Rising Sun,” and so I went just like the lyrics.

At 22, my dog Nala and I travelled across the country to start our new lives in Sunny Florida. I’d accepted a great job in a town I’d never heard of, my friend Tori gifted me Nala, and we were off to create a new and exciting life. And it was new and exciting! I had a beautiful apartment and I had hopes and dreams once more. I had a safe place where I could read in peace once again. It was such a turning point for me, a clear mark of sunshine and healing.

My parents and brother Sawyer joined me not long after. Life was beautiful for me. Simple. Healing. Years of healing and new life. I pursued EMDR — a specialized trauma therapy — my second year in Florida and it changed my life.

My parents buying me things for my first solo apartment 💙

So much growth and healing in this sweet space.

I learned about my own attachment style and how to navigate various attachment styles, and I learned how to better love and accept love. Much to my surprise, I reconnected with Scott and our friendship bloomed into a loving marriage when I turned 25. I remember thinking at the beginning of our relationship that Scott had seen me at my worst and he still loved me — he still showed up, especially in times where I couldn’t show up for myself, much less anyone else.

You can do so much healing on your own, but there are some forms of healing that can’t be done outside of relationships; relationships, especially marriage, expose insecurities and triggers people typically can’t realize they have on their own. Trust issues rooted in past relationships surface even in the most trustworthy of partners. So many triggers and arguments have so little to do with the person in front of you. We had fun in our first year of marriage, but a lot of trauma resurfaced. Moving was a huge adjustment for Scott and I tended to take that personally — as if him missing home meant he didn’t love me or our life together.

Our second year, though, brought a new golden age. I dared to hope. I dared to dream. It was beautiful and it was sweet and it was fun. We explored everywhere together… and then we’d bring my parents back the next week :). We did almost everything with them. It was idyllic. Our lives were measured with so much love, support, and hope.

Then bullets pierced the contentment we shared as murder and suicide ricocheted through our lives.

Some of those same friends, Brittany and Ean and Lauren came back for the third time. They did everything for me… when I have done so little for them. They cared for my home, they cared for my family, they cared for me. So many more friends joined along the way — other friends in multitudes of states sent their support or show up, friends in Florida came to our aid as well.

* * * *

I had been looking forward to my thirties, begging to leave behind my twenties. If I’m honest, most days I really don’t want to be alive. I don’t want to do the basics of going to work, making dinner, keeping up with a home, and socializing. It’s not that I want to die, I just don’t want to live through this and through whatever else is next.

I thought in my early twenties that I’d made it through the worst of life, but it just keeps getting worse and the losses keep getting more painful. I’m the youngest in my family — I always assumed I’d be the last to die, but I didn’t think I’d lose so many so early and to such violent ends.

This week I’ve given up hope that my thirties will be any better than my twenties.

I don’t believe that life is good, but I’m starting to believe that it isn’t necessarily bad. There are many, many, many things and events in life that are bad, but that doesn’t mean life as a whole is bad. It’s not even neutral: life is beautiful, and it is a gift.

Despite everything, as I type these tragedies, I see the beauty of the friends who have shown up again and again and again. I haven’t been able to be that person to them, but they’ve been that to me. They have lived and loved and given and given — they have made the worst of my life live-able and bearable and beautiful. These and so many other friends… They have made life kind. They have brought healing.

When I see the beauty around me — in friendships, in nature, in kindness — it reminds me how much of a gift this life truly is. Awe prompts me to think of all Patrick and Mom gave up and all they’re missing out on.

While I may not have the energy or motivation to engage in basic life tasks, these things ground me. Maybe tragedy will continue to define each decade of my one wild and beautiful life, but as long as I’m living I know that more people will come alongside and join me in these tragedies, and that is a very beautiful thing.

We do many things when we operate out of fear instead of love: we kick and we scream, we beg and we plead, we ache and we cry, and we break and we bleed, until we shatter into tiny pieces and crumble gently to the cold and unforgiving floor.

“This is tragedy,” we internalize as we attempt to grasp our broken pieces scattered about us. We trace the ceiling with our eyes as the chill from the floor sends ice down our backs.

But how can we feel that which is no longer connected to us? In shambles, we attempt to hold ourselves together. In truth, we’ve already fallen quite apart entirely.

No, our dust cannot be pieced back together.

— — —

On of my favorite quotes looms in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, awaiting an eager reader’s interpretation.

“I could tell you my adventures–beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly: “But it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then”

Too often “yesterday” prompts me to silently fear the plights of tomorrow and disregard the joys of today. It’s astounding how much a single day can alter one’s perception for the remainder of his or her life.

May 11, 2019: 3 Days before Patrick’s Funeral

Broken is a scary place to be–it’s vulnerable and alone, exposing and frightening–but, perhaps it’s the safest place to be. In David Platt’s Radical, Platt ponders: “What if the center of God’s will is in reality the most unsafe place for us to be?” Platt proposes that following God often leads us into perilous and/or painful circumstances that strengthen our faith and build the kingdom of God beyond the pain that we can see.

In Faith in the Fog, Jeff Lucas’s exploration of the interaction between Christ and Peter when Christ inquires, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Lucas describes the dangerous draw to complacent avoidance:

Sometimes I’m lured by the thought of a safe, predictable, even dull existence. I don’t want a purpose-driven life. I don’t want purpose, and I certainly don’t want driven–I just want life.

Longing for consistency, we can foolishly allow fear to ransack our thoughts and carry us to places we know we shouldn’t go and prompt us to do things we regret–we’ll run from the goodness we fear into the clutches of a deceptive “safe place,” where we find comfort in the familiar. Unfortunately, familiarity does not equate to safety.

Tranquility is monotony’s gift. It’s the security one feels in the comfortability of a changeless season, but it can be precariously complacent. Succumbing to temptation to live a life dedicated to ease causes us to miss the opportunity to indulge with those who suffer and to build one another up from places of deep depravity and heartache.

Believe me, I crave “normal,” “easy,” and “safe,” now more than ever, but surrendering to “I don’t care” and embracing a simple life dedicated to fear steals any opportunity to glorify God with my gift of suffering.

Numbing one’s pain never helps–instead numbness creates a welcoming environment for sin to manifest through disbelief. When we choose to numb ourselves to the desires of God–desires for life and abundance and suffering–we reject the of goodness in His plan.

I don’t want to care anymore–life is easier when we don’t care about what’s happening around us, right?? That’s the illusion of denial. Denial deceives us into believing that all is well when the world is on fire, and, in the end, we burn along with the rest of the world because we weren’t discerning enough to escape the flames.

— — —

When I dreamed of the future, I never imagined that my brother would not be in it.

That day and the following two months changed [and continue to change] me more than I was willing to admit to myself and to others; I fear my emotional response to his death, I fear my past, and I fear healing from the events that mar me. Healing seems like letting go of someone who was supposed to be with me forever.

I’ve been reduced to dust, as Lysa TerKeurst defines these kinds of seasons in her book, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way. Dust moments–they’re the moments that forever change your existence and shatter who you once were. I liked what my life was like back then. I liked how my family looked back then. I liked who I was back then. But, like Alice, I am not who I was yesterday, my circumstances today are not like they were, and I will never return to the woman that I was at that time.

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Do I love God more than I love what I had hoped for Patrick?

I spent months in fear of that question–I spent months in fear of how his death will affect my perception of life itself. Months.

This time, I was broken beyond repair. My family was broken beyond repair. It feels like I died on that day, but I kept living. I kept breathing. I kept moving. But I was reduced to dust, and life mollified me.

I have so much to fear, but I also have so much to live.

I have changed. I’ve changed so much since May 7, 2019. My entire outlook on life and death is dramatically different than what it once was, and I am so incredibly thankful for that.

— — —

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
Proverbs 17:17

My sweet friend, Jocelyn, came to visit me this past weekend. Jocelyn’s been an endearing blessing for my entire life–she’s safe, she’s welcoming, and she’s encouraging. She loves Jesus and she loves me and my family, and she came along my side and gladly stayed in the messy room I’ve neglected since May. She told me it’s okay, and she told me I was strong. She went on a crazy adventure with me and smiled and laughed the whole time.

Jocelyn helped me get back on my feet–it’s truly amazing how life-giving a lifelong friend can be. It’s so sweet how Jesus uses those around us to build us up.

— — —

Yes, I have changed, and yes, I have broken entirely. I have been reduced to unrecognizable dust. God brings life from the dust, and He’s given me another chance at life. He rejuvenated my perspective and has lifted my spirit. I am not who I was, and I am okay with that. I am healing, I am being made new, and I am living.

— — —

When love compels us, any fear we have becomes worth the risk. Love emboldens and strengthens. Love is what picks us up from the floor:

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
II Corinthians 5:14-15

It’s the warmth of a loving Father, welcoming his cold and tired prodigal home with open arms. Our refuge and our rock–our God and our redeemer. He takes the dust that we are and renews us entirely.

Exposed

Exposed

Week 33

To The Sufferer: