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
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 shewould 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.
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.
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 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.
Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning
The less decisions a person in mourning needs to make, the better. Mourning requires an enormous amount of mental energy, and helping make a decision alleviates a bit of mental fatigue.
Our second church service since Mom left us filled me with encouragement once more. A healthy amount of tears dripped from my sore eyes onto my pallid cheeks as we sang of God’s good plans, his faithfulness, and his constance. All of which I believe, and I mean really believe.
However, I mentioned the dissonance between faith and desperate circumstances during Mom’s Celebration of Life, and I want to share more of what exactly that looks like. Suffering forces people to confront their inmost beliefs, and that is completely healthy and can become beautiful. My Mom loved Jesus with her entire being: the cacophony of confusion left in her wake prompts intense introspection and deconstruction.
Our Father in heaven,
your name be honored as holy.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:9-13, CSB
Now, please understand, I’m not looking for answers and I do not plan to provide any at this time, but I do want to share the questions clamoring in my mind. Thoughts that, perhaps, cloud your mind as well. Maybe sharing my thoughts will help those echoing the same to feel less alone and less afraid, because two thoughts can be true at the same time: one can trust God and be utterly confused and skeptical at the same time. Thus, my questions:
• Good fathers are supposed to protect their family. Why don’t you [God] protect mine?
• If Jesus is the abundant life, how could my mom die? She loved him.
• If he [God] knew what Mom needed, why weren’t her needs met?
I’ve said this so many times — I believe that God can do all things, but I fear what he will allow to happen. This is precisely why: I have not experienced twice how despair and hopelessness kill those whom I love, and those who legitimately love Jesus.
Today, I was incredibly overwhelmed by the generosity and the care from mine and Scott’s small group. They ensured our current needs were met and provided provisions for our future needs. My family has experienced such incredible and support from people being the hands and feet of Jesus, and, because of them, right now my faith remains strong. I wrestle through these complex questions, but it is abundantly clear that we have our daily bread, that God is providing and caring for us, and that we will get through this. I cannot thank our community enough for all they have done. You have eclipsed this horribly dark and tragic time with light and love and I am amazed and humbled at all of this. Thank you.
Tips for Communicating with Someone in Mourning
Acknowledging the situation is better than avoiding the topic altogether. It may be awkward to speak up, but a simple “I see you,” goes a long way 💙
Funeral preparations cease but a few friends and family members from out of town remain close. Reality slowly creeps in as the whispers of finding a “new normal” lingers just around the corner. In a matter of days, most of the world will return to work while we begin to reorganize our lives.
My Daddy, of course, will have the most significant adjustment for his day-to-day life. Already, he sleeps without my Mom, but he has not had to experience a “typical” day without her. They were partners, they were friends, and they were lovers. I always thought they really would be that couple from The Notebook: I never thought this could happen.
Their relationship was an anchor in my life. They endured and overcame agonizing trauma together again and again and again, and they were the best of friends. Growing up, I always wanted a marriage like theirs. Since getting married, I still wanted a relationship like theirs! My marvelous husband and I watched their love for one another with reverence and admiration. They were such an amazing team. They loved being together and they loved each other well. It’s difficult not to be really angry with my mom when I think of their truly inspirational marriage… and then it’s really, really, really sad.
As my brother Luke reminded, my siblings and I had never known a world without Mom until eight days ago.
Rehabilitation — that’s the word that keeps bustling through my mind. Learning to live without Mom feels like rehabilitating back into normal society: walking, driving, talking, biking, writing, smiling, and so much more, feels so foreign and unnatural. I feel as though I can barely hold a thought or concept in my mind.
Denial persists more than anything right now, a dull ache thumps within me at all times, but most of the time I can’t believe my Mom’s gone and I can’t believe my mom left me feels like a distant thought and not an annihilating reality. My Momma, I still mumble in shock. Moments of mayhem pierce me to the core, preparing me for when the shock wears off and when I’ll have to truly face this menacing reality.
My Mom grounded and anchored my life, creating stability and safety. What now?
Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning
I have provided many things not to say — all of which from comments multiple people have made, not just one-off comments as to not single anyone out — but there are so many good things people say as well.
“I’m sorry” feels like such a weak thing to say, but it encompasses a tremendous amount of emotion and care. The short phrase empathizes with the mourners and often creates an understanding between two hurting people.
Future Ways to Help
Small tasks are incredibly helpful — doing a load of laundry, wiping down a counter, calling to set up a dental appointment. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even remember to put a pair of shoes on – it’s invaluable to notice those little things that may be neglected and to help one another out.
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.
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 💙
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.
Virginia Beach, August 2019
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.
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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 