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

Discomposing

2019 came with vicissitudes for every aspect of my life, from a new apartment to a new job to a new haircut to a new community, and it’s been wonderful. I’m incredibly thankful for where I am, however, a pessimistic demeanor copiously subverts everything around me.

Discomposing: the days swarm past me as life becomes a conundrum. I am weary from the weight of life’s general plights, heightened through unanticipated catastrophes that stifle me as I attempt to keep going. I’ve woken up every day this week pleading: “just get up. Just make it into work. You can make it another day,” and by 10 o’clock I’m convincing myself: “just make it to lunch. If you make it to lunch, you can make it through the rest of today.”

You can make it through.

We weren’t meant to “just make it through.”  Christ said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Lately, it’s been “one thing after another,” mounting each day and piercing each night.  I should be sleeping right now.  I should be.  I wonder if life will always be like this?  After all, it has been for so long. 

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” I know.  But it is like this. “What did I do to deserve this?” I ponder restlessly.

Where is the abundance of life?  Nothing lasts forever, I know that, but this season feels unending and I am growing wearier and wearier.  Yet He is strong, and He is strong when my strength dissipates.

Everything aches.  My mind, my back, my heart. 

Father, please restore to me the joy of my salvation (Psalm 51:12).  I believe, help my unbelief (Mark 9:24).