Through the Storm

I’m sitting in the library, trying to work on my final paper of my undergraduate career. Should be easy, really. Still, I’d rather devote my typing to something else right now, and this seemed like a good fit.

I haven’t written much under my “Thoughts of the Day” category lately. (Have you noticed I like to categorize things?) So here I am reviving it.

My thought today, or right now really, comes from staring at the most amazing yellow sky I have seen in a while. It rained here today. All day. A lot. The sky has, therefore, been dark and gray and cloudy. Which, for me, was not a good day for that to happen (see earlier note). I didn’t think I’d see the sun today. And I really wanted to see the sun.

I suppose my prayer for sunlight wasn’t quite answered. But this golden glow across the clouds is a pretty decent second. Shuffle on my iPod decided to play “You Never Let Go” by Matt Redman about the time this glow crept across the sky, which I found to be rather fitting.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I’m caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won’t turn back
I know you are near

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?

(Chorus:)
Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
We’ll live to know You here on the earth

(Chorus)

Yes, I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You

Beautiful.

Recurring dream

1:58 am. Staring at the clock, I try to recollect my thoughts. Where am I? What just happened? Oh, it was just a dream…

The daze after a dream. I’m sure we’ve all felt it at one time or another. But this feeling has occurred on a far more regular basis for me than I’d like. Too often in the past several years I’ve found myself waking from a dream, with a similar theme each time. It poses as reality, and shatters my hopes when I realize it was just a dream.

I have lost count of the number of dreams I’ve had about my mother since she died. These dreams are often the same: I’m usually either telling her goodbye, or know I soon will be. But there is still a deceptive hope that comes with those dreams. I always wake up thinking she is still alive, at least. It’s a crushing thing to realize that isn’t so. These dreams make me feel like I could just pick up a phone and call her, or that she has gone a way for a little while and I’ll see her again soon.

Sometimes these dreams cause me to wake up and think that everything was a dream, and that somehow I just imagined that my mom had cancer, and died. My hopes, again, are dashed when I realize it isn’t that way. She did die, and the dream only makes that reality hurt even more. It’s as though I have to “lose” her all over again.

I had heard people who had lost loved ones say that they thought about them every day. I always wondered how that was possible. Even though I had faced grieving before with other family members, that didn’t seem to be true. Sooner or later it just wouldn’t be something that was a daily part of my life. With my mother’s death, I can honestly say that not a day has passed that she somehow hasn’t been on my mind. Maybe not at the forefront of my thinking, but somehow the pain of that loss has never released its grip. Sometimes all it takes is a word or a phrase, a memory, a question, or a dream.

Grieving, still.

I have not written on grief lately, mostly because I have not had much to say. This is not to say that grieving has ceased to be a part of my life. The pain of loss is a constant friend and bitter reminder of the events of the past two years of my life.

This “year two” thing has been an interesting mixed bag as far as grieving goes. On the one hand, it is much easier to walk about life when there aren’t so many “firsts.” I still miss mom, but the pain of that loss is not as fresh in my life. And in some senses, this year so far has been really enjoyable.

The flip side is that most people around my, outside of my family, no longer have the freshness of my loss in mind either. Not that I would expect them to, of course. But it is hard when this is still a very real part of my daily life. Not a day goes by without thinking about her. Not a day. And that is kind of hard to explain to people. I don’t think people expect me to “move on” I think they just don’t think about it.

Navigating life after the death of someone close is unlike anything I have ever experienced. It has challenged me, hurt me, grown me, and transformed me. I can say without hesitation that I am a different person than I was before my mom became sick. Hopefully different for the better.

The grieving process is, I don’t think, a static process. Nor is it something that I think has a definitive ending point. I will always morn the absence of my mother from my life. Always. Thus it may be fair to say that I will be grieving for the rest of my life. The sting of that absence may not be as strong as it is now, but the wound will always be there in some form. It may become a rather distant memory, but the memory will always be there. And her memory will never be distant. There are few people on this earth who can claim to have truly seen you grow up, starting from day one. Losing a person who has that insight is devastating, but also not something that you ever forget.

So I keep going. Grieving each day as needed. Living life as best I can. Enjoying the beauty around me. Trusting in a faithful God. Hoping for a joyful reunion today with all those that have gone before me.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

words

People tell me I’m good at expressing myself. People tell me that my writing encourages them, or helps them through grief in their own life. People tell me I should write for a living. Interesting. See, I really don’t have words for what I’m going through. I can babble and pontificate about a lot of small things, but I can’t put words to what I feel. I can’t even seem do that in my journal. I put only a small fraction of words down on paper that describe how I feel. And more often than not, I feel like I’m frantically grasping for a those words. I. just. don’t. have. words.

More often than not, I find the whole situation unbelievable. How I got here, I just don’t seem to know. Sure, I can give you all the points of the story, the news of her brain tumors–almost exactly one year ago–the news of her terminal cancer, etc. But those are all so superficial. They only tell of the events. There is something much deeper that is so utterly mysterious to me. I lie awake at night, in disbelief. You can’t really lose your mother, can you?

Stranger still are the moments where I feel like this is always the way things have been. The pictures of her on the wall seem like distant memories. Perhaps I conjured up some grand idea of a person. Or perhaps her life was some fantastic dream I had. There is of course memories of her everywhere, but am I just attaching meaning to those items? I have nothing tangible now, really. Only my memories. Was she ever really a part of my life?

I wish I could describe the pain. Pain. It is exhausting. I have lost count of the number of times I have felt physically ill this year. Sick? No…just grieving. Funny thing is that it can happen on the very best of days otherwise…when everything else seems to be going along just fine. Even as I write this, my heart physically aches. I can feel the grief in my body. And of course, I feel it emotionally. This process is so exhausting, my gosh sometimes I wish I could just step out of it all for a while. Just one day without grief…what a beautiful thing it would be.

C.S. Lewis described grief as being like fear. I can perhaps see that. It isn’t that I am afraid, but it feels much like being afraid. The feelings, the thoughts, the emotions, they torment much like fear. Grief is an inescapably overarching thing. I wake up with it. I go to bed with it. It haunts my dreams, and it clouds my days. I can not escape. How could I? Every part of life is connected, somehow. I am bombarded with things I want to share with her, questions I’d like to ask her…a conversation may bring back a memory of her, sitting at home, I could swear I see her. It hurts, it aches, it kills. I am in disbelief that I am actually watching this happen in my life.

What has happened seems like a story one reads about. It is the plot line from some cheesy movie, or perhaps the story of some distant person on the radio as I drove to work. Not my own life. The horror and reality of loss is massive. I think it is too big to even grasp as a whole entity. I have moments where I see bigger parts of the picture, and I am overwhelmed. It seems to big and to dark to be a part of my life. Life was so good before, wasn’t it? What happened to that? I feel like someone rudely awakened from their sleep. I did not ask for this, nor did I want it. I was happy and content…and I’d like that back now, please.

Nothing, nothing, is the same anymore. Things I use to enjoy have little interest to me now. Things I use to hate don’t bother me anymore. Nothing is the same. Life use to be a predictable ordeal. It isn’t anymore. Grief shakes and shatters everything in your life. Can you function? Yes. Doesn’t mean it is smooth, easy or predictable. Nor does it mean that it is the same as it was before. Many times I tell people I am doing ok. And I mean it with much sincerity. “Ok,” of course, means nothing of what it use to. It is now some very different thing entirely, and even it can’t really be predicted day-to-day.

Yet the bizarre thing of it is that it actually is not all that bad. Like some dull prison cell that becomes home, grief becomes some meaningful reality. Though nothing is the same, and nothing seems predictable, it has its own rhythm and feel. It is a good journey. What would have once seemed like the most horrid ordeal to endure, now it is everyday life. The day that once upon a time would have been a nightmare now marks a good day. And the good days, though not what they were, seem a whole lot better when you see how “bad” a day really can be. Grief teaches many lessons. I understand things that I doubt anyone would really understand, unless they’ve been through something similar. Though petty compensation for what I’ve lost, the lessons of grief have their place. I will live my life differently because of what has happened.

I am surprised more people have not asked me how this has affected my faith. Though it is not something that really even I know yet, I do wonder if it ever crosses the average mind how much this changes things? I fear bringing this up ever though because I might receive some cliché Christian answer to my questions, an answer I already know full well. Yet once again paradoxically, I can probably tell more stories of the goodness of God than many typical Christians. My faith has perhaps never been stronger. How? I don’t really know or understand.

I never really know anymore what any given day will bring. Thus far they have all been quite unpredictable and unexpected. The good days may pass without incident, and the bad days I am relieved when my head finally hits the pillow and I fall asleep. But every day still has the same pain and grief. It fills my mind, my heart…I feel it physically and emotionally. The loss is such a huge part of my life, that life itself seems to be consumed by it. How strange it all is…I wish I could get out. How much I don’t understand…I’m learning a lot.

I just don’t have the words for it.

sharing grief

I don’t think I have ever been as lost for words as I have been these past few months walking through grief. My wordpress account is filled with more unpublished drafts of uncohesive thoughts than I can even count. This is my second attempt at this post, actually. Grief is by far the most challenging thing to articulate I’ve ever encountered. I can’t even describe my feelings and experiences in my own journal, much less to other people. But then, what can I say? Life has utterly changed for me. That brings good and bad.

I know some people have been perplexed when I say I’m doing alright. My mom just died, after all–how can I be anything close to alright? Likewise, I’m sometimes perplexed when people let me get by with that answer.

I have come to utterly despise the questions “how are you?” and “doing alright?” this semester. It seems like such an unfair question, like asking a sick man if he is feeling well. Of course he does not feel well: he’s sick. Likewise, I almost laugh when someone poses the question “are you doing alright?” to me. Of course I’m not alright! My sarcastic side wants to respond, “Oh I’m GREAT! Did I mentioned that my mom died? Yup, life is just fine and dandy!” The very nature of “alright” seems to imply that things are going well: right.

Sometimes, I have ventured to respond with something other than the usual positive answers. The reaction I am often met with is a look of horror as the other person wonders what to do next. Suddenly, they feel they have been thrust into a position where they must “fix” my problem. It is almost as though being “ok” were some formula: if you are not “ok” then something must be wrong in the equation, and if something is wrong in the equation, something needs to be fixed.

Our culture values “being ok.” Life should always be going smoothly; we should be (relatively) happy, prosperous, content, and most importantly “alright.” If we are not those things, then it must mean we are doing something wrong. I know most people probably wouldn’t say they believe that, and most people wouldn’t say they expect me to be “ok.” But we still believe that more often than not. If something is causing you to not be “alright” then perhaps it is something you did wrong. Because, of course, (sarcastic voice) if we were doing everything “right”–having good quiet times, praying, working hard, loving friends and family–then of course we would be “all right.” If only things were this easy! I hate to burst any bubbles, but I’m afraid it isn’t really that simple.

Many people tell me that they are there if I ever need to talk. Which is great. But what is perhaps hard to understand on that side of things, is just how hard that really is. I cannot describe just how hard it is to bring that up with someone. Incredibly hard. Unless there is already a foundation for that kind of conversation, to bring in the depth of pain and hurt that I process everyday is impossible. For one thing, I don’t know how the other person will react. And I also worry they may feel a need to “fix” it–something I really do not need. For another, the words just aren’t there. So to try and start a conversation like that take a huge, huge amount of initiative on my part. It’s easier to just say I’m doing alright.

I think one of the best gifts you can give someone–especially someone grieving–is to not just say “I’m here to talk” but to follow through with that. It’s a bit like being invited to someone’s house. If they say “you are welcome anytime” that is great, but the initiative rests in your hands to make that happen. However, when someone not only invites you, but picks you up–meets you where you are at–then its different. The initiative does not rest on the grieving person–who is already emotionally taxed, and who has to work hard just to initiate getting out of bed in the morning–but rather with the person who is there to support them. Living this way goes beyond just caring, a relatively easy thing, to actively supporting. They have created a relationship where you can be open, and share; it supports the grieving person by taking away the difficulty of initiation.

I am incredibly grateful for the people in my life who have been this support system for me. I believe my position as an RA this past year was much less about the position, and more about my own health and sanity. The support and attention my RD gave me throughout the year was probably the best form of counseling I could have had, meeting me where I was at. And several good friends too…people who have taken the time and the effort to initiate and meet me where I was at, rather than expecting me to do it if I “needed to talk.”

My biggest hope and fear walking through this is that I won’t change because of this. I fear that not only have I been guilty in the past of the very things I describe, but that I will be guilty of the same insensitivity in the future. I hope–pray–that I can support people better after this. Not only people who may go through something “big” like losing a parent unexpectedly, but even just the difficulties normal life can bring. It is incredibly easy to live a life that does not really care about other people, or at the very least does not work to actively express that care. I think it is much harder to actually be someone who is present and caring for those around them. It is one thing to say you care, to care in your own mind for others, but it is quite another to actually work to support them. Not just caring for people; supporting them. I hope I can do that as well as those individuals who make up my own support system do.

Hard Boiled Eggs

I like hard boiled eggs. Actually, I like eggs in general, and hard boiled is just one great form in which to eat them. So, since I had a carton of eggs sitting in my fridge, I thought I’d hard boil a few to enjoy for breakfast this week. But there was one slight problem. I have not hard boiled eggs before. I’ve always been the benefactor of someone else’s hard labor.

This would be the point at which last year, I would have pulled my cell phone out, called my mother, and found the answer to life’s questions. Or at least how to hard boil an egg. But see, I can’t do that anymore. And it throws me off. I can’t tell you how many times as I was reading up on the art of egg boiling, boiling my eggs, and then discovering my egg boiling failure, that I wished I could have called my mother. Somehow a living, breathing human can just give you better directions than a cookbook. A mother is even better.

This isn’t really about the eggs, though. I’ll crack the challenge sooner or later myself. What it is about is what I miss. I miss my mother. There are hundreds of things I have thought of in the past few months that I have started to pull my phone out to call and tell her, only to realize it’ll be a one-sided conversation. Losing someone that has been a part of your life for twenty years is staggering. Even more staggering when you realize what a friend you lost. I’ll miss having a mother, to be sure. But I can solve egg-cooking mysteries on my own. What I really miss is the specific, loving care of one person, Elizabeth Cooke. There were things I could talk with her about, that she would understand, that no one else can do. The hole she leaves is huge. She wasn’t just my mother, she was my friend. A powerful combination. When I had questions on what to do with my life, she had insight that no one else could have. When I had questions on girls, she had insight that no one else could have. When I had questions on some decision I had to make, she had insight that no one else could have. And she had been hard boiling eggs a lot longer than I have.

This week marks the week in the semester’s rhythm which my mom died last semester. It was the last week of classes, just before finals. Today would be the day she fell and broke her hip. Tomorrow marks the last day I ever talked with her. Thursday, her death. I can’t really believe that much time has already passed. Sometimes as I drift to sleep, I remember her last words to me–I stare at the same ceiling falling asleep that I did when she said those words–and I can hear them like they were yesterday. “I’m not doing so well, James…we’ve had lots of good conversations…I love you lots and lot…” I still can’t think about those words without crying. The pain from that loss is with me every single day. I wake up with it and I go to bed with it. Sometimes I physically hurt. Ache. Sometimes, I feel sick. Sometimes, I’m just lost in another world entirely, wishing I could ask her for advice on hard boiled eggs.

Five years from now, the grief won’t be as present a reality as it is today. Life moves on–just the way my mother would want it to–and new normals are discovered. But that loss will always be there. Five years from now, I’ll still have things I’ll want to call her up and tell her. I will still miss her. As I perfect my egg-cooking ability, her memory will be with me. Hard boiled eggs may be a tasty treat, but they will always remind me of my mother and the ways I miss my mother. And that’s a memory I’ll cherish more than an egg.

Understanding Timing

I question God’s sense of timing. I know the Christian answer that “His ways are higher than ours” and that “He works all things together for good.” But honestly it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Why my mother died when I was 20, for example. I’m sorry, but there’s just no way around the fact that sort of thing shouldn’t happen. God may have a plan, and he make work this into something greater, but that just isn’t something that is suppose to happen. Or why, weeks before the end of school, I learn that I sit at the same lunch table almost every day with a man who lost his mother to cancer. There are so few who understand what this is like, to meet someone with such a similar story, is great…I just wish it had been a few months ago. God’s timing…it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Or why God can’t spare me from the frustrating details of life. Like financial aid. I need more money next year than I did this year…and yet I learn that JBU is actually reducing my financial aid package. It’d be so easy for God to just take care of the financial part of life, I could honestly do without the stress. But no. It just doesn’t make sense.

My perspective on so many things has changed this semester. Business, for example. I’ll be honest, sometimes in the midst of so much going on, I get a little sick of people complaining about all they have to do. That test you are stressed over? Guess what, I have it too, oh yeah, and I’m dealing with a ton of crap going on in my life at the same time. I have learned this semester how easily offended I can be with people. For stupid things, really. Things they don’t even realize they are doing, or saying. But I notice. Some days, I feel like I have more grace for people than I use to have, and then on others, I think I have less.

This weekend, and coming week, marks the same time on the semester “timeline” that my mother died. I haven’t sat for finals since last May. That is more than a little weird to me. It was at this time last year that mom really started feeling ill. I came home after finals last year to a mother who could barely walk to the door to greet me. Sometimes I wonder how much the people around me realize that this is still a very present reality in my life. I wake up with it and I go to bed with it. It hurts. A lot. No matter where I turn, or what I do, I am reminded of what has happen. Even something as simple as the rhythm of a semester that is winding down can cause pain.

I hope I haven’t sounded too down here. People ask me sometimes how I am doing, and I never really know how to respond. In a day to day sense, I am doing well. But in the big picture, life is hard. I lost someone who has been a part of my life for over twenty years. Every single day, for twenty years. You don’t just lose someone like that. The loss leaves a huge void in your life, one that I don’t think will ever really totally heal. Imagine what a “bad day” feels like in normal life…that is probably the best way to describe what the “best” days are for me. I do have good days. But they aren’t like what they use to be. And that is hard sometimes.

I wish I could understand it all right now. But I can’t. And that’s alright. Hopefully, someday it will. In the meantime, I keep on.