Patience to Endure

Category: Hope and Healing

  • It Goes On

    It Goes On

    When I was a child, my father had a darkroom in our basement. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the bitter chemicals and see the reddish light barely illuminating the room. I did not know exactly what he was doing in there, taking paper from one chemical into another and then hanging it up. I just knew he loved it and I loved him, so sitting in the dark was perfectly fine with me.

    I don’t know why I remember the two quotes he had hanging by thumbtacks on his wall. I was only eight years old. Yet one that has been attributed to Robert Frost is at the forefront of my mind today.

    “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

    Today marks six months and one day since my sweet Wesley left. Grief makes a stranger of time. Six months, six minutes, six years. All of those are befitting of how it feels some days as I sit here in the after.

    Yet somehow, life has continued to go on. Now when I open my eyes in the morning, I am grateful my first thought is no longer, “I don’t want to be in a world he is not.”

    Acceptance.

    I am living in a world where he is not.

    Six months ago, it seemed impossible, but joy is creeping back in. I have a cheesy wall hanging that reads, “Today, I choose joy.” Up until six months ago, I believed I had that power. Child loss will render one incapable of anything other than enduring a living nightmare. It will steal a mother’s very will to live.

    Day in and day out I hung on. I clung to a barely perceivable faith. I held on with what little strength there was left of me.

    The only thing in my power was not what I could do; it was what I couldn’t do. I could not give up.

    I am resigned to the knowledge that for the rest of my life, not a day will pass that I do not feel that piercing, overwhelming sense of loss. I will miss my sweet boy as assuredly as the sun will rise. It is just how it is now.

    But the spaces in between have grown. And sprinkled in there are perfect little specks of joy, laughter, and, dare I say, life again.

    Life goes on.

    Whether we are ready...
    Whether we are willing...
    Whether we are able...

    It does go on.

    There are moments in grief, glimpses and impulses of belief that perhaps as life goes on, I might be moving forward with it. Not boldly or victoriously but quietly hopeful.

    Perhaps life’s grandest victories are not brought with triumphant banners but with the silent resignation to not give up just one more day.

  • Unappointed

    Unappointed

    Dear lady in the row in front of us at church today,

    Thank you for taking your baby out of his car seat exactly when you did.

    During worship, I watched you and your husband diligently checking under the blanket covered car seat.

    At an unappointed moment, you reached in and took him out of his cocoon. Holding him for a few minutes you swayed back and forth before wrapping him against you in a sling. He was safe. He was content. He was close to your heart. It was the most ordinary, beautiful thing a mother does.

    We had just begun singing, “Even while I’m walking through the valley of death and dying,” when my tears percolated. At times, as any bereaved mother can attest, once the tears are unleashed, they become impossible to control until they are fully exhausted. Then, somehow, more are found.

    See, I lost my precious son almost five months ago. I am in the valley of death and dying, though it doesn’t feel like walking. It is more a military crawl through mud for a few inches then curling into a ball, exhausted and overwhelmed.  Progress in grief isn’t linear. It is not always forward. It is up, down, backward, and inside out. It is chaos.

    For the griever, the world is painful and unpredictable. A song, a scent, a favorite food, almost anything can be a trigger and cause an avalanche until, in unexpected places like church, I am holding on for dear life.

    But then you took your baby out and held him to you.

    His eyes grew bigger as he looked around and heard the singing. He was no longer in the dark, even if he was only sleeping. He was now awake and engaged in a welcoming world.

    The singing continued and the next line in the song became an anchor.

    “I will not fear cause you are with me. You’re always with me.”

    At some unappointed moment, God will carefully take me out of this present darkness. He will restore me.  I will re-engage with the world.

    Until then He holds me close, even here.

  • Scripture for the Hard Times

    Scripture for the Hard Times

    There is a level of deep grief and when we are in it, Scripture and platitudes do not help. Nothing seems to help. Four months after losing my precious son I am just beginning to emerge long enough to remember and hold onto some of God’s promises.

    May they encourage you.

  • A Whisper from Heaven

    A Whisper from Heaven

    Sweet boy, I drove one our favorite routes today.

    The road has taken some damage over the years. So have I. The view, however, was ever the same.

    Grandma and Aunt Dolly went to see a friend from church play at the Batesville Market. It isn’t the kind of place we would have taken you. The building is old and not accessible. I had to carry Aunt Dolly’s walker up a few stairs and then help guide her as she climbed.

    It felt good to care for someone, even slightly, the way I did for you.

    After leaving them settled, I went straight instead of turning around to get home. You loved our drives—especially that stretch of road. We would listen to music and on nights like this we would have rolled down the windows. I can still see you—mouth open smile and eyes squinting—as the wind hit your face. You would shake your head, flap your arms, and bounce with delight.

    The road is long and winding with majestic mountain views. There are historic homes, gigantic mansions, and farmland with cows and horses. It is quintessential Virginia.

    I sobbed.

    Please God, give me something, anything.

    Relieve this pain even a little.

    Give me peace. Let me know You are here and I am not alone. A sign.

    Anything?

    He was the best part of me, my whole world, and you took Him. Why? Why would you do that to me?

    I am here. Your daughter. Your child is alone and hurt and scared. Won’t you do anything at all to help me?

    Please God. Please.

    Sometimes He calms the storm. 
    Sometimes He calms the child.

    Sometimes He does nothing.

    Or so it feels.

    Grief has revealed a depth of my soul I never knew existed—where tears and agony are abundant. Or perhaps she found the now empty place where you once were and settled right in.

    When God took you back, sweet boy, your heart became infected with bacteria. It spread everywhere.

    When God made me stay, my heart became infected with Grief. She invades everything.

    At the end of the drive, I dried my tears and ended my lamentation with:

    I am holding on to You anyway.

    I was surprised Grandma and Aunt Dolly wanted to stay the entire time. It tickled my heart to envision two ladies in their eighties hanging out listening to jazz on a Friday night.

    When I left a couple of hours later to pick up them up, I stood at the car and looked up at the beautiful spring sky. This time of year, every part of creation announces the new season—even the stars.

    Okay, God. I am asking again for a sign. Would You show me a shooting star? At least let me know I am not alone.

    Sweet boy, wouldn’t you know one appeared as soon as I finished asking?

    It wasn’t particularly spectacular in brightness or length—just a whisper and had I not been looking at that exact spot in the sky I might have missed it.

    The feeling might not last, but it came and that matters.

    It is a lifeline I can grab when the abyss comes—and it assuredly does.

    I miss you, sweet boy, more than I ever knew a heart could.

    At this point, living captive by Grief for eight weeks, I will take promises yet to be.

    For the first time I thought—

    just maybe,

    I am going to be all right.