What I Wish I Could Tell You in My Grief

If it is said "Experience is the greatest of all teachers" one might wonder what lessons are to be learned in a year with eight funerals, SIX between Mother's Day and Labor Day weekend. While there are many lessons to be learned, I can tell you that most of them will be hard and heartbreaking. Perhaps two of the greatest I have learned are: Death effects everyone at some time & Grief looks different to every person in each circumstance.

Many of you have encouraged me to continue writing in the months following our loss of Aunt Suzie. What you must know is that she was my biggest cheerleader when it came to my blogging and sharing. Many times I have sat in front of a blank screen, staring and praying for the release that comes when words begin to flow like they used to, when my fingers had to move fast enough to keep up with my brain. But the words just have not come. My heart is so far behind everything else that is me as silence is all that I hear when the tears begin to fall on the keyboard in front of me. I am still broken beyond anything I have ever had to face before.

But this morning, as I attended yet another funeral to support someone that I love dearly, this very raw, very honest blog that I began in September came to mind. Admittedly, I was in a very dark place when I penned it. Collected from conversations with those I now live with in this life without the one person I know would have read it and encouraged me, I offer you a glimpse into the thoughts of someone in deep grief so that you may learn how to love them where they are....

What I Wish I Could Tell You in My Grief

1. Funerals are hard. They are the reminder that life here comes to an end. Attending one for someone else that I love to support them through their own loss will leave me raw, emotional and flat out exhausted in every sense of the word. I will need time to decompress & recuperate from things & feelings I thought I had already dealt with.

2. Please don't tell me that my loved one is watching down on me. What a wretched thought. To see & watch the pain & agony that I face on a day to day basis, as I learn to live without them, would be a fate that I wouldn't wish on anyone. That's not peaceful. That's not Heaven. It's not remotely Biblical anyway. EDIT 12/18/17: For me, the knowledge that my loved one is with Jesus is far more comforting than them watching me.

3. If you loved her, if you even just like me a little, PLEASE say her name to me. Your dancing around the hole that she left only makes that hole deeper. Fill it with her stories. Fill it with how she loved you & changed your life. Fill it with anything but please don't pretend that she just didn't exist because you're afraid to make me cry. I cry all the time anyway. Happy tears are welcome.

4. This hurts. This hurts in a way that "I understand" or "She's in a better place" only hurts more. You can't understand my personal hurt. The relationship that we shared was unique. Be very careful in comparing. I also know she IS in a better place, but my heart remains broken over not having her here with me. Just about anything feels better than this hurt.

5. Stop asking me "How are you doing?" Honestly, I've never done worse in my life. But that's not the answer you're looking or prepared for. I hide behind casual answers because so many have asked that have no intention of listening anyway. You don't know what to say? Most of the time, neither do I. A simple "I LOVE YOU" is great. Talking about her is better. (See #3)

6. I just can't......anything. Somedays I can't talk. Somedays I can't text. Somedays I can't listen. Somedays I just don't even want to get out of bed. I am trying though. I did put pants on today.

7. In those times when I HAVE TO be with others, sometimes I still can't engage. I may find a quiet corner. I may sit silently with tears streaming down my face. I may actually have to leave. Please don't take it personally. It's not you, it's me.

8. You miss me, I know. Because I miss me too. My kids, my husband, they miss me. The old me is gone though. Please grant me grace & mercy until I figure out the new me. Until then, if you really love me, look for glimmers of the me that you once knew & love me where I am.

9. Things I do don't always make sense. Things I feel don't always make sense. I may forget things or repeat them. My brain is stuck in a fog & I'm fighting for clarity with every breath. Really, I am. But I may forget things or repeat them.

10. Approximately two weeks after the funeral, most everyone else's lives moved on. Mine didn't. There are still no phone calls. No texts. No songs. Don't be that person who, at the time, said they would be there & vanish on me now. I'm still broken. I'm still crushed. I still need you.

~End original~

Here I sit today, seven months after holding her hand that weekend to walk her to the finish line. This morning, the waves of nausea that overtook my body returned as I faced the harsh reality that I won't hear her voice again until I see her face to face. The bleakness of a southeast Texas rainy winter afternoon following a funeral has my emotions all over the map again and the tears are still hitting the keyboard. 

So why force myself to do this? Because someone else needs to hear it. 

Someone else needs to know how to love someone in this deep, dark valley. They need to know how to be that "I'm bringing you dinner tonight. Chicken and dumplings. Be there in 5." person. Someone else needs to know that there probably won't be a reply when you send, "Just thinking about you. I love you." but you need to send it anyway. You need to know that the person you love is still there, clinging to whatever love you can pour out into their brokeness.

Then there are the broken. And they need to hear it too. They need to know that they aren't alone. That it will be "normal" for sorrow and tears to be their ever constant undesired companion. And that THAT IS OK. But they also need to know that one day, very slowly, the color will begin to appear in their world again. That they will hear the birds singing. They will laugh, no really laugh. That those memories and songs and smells won't always leave you completely wrecked. There will, one day, be a hint of a smile as the tears fall and you will regain the strength to do the hard, step by step, again. Then you will retreat and rest again, having just accomplished that one hard thing for today. And if you look, really look, perhaps you will see the little flakes of the glitter of God's faithfulness that couldn't be swept away in the storm. Then MAYBE you can whisper like gma did those last few days, with all the strength that she could muster, "Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus." as the tears fall.