However, I received a phone call that my precious sister-in-law was losing her sister - her 35 year old sister. Thirty-five is too young to die. It's horrific. It's completely unfathomable. How do you pick up the pieces and do the norm (like laundry, diapers and meals) when you've lost your sibling. I can't even.
So, it seemed a little unfair to fall apart over a broken relationship when people near me were grieving something so big. Something so terrible. Something so heart-breaking.
So I folded it up neatly to be dealt with another time.
Grief is a funny thing. It hits you at the oddest times. Toothpaste commercials. Snippets of conversations you overhear walking down the hallway at work. Observed glances between spouses. Billboards. Ridiculous. I hate surprises and grief is a surprise. It's like the annoying cousin that jumps out from hidden places and scares you at the most inopportune times.
It is easy to hold it all together as long as you distance yourself from everything and anyone. Do not hold ANY meaningful conversations. Do not connect on any level. And for the love of kleenex, do NOT attend funerals.
To make it through this weekend, I had to not feel. I know that may sound cold, but I don't mean it that way. It's simply self-preservation. To think about the loss my brother and sister-in-law were experiencing and to pack it on top of what I'm currently grieving was too much.
I had a moment in the middle of the service where God showed me a gift He had given the family (in the assurance of Candace's salvation) and I just nearly lost it. Then, I watched as my brother's best friend hugged him and sobbed. The room started to close in around me at that point. And then the final blow was when the deceased woman's mom hugged someone who must have been a dear, dear friend and she broke down. I'm talking the "ugly cry" as Oprah would call it. The sounds that came out of here were not human. And they pulled on every inch of my mama heart. It was at that moment that I looked to my right and to my left and saw my two most precious gifts in the world - my children - and I had a choice to make. I could fall apart and just lose it right there in the floor under the pew in the auditorium. I could hyperventilate and sob and just let all of it out ... every last bit of it.
Or I could hold it together a little bit longer.
My kids need a mom who can hold it together.
So I grabbed my water bottle and began to drink like I'd never seen water. I forced my body to attend to that instead of my emotional state. Then, I grabbed my phone and began surfing Facebook. Rude? Some might have seen it that way. Necessary? More than anyone will ever know. Disconnect.
Life is hard. As a little girl, I planned to grow up, get married, have children and just do life. I never factored in divorce, job loss, disorders, health problems, surviving a sociopath/narcissist, dating at 36, horrific experiences, etc...
There are seasons in life. This is one that I can promise you I wouldn't have chosen. I don't understand alot of what God is trying to teach me right now. I want comforts. I want easy. I want less pain.
I once heard it said, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (C.S. Lewis)
God is shouting right now. Sometimes I'm shouting right back.
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