My Ears Hurt

One of the stranger things that has come with this grief is that noise really bothers me.  I mean it really bothers me.  It can drive me crazy.  Fortunately my kids are older and the two still at home are fairly quiet guys but I do have to go out into the world and we live in a chaotic, noisy world.  People are so free to honk their horns when you are too slow, too fast, or any minor infraction.  When you go into a store the PA systems are extremely annoying.  Do you think they have any idea how many of us choose to go to a store that uses walky talkies instead of PA systems.  I know which stores use the walky-talky system and they are my friends.  Walmart is almost unbearable for me these days.  It seems like they take a poll when the employees arrive for the day to see who has the worst attitude and the most grating voice and they put her (yes, it is usually a her) on the PA for the day.  I have heard them use tones of voice over the PA that would not even be appropriate on a face to face level.  I leave angry a lot.

There are some people I try to avoid altogether because they are loud or terse and my grieving brain and body cannot handle much extra.  The best way to describe this is, I get one cup of energy, if that, at the beginning of the day and anything that sucks that energy has to go.  One cup is hardly enough to get me through the day as it is and sometimes that is all used up by noon.  I have been through a war zone and I have little tolerance right now for relationships that take much work or are high maintenance.  So please forgive me if I may seem to blunt and maybe a little too to the point at times, I just don't have time or energy for head games right now. It has very little to do with you and everything to do with how many drops are left in my cup and how much more of my day I have left.

I went out with some friends on another friends sail boat for a nice evening sail.  Lot's of pictures were taken and it saddened me to see how sad I looked.  I had a wonderful time and did not feel sad in the moment but who I am has changed.  There is a sadness in my soul right now and it seeps out.  It oozes from my pores.  It is not who I used to be.  I used to love a party, fellowship, friends, being hospitable.  Now it is work.  Now I go to every event without Mr. Social Butterfly.  I could hide behind Tom's ability to talk to anyone.  I could interject and everyone thought I was equally as social as Tom.   One thing many people don't know about me is that I am very shy inside, I have just learned to compensate very well but now, without my crutch, this is a very challenging thing for me.  I just don't go to social things unless I have someone safe with me and even then I often have to psych myself up to do it if it there will be new people there.

So, the question is, who am I now?  Who will I be when I get out of this valley of the shadow of death?  Will I always have this sadness that accompanies me?  What will happiness look like when you have spent so much time on the valley floor begging for survival?  Who am I as a person without Tom?  I don't know the answers to any of that.  I just know that I am still very fragile.  I read a quote on another widows blog that says it very well, " I used to bring the party and now I bring the silence."  And God will be enough.

Monday, July 25th, I would have been married 30 years.  I would like to say 30 wonderful years but there was a lot of hard work that went into those 30 years.  Times when we considered divorce.  Times when we didn't like each other.  Times when we were dirt poor, but we loved each other and we loved our kids so we worked and worked until we entered a content cadence together.  We were best friends and sometimes worst enemies.  The day before Tom was diagnosed, Christmas day 2009, I cried and told my mom that I didn't think I could do this anymore.  Tom seemed oblivious to my existence.  No Christmas present, very NOT like him.  A total forgetful ditz, couldn't follow directions, drive safely or find his glasses, something that was happening far more frequently these days.  I had no idea that a death sentence was forming in his head.  No idea that the next day my biggest issue was not going to be how this man could completely space on getting me a present.  And so, December 26th 2009 we began an arduous journey through the valley of the shadow of death.  We entered, I should say we were flung, into this valley with great fear in our hearts.  Fear we would be consumed.  Fear we would not make it out alive.  Fear that only I would make it out, and alone.  Lots of fear.  As we walked that desolate valley floor we became accustomed to the dark.  We learned not to be so fearful.  We learned that on your darkest nights God provides the moon.  We learned that our friends are good people and they would fill in the gaps where we could not.  We learned that even when you feel like you no longer have a church home that your friends and loved ones become God with skin on for you.  They mowed, they washed and folded clothes.  They grocery shopped.  They stocked our cupboards and refrigerator.  They painted.  They cleaned.  They accompanied to appointments.  They cried with us and they held our arms up when we could not any more.  We learned not to be afraid of the dark.  For all intents and purposes it would appear that we lost our battle.  Certainly I am not celebrating my anniversary with my love, but I will be celebrating it with my next favorite man and his little cousin and I couldn't ask for better dates for the day.  In the end, we did not win our battle but our eyes were opened to the immense army of God that went before us, beside us and behind us.  That is an invaluable gift.  So, when you think it is such a small thing to bring dinner, grocery shop or clean a toilet, I want to let you know that it is not.  For those of us in battle, every effort outside of the battle sucks our strength and anything you do that preserves some of that strength is huge.  God with skin on.

Wrestling With God

Why am I here?  Why am I still here?  Who am I without this man that adored me?  Who am I “supposed” to be?  What am I “supposed” to do?  What is my purpose now that I am no longer a wife (a role I was supposed to play forever)?  I wrestle with God.  What is the purpose, reason, logic and use of this endless suffering?  Why?  Why my husband and not the cranky guy from chemo who doesn’t have a life to live for? Why am I still asking these answerless questions? I wrestle.  In those desperate moments I text my suffering friend.  Pour out my grief and my why.  She doesn’t know why but she does know that she needs a mama and I am that for her and maybe that is why.  Not enough.  Why?  I wrestle.  I wrestle with God for a tiny glimpse of a future without Tom.  Just a peek.  A smidgen.  “Nope”, He says.  “But” I say.  “Nope, because if I give you a peek you will try to orchestrate and I am the maestro here.” “But…what if…?”  I wrestle some more.  I am desperate for a view into a life I just can’t picture.  A life I can’t believe or hope for because I have no vision.  My suffering friend texts me, “Papa’s got amazing stuff for you friend.  I’m happy to hold the space for truth for now.”  Suffering makes you wise.  She is wise.  I do not care if I am wise.  I do not care if I light the way for someone else.  I do not care if I am a positive example right now.  I wrestle.  Jacob wrestled.  He wrestled with God and God did not back down.  He did not give up and he was not the least bit put out that Jacob was wrestling.  Jacob was left with a permanent limp as a gentle reminder of his wrestle with God.  God won.  Jacob won.

I spent 5 days in the sun with 4 of my favorite girlfriends.  The Sisters Quilt Show was last Saturday so we packed up our machines, tables, cutting mats, rotary cutters, credit cards and headed for the sun.  It was a wonderful week.  We laughed, we cried, we wrestled with the hard questions of life.  We bore one another’s burdens.  I came home with a happy/sad heart.  Happy for 5 days with close friends.  Sad because I come home alone.  Crawl into bed alone.  But for today I can lay aside the wrestle and the need to control and let God be the maestro.  And I walk with a limp as a gentle reminder that God has a plan and I am standing in His way.  I step aside.

What are you wrestling with God about?  What burden do you continue to pick up and lug around when all the while God has a plan?  Will you limp for the knowledge that God is the maestro? 

Longing

My days are filled with trying to outrun this longing.  Folding laundry, working, cleaning, reading, blogging, shopping....  I try to stay ahead of the game and if I am busy enough perhaps it won't catch up to me. Perhaps.  I climb into bed weary from the day, praying that sleep will push the longing further away.  Maybe the distance will become so great that it will not catch up to me at all.  I wish.  But, my nights are filled with longing.  My dreams are filled with the void.  The absence.  I beg God for a dream where Tom is present with me, bringing me comfort and the companionship I miss so much.  Instead I am barraged with dreams where I can't find him.  I am trying to show him something and he won't come with me.  I am trying to tell him something and he doesn't listen.  Longing.  My constant companion and unwelcome friend.
Yet even in this I am reminded that God longs for us.  He longs for a relationship with us where he can share with us His thoughts for our day.  Where He can show us His latest creation.  He longs for our presence and our engagement in His life.  He longs for that day when nothing separates us from His face anymore.  Is this grief a gentle gift to remind us that this is not our home?  He longs for you.