The past few days have been full of traditional comings and goings and doings. I spent three days just doing cards. I committed myself to the task with a religious dedication, first going back through many of the hundreds of emails and Caring Bridge messages so many friends and strangers wrote to us. In the process, I was blanketed again with the warmth in which they were written. It reminded me of the concept of stored energy I teach to my students. Those notes of love were like little potential power packets, just waiting to be tapped. Energy is "the ability to do work or cause change". I have surely been changed.
Friends have encouraged me with the familiar, "God will never give you more than you can handle." While I read the prayers and inspired kindnesses of so many, I realized that I am way beyond what I can handle; I am observing first-hand, I am a witness to the power of love and sacrifice and of so many people coming together in a common light. I am being carried now by God's love, expressed through the obedience of His children.
These days are, no doubt, the most difficult I've ever passed through. I weep, sometimes without much warning, until my eyes are nearly swollen shut. I wail even though I try to hold back the sound. Sometimes I am so undone that my body shakes and writhes with pain. But then the wave of grief passes. I am finally able to stop crying, to take a deep breath, blow my nose, and wash my face. I am able to go on.
I realize mine is a unique grief journey, unlike any others'. Sure, I'll share the road at times, but then there will be sections I must make on my own. It's a burden of motherhood; like trolls under bridges, heavy taxes must be paid for this privilege of being given the babies. The meanest troll has required this: an acquiescence to this law, that though our babies are given to us, they do not after all, belong to us.
So these are days of intense blessing as well as great loss. The edge between is sharp; the pain of losing David seems most unbearable when I most clearly remember the joy of having him. It still seems that he is not far away. Sometimes it feels as though he's tangibly in the room with us, enjoying our jokes and joining in the hugs. Yesterday especially, we felt him close. I don't know why I did not predict it, but his presence is very strong around Amber. "Clearly."
Outside today the last of the foot of snow that fell last Friday and Saturday is melting away. It's been above fifty degrees since yesterday. The grass is exposed, green as ever. David is still with us; his struggles have likewise melted away. The dross is gone; silver remains. Praise God, David is free from fleshly torment; the price of his freedom was merely his body, nothing more.
Child psychologist James Dobson once wrote that, "little boys become men over their mothers' dead bodies." I've always enjoyed that quote, because I've felt keenly the way my boys have had to "slay" me in order to pursue their own identities. Now it's my turn to grow, literally over David's dead body. Life and death are inexorably intertwined, as with darkness and the dawn.
xxoo
Saturday, December 26
Monday, December 21
my cup runneth over
It's funny how your focus determines what you learn and accept or reject and fight. I have been focused for the better part of the last two days on sending Christmas cards- a major undertaking for someone so unlikely to have a unified, organized list of updated names and addresses.
I've been determined to go back through many contacts we've had via email and online journal, through cards, visits, and gifts, and in person at the memorial service and celebration. Hundreds of people have crossed our paths these last weeks, since Nov. 2. I am overwhelmed with a flood of warmth. I feel bouyed up by the simple task of re-reading as much as possible and then writing notes inside cards.
I feel a little lighter today, yes, bouyed. Perhaps it's David reminding me, "It's all good, Mom, don't worry." This evening (now early Monday morning) I feel I can choose to smile and mean it. Even though I still don't want to think very far down the line into the future, I can give myself permission today to not dwell on David being dead for a few minutes- long enough to enjoy the Christmas tree, or the woodstove's warmth, to play with the dog, or to vacuum the rug.
Today I've given myself permission to feel happy - happy about the people who have shown sincere love and affection for David and for his family. I, as the mother, have been especially well taken care of by my friends, and strangers too. Indeed, many whom I've never met I now consider friends. I have learned about the power of love in a new and powerful way.
What does all this mean? It feels like I'm at a crossroads, but then again it also seems like just another point in a long road. Every point is a crossroads then, isn't it?
xxoo
I've been determined to go back through many contacts we've had via email and online journal, through cards, visits, and gifts, and in person at the memorial service and celebration. Hundreds of people have crossed our paths these last weeks, since Nov. 2. I am overwhelmed with a flood of warmth. I feel bouyed up by the simple task of re-reading as much as possible and then writing notes inside cards.
I feel a little lighter today, yes, bouyed. Perhaps it's David reminding me, "It's all good, Mom, don't worry." This evening (now early Monday morning) I feel I can choose to smile and mean it. Even though I still don't want to think very far down the line into the future, I can give myself permission today to not dwell on David being dead for a few minutes- long enough to enjoy the Christmas tree, or the woodstove's warmth, to play with the dog, or to vacuum the rug.
Today I've given myself permission to feel happy - happy about the people who have shown sincere love and affection for David and for his family. I, as the mother, have been especially well taken care of by my friends, and strangers too. Indeed, many whom I've never met I now consider friends. I have learned about the power of love in a new and powerful way.
What does all this mean? It feels like I'm at a crossroads, but then again it also seems like just another point in a long road. Every point is a crossroads then, isn't it?
xxoo
Friday, December 18
Preoccupations
I didn't sleep very well last night and woke up for good around 4.
Thoughts of David's last "wakeful" moments have been pushing their way into my imagination for a few days now. I know now that he'd had really bad headaches for a couple of weeks and wouldn't go to the hospital but suddenly agreed to let Amber take him early on the morning of Nov. 2. They didn't make it to her car; David got confused, disoriented, lost control of his bladder and of his right arm, then fell. He was still able to speak when the ambulance arrived and he asked to be taken to the closest hospital. I'm not sure what he was aware of beyond that.
He was still able to obey nurses' shouted commands, "raise your right arm, David, squeeze my hand, David", even after the initial drain had been put in his head in the ER and he had been moved up to NSICU, so we know he could hear, understand, and still had some control of limbs on both sides of his body, even though his left side was slow and he did not respond to pain on that side. He was already on the breathing tube (standard procedure I think), so he couldn't talk, and his eyes were closed, his head was still. I was at his right side, holding his right hand, and I told him I was there. He squeezed my hand and then made a motion like he wanted something to write with, putting his thumb, forefinger and middle finger together and bobbing his hand up and down. Then, just that quick, the nurses told me they had to give him some drugs to paralyze him and to medically induce a coma, and they needed me to step out for a little while. That's the last interaction we had that I'm sure he could perceive.
While I imagine all this (it plays in my mind over and over again) I can hear my heart pounding in my ears; there's a feeling like panic or maybe even terror racing through me, like a shock or a charge; I tremble. I try to toss the picture from my mind but I still feel panicked, like I'm trying to find a way of escaping the idea that David's last seconds "with us" were fearful. I so desperately want to be able to go back and be with him waiting for the rescue squad, to hold him and rock him and calm his fears.
Then there's a wave of mercy, of relief, when I remember the last time I saw him well, Friday, October 30. He had dropped by my house unexpectedly shortly after I got home from school and said he was meeting Amber and needed to leave his van parked on the street if it was okay. I said sure and asked him if he was hungry. He said no, but when I pulled out the homemade vegetable beef soup he said, "Actually, that looks pretty good, yeah, I'll have some of that." He said he had a headache so I also gave him two ibuprofen. I remember I was in my room doing something when he shouted that he was leaving. I came out and hugged him, and watched him walk out the porch door. My last words to him were "I love you, Son." His last words to me were "I love you too, Mom."
God is good. His mercy is new every morning.
xxoo
Thoughts of David's last "wakeful" moments have been pushing their way into my imagination for a few days now. I know now that he'd had really bad headaches for a couple of weeks and wouldn't go to the hospital but suddenly agreed to let Amber take him early on the morning of Nov. 2. They didn't make it to her car; David got confused, disoriented, lost control of his bladder and of his right arm, then fell. He was still able to speak when the ambulance arrived and he asked to be taken to the closest hospital. I'm not sure what he was aware of beyond that.
He was still able to obey nurses' shouted commands, "raise your right arm, David, squeeze my hand, David", even after the initial drain had been put in his head in the ER and he had been moved up to NSICU, so we know he could hear, understand, and still had some control of limbs on both sides of his body, even though his left side was slow and he did not respond to pain on that side. He was already on the breathing tube (standard procedure I think), so he couldn't talk, and his eyes were closed, his head was still. I was at his right side, holding his right hand, and I told him I was there. He squeezed my hand and then made a motion like he wanted something to write with, putting his thumb, forefinger and middle finger together and bobbing his hand up and down. Then, just that quick, the nurses told me they had to give him some drugs to paralyze him and to medically induce a coma, and they needed me to step out for a little while. That's the last interaction we had that I'm sure he could perceive.
While I imagine all this (it plays in my mind over and over again) I can hear my heart pounding in my ears; there's a feeling like panic or maybe even terror racing through me, like a shock or a charge; I tremble. I try to toss the picture from my mind but I still feel panicked, like I'm trying to find a way of escaping the idea that David's last seconds "with us" were fearful. I so desperately want to be able to go back and be with him waiting for the rescue squad, to hold him and rock him and calm his fears.
Then there's a wave of mercy, of relief, when I remember the last time I saw him well, Friday, October 30. He had dropped by my house unexpectedly shortly after I got home from school and said he was meeting Amber and needed to leave his van parked on the street if it was okay. I said sure and asked him if he was hungry. He said no, but when I pulled out the homemade vegetable beef soup he said, "Actually, that looks pretty good, yeah, I'll have some of that." He said he had a headache so I also gave him two ibuprofen. I remember I was in my room doing something when he shouted that he was leaving. I came out and hugged him, and watched him walk out the porch door. My last words to him were "I love you, Son." His last words to me were "I love you too, Mom."
God is good. His mercy is new every morning.
xxoo
Tuesday, December 15
I put off setting up the tree until Sunday night. David's ornaments were waiting in the box up there in the cold attic, calling to me, telling me it would be okay, I just needed to put them up on the tree with all the other kids', like always. I was alright until I came to David's first ornament. It was made by the women who took care of David in the nursery at Staples Mill Road Baptist Church Day Care Center (now it's a "Child Development Center" :-)), while I was a teacher there for the two-year-olds, and pregnant with Mark. It has a photograph of David about eight months old- round-faced, bald, and Santa-capped, with big, round, bright eyes, plump little kiss-me lips and pink cheeks. It's glued to one side of a juice concentrate lid and has a cross-stitched circle, "David's First Christmas", on the other side. There's red crocheted lace around the edge. When I unwrapped it I cried right away, laughing ad sobbing, brushing my fingers across his perfect little face. Then I hung him as our angel at the top. Brenda stood beside me and gave me a hug, without a word. Perfect. Then she and Grace helped put the rest of the ornaments on the tree; we set up the nativity on the mantle, and hung the stockings. We left David's stocking in the storage box. It was hard for me to close the lid on that box.
I feel like I have this big aching hole inside, like an open sore that hurts all day long, making me shaky and tearful. I walk a little hunched over, and by the end of the school day I'm tired and ready to break down and cry, just to get relief. It's also like having a huge weight tied around my waist. I'm dragging this heavy sadness with me everywhere. Danny told me that he thinks this weight will always be with me, but I'm the one who decides how heavy it has to be. I'll think about that.
Can I get through these holidays without crying buckets of tears and dragging everyone I care about down into a pit of sadness with me? Can I be the MOM that makes Christmas what moms are supposed to make them? I want to be. I want our family time (we're all going to the beach for three days) to be a bright, happy time, remembering David and the good times we all had with him while we celebrate a new Christmas and a New Year, looking ahead and hoping for good things to come. I've got a feeling that's all going to be easier said than done.
Will you pray for me? Let me be a source of strength and confidence, a serene and happy influence in our family holiday, bringing a sense of confidence and peace that we are all going to be okay; David is watching over us and wants us to be happy. We are all going to be okay, and we can be even stronger for having shared this loss and pain.
I'll be okay until I serve the oyster stew on Christmas Eve.
xxoo
I feel like I have this big aching hole inside, like an open sore that hurts all day long, making me shaky and tearful. I walk a little hunched over, and by the end of the school day I'm tired and ready to break down and cry, just to get relief. It's also like having a huge weight tied around my waist. I'm dragging this heavy sadness with me everywhere. Danny told me that he thinks this weight will always be with me, but I'm the one who decides how heavy it has to be. I'll think about that.
Can I get through these holidays without crying buckets of tears and dragging everyone I care about down into a pit of sadness with me? Can I be the MOM that makes Christmas what moms are supposed to make them? I want to be. I want our family time (we're all going to the beach for three days) to be a bright, happy time, remembering David and the good times we all had with him while we celebrate a new Christmas and a New Year, looking ahead and hoping for good things to come. I've got a feeling that's all going to be easier said than done.
Will you pray for me? Let me be a source of strength and confidence, a serene and happy influence in our family holiday, bringing a sense of confidence and peace that we are all going to be okay; David is watching over us and wants us to be happy. We are all going to be okay, and we can be even stronger for having shared this loss and pain.
I'll be okay until I serve the oyster stew on Christmas Eve.
xxoo
Monday, December 14
One month
Today is the 14th, one month since David left us. I'm not feeling so great today. I feel like there's been a clamp on my throat and a knife in my heart. While the rest of the world is getting on with things, I'm still wishing I could wake up from the nightmare. I look at the pictures of David and I just can't believe that these images are all my eyes will have of him until I'm dead and gone too, and I'm with him again.
I've been thinking about those last minutes I had with him in the hospital. After the paralytic was taken off and he should have been able to wake up if his brain had been able- if God had chosen to give us our miracle. I kissed his face, held his head in my hands, lay my head on his chest, rubbed his feet, kissed his hands, and cried and cried and cried. I called out to him, I yelled at him to wake up, I smacked his face, I pinched his skin, I asked him to look at me, to give me any sign that he was "still in there." I knew he wasn't, I just had to try.
I think more about the "other side" than I used to. I dont' really think I have the ability in this mortal frame to imagine what it will be like; I just think of David as being with my mom and the two of them looking out for us. I'm sure my imagination has it wrong, mostly, but I have to imagine him in a way that lets him still love us.
xxoo
I've been thinking about those last minutes I had with him in the hospital. After the paralytic was taken off and he should have been able to wake up if his brain had been able- if God had chosen to give us our miracle. I kissed his face, held his head in my hands, lay my head on his chest, rubbed his feet, kissed his hands, and cried and cried and cried. I called out to him, I yelled at him to wake up, I smacked his face, I pinched his skin, I asked him to look at me, to give me any sign that he was "still in there." I knew he wasn't, I just had to try.
I think more about the "other side" than I used to. I dont' really think I have the ability in this mortal frame to imagine what it will be like; I just think of David as being with my mom and the two of them looking out for us. I'm sure my imagination has it wrong, mostly, but I have to imagine him in a way that lets him still love us.
xxoo
Sunday, December 13
I've got the grandbaby. Our first little package of guaranteed happiness - a new, beautiful generation for our family. Her timing could not have been more perfect. I honestly believe she was sent to us in advance of losing David- like a little angel, come to to make us smile despite our great pain. She's surely kept me in my right mind.
I remember when Stephen told me I was going to be a grandmother. I had been faithful to react the way I had rehearsed (with boys who have a penchant for both affection and adventure, I thought I ought to.) Thank God. I reacted with Joy.
So, I'm home from church where I sat among friends considering how Mary dealt with the Angel's bomb shell: she, a mere teen, would be giving birth to the Son of the Most High. It's the third week of Advent, after all. A week for joy.
I wonder if Mary knew she would have to watch her Son die. Most of me hopes the angel spared Mary the forecast of his awful death, but part of me also thinks she had to know. How could she not, with carrying Jesus? Gracious! I imagine she had super powers while she was pregnant. Luke's story goes that she knew the future- that she would be "called blessed", even by our generation.
I think and pray many times a day for David's "recipients", as I've come to call them in my mind. Four physical lives have been saved and people will go on and the lives of their families will be forever affected by David's death. Wow. In church today a friend let me know that David's story had changed her in a way that has made her faith stronger. Others have said likewise, that my experience has had a profound effect on their spiritual lives. It's amazing to me, this whole thing.
I am humbled and shamed by my selfishness, my narrow-mindedness in my prayers for David in the hospital. I honestly could not imagine why God would want to take him. I could not imagine how it could be a good thing. I just knew God would heal him and send him back to us, different maybe, but back. I believed that God wanted what I wanted. God's ways are not our ways. My prayers of petition should be shorter. And fewer.
So it's Mary who's in my mind and heart most this Christmas. I wonder if she comforted herself at the Cross with the knowedge that because Jesus died others would live. I hope so. It comforts me to know that a few lives have been changed for the good through David's death, perhaps with eternal consequences. Is it blasphemy for me to identify with Mary?
God is Great
God is Love
xxoo
I remember when Stephen told me I was going to be a grandmother. I had been faithful to react the way I had rehearsed (with boys who have a penchant for both affection and adventure, I thought I ought to.) Thank God. I reacted with Joy.
So, I'm home from church where I sat among friends considering how Mary dealt with the Angel's bomb shell: she, a mere teen, would be giving birth to the Son of the Most High. It's the third week of Advent, after all. A week for joy.
I wonder if Mary knew she would have to watch her Son die. Most of me hopes the angel spared Mary the forecast of his awful death, but part of me also thinks she had to know. How could she not, with carrying Jesus? Gracious! I imagine she had super powers while she was pregnant. Luke's story goes that she knew the future- that she would be "called blessed", even by our generation.
I think and pray many times a day for David's "recipients", as I've come to call them in my mind. Four physical lives have been saved and people will go on and the lives of their families will be forever affected by David's death. Wow. In church today a friend let me know that David's story had changed her in a way that has made her faith stronger. Others have said likewise, that my experience has had a profound effect on their spiritual lives. It's amazing to me, this whole thing.
I am humbled and shamed by my selfishness, my narrow-mindedness in my prayers for David in the hospital. I honestly could not imagine why God would want to take him. I could not imagine how it could be a good thing. I just knew God would heal him and send him back to us, different maybe, but back. I believed that God wanted what I wanted. God's ways are not our ways. My prayers of petition should be shorter. And fewer.
So it's Mary who's in my mind and heart most this Christmas. I wonder if she comforted herself at the Cross with the knowedge that because Jesus died others would live. I hope so. It comforts me to know that a few lives have been changed for the good through David's death, perhaps with eternal consequences. Is it blasphemy for me to identify with Mary?
God is Great
God is Love
xxoo
Saturday, December 12
Life 101
I'm getting the distinct impression that I am supposed to be learning something very important in these days. I feel like I'm in a suspended reality; like my life is not quite real right now- I'm only loosely connected to my past and my future. I'm living one day or one hour at a time as a survival mechanism, but it seems to be helping me reevaluate the order of importance of what is happening around me. I'm thinking more slowly and deliberately. I'm hyper-sensitive to some stimuli and oblivious of others, and my sleep pattern is irregular. But I feel like I'm learning a very valuable lesson on the brevity of life.
I'm approaching memories of David cautiously, almost like I don't really want to go there, because it jabs me in the heart to remember some sweet moment between us. Like a biscuits-n-gravy morning. If it was David's birthday or any other special day, a big, hot, happy breakfast could have been easily made with sausage, flour and milk. I can testify to the old adage, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach". I think it was the old-fashionedness about David that enjoyed seeing his mom cut out homemade biscuits on the counter. As unhealthy as it is, I must admit that creamy sausage gray poured thickly over hot, just-outa-the-oven, homemade biscuits is guaranteed to make a room full of boys happy. David would smile and hug me and thank me with true appreciation and maybe even a little bit of awe- it was always a great Mommy Moment.
When I snap back to the present and realize that this memory is the only place I can ever go now to do this with David, it gives me a tangible pain in my chest and my throat wants to clamp down. I hold my breath for a few seconds and then maybe I cry, maybe I don't, then I move on, shaking.
I've already bought the sausage for the next time I'll fix this family favorite breakfast during our holiday break. I know I will see David's smile and feel his hugs in each of of his brothers. I know he will still be staying close to us, as our smiling guardian angel, during the holidays.
I'm reminded of a book, "Practicing the Presence of God", I think that's the title, in which I read many years ago that God's grace is available to me in every single moment. If I don't choose to live by faith, if I stumble, forgiveness is also just for the asking in each moment, and then a new moment's grace is there, too. I'm wondering, if we knew our soul would be required of our bodies in the next hour, how would we choose to live in this one? Isn't this moment, this choice, the only one I truly have? Please pray that I will learn well this lesson of living intentionally in this moment.
God, help me to see and hear you guiding me moment by moment. Give me courage to make changes and reset priorities, as I learn what you are teaching me. If I can inspire others through this pain, let me be as the village child when the emperor was naked, let me speak the truth from my experience without fear of shame. And help me not be afraid of visiting my memories of David.
xxoo
I'm approaching memories of David cautiously, almost like I don't really want to go there, because it jabs me in the heart to remember some sweet moment between us. Like a biscuits-n-gravy morning. If it was David's birthday or any other special day, a big, hot, happy breakfast could have been easily made with sausage, flour and milk. I can testify to the old adage, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach". I think it was the old-fashionedness about David that enjoyed seeing his mom cut out homemade biscuits on the counter. As unhealthy as it is, I must admit that creamy sausage gray poured thickly over hot, just-outa-the-oven, homemade biscuits is guaranteed to make a room full of boys happy. David would smile and hug me and thank me with true appreciation and maybe even a little bit of awe- it was always a great Mommy Moment.
When I snap back to the present and realize that this memory is the only place I can ever go now to do this with David, it gives me a tangible pain in my chest and my throat wants to clamp down. I hold my breath for a few seconds and then maybe I cry, maybe I don't, then I move on, shaking.
I've already bought the sausage for the next time I'll fix this family favorite breakfast during our holiday break. I know I will see David's smile and feel his hugs in each of of his brothers. I know he will still be staying close to us, as our smiling guardian angel, during the holidays.
I'm reminded of a book, "Practicing the Presence of God", I think that's the title, in which I read many years ago that God's grace is available to me in every single moment. If I don't choose to live by faith, if I stumble, forgiveness is also just for the asking in each moment, and then a new moment's grace is there, too. I'm wondering, if we knew our soul would be required of our bodies in the next hour, how would we choose to live in this one? Isn't this moment, this choice, the only one I truly have? Please pray that I will learn well this lesson of living intentionally in this moment.
God, help me to see and hear you guiding me moment by moment. Give me courage to make changes and reset priorities, as I learn what you are teaching me. If I can inspire others through this pain, let me be as the village child when the emperor was naked, let me speak the truth from my experience without fear of shame. And help me not be afraid of visiting my memories of David.
xxoo
Thursday, December 10
Moving On
I decided that I liked another suggestion better; instead of quitting the journal I'm moving it. If you'd like to keep walking along this road with me, please feel welcome. I covet your prayers and your company. You might just keep me from losing my mind with grief. But, if this is all a little too fishbowlish for you, please feel free to not look in.
Good reports:
-- I'm still not smoking, almost two weeks now.
-- I haven't cried at school this week (moist eyes don't count, right?).
-- Grace and I went to the store and bought healthy food.
I think I'm beginning to give myself permission to think about something other than my broken heart and David's absence for hours at a time. I'm glad to know that I can still focus well at school this way.
Six more days until Winter Break, but who's counting?
xxoo
Good reports:
-- I'm still not smoking, almost two weeks now.
-- I haven't cried at school this week (moist eyes don't count, right?).
-- Grace and I went to the store and bought healthy food.
I think I'm beginning to give myself permission to think about something other than my broken heart and David's absence for hours at a time. I'm glad to know that I can still focus well at school this way.
Six more days until Winter Break, but who's counting?
xxoo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
