My Boy

I miss my boy so much today. 

I miss his dimples, the brightness of his eyes.  I miss his funny little laugh.  I miss seeing him climb into his little arm chair to watch a movie.  I miss chasing him around the living room.  I miss holding him close and dancing with him.  I miss taking him to the park and exploring our yard.  I miss seeing his eyes light up when he saw other children, or animals.  I miss him handing his blanket to me each morning before I pulled him out of his crib.  I miss Jordan's joy in holding his little boy.  It is all too much to miss.  Today life seems so unfair.  The grief and longing is too much sometimes. 

Today I feel like I'm treading water.  Waiting to drown or to be rescued.  I continuously kick to keep my head above water, and at the same time try to conserve my energy, because I don't know how long I will have to tread.  My grief feels as endless and lonely as a vast ocean. 

Most days I can look for a silver lining.  I can find things to be grateful for.  But some days, days like today, I hate the impulse to try to find joy in such pain.  There is no way around the pain, no sugarcoating it.  I am left with the constant jolting realization that I have experienced something so traumatic.  It can only be felt.  I can only go through it. 

I share this with you because I don't want grief to seem easy.  A friend told me a few weeks after Jonah died that I was making grief look good.  I understood that she was trying to compliment me for handling the situation well.  I appreciated her kindness.  But grief is a horrible messy business.  The compliment would not have been given today.  A day when I quickly left the house, unshowered, with crinkly bed head hair, no makeup, rosy puffy cheeked from crying, seeking the comforting arms of my mother.  Even when my outward appearance is pleasant, the grief is still messy inside me.   

I don't ever want to make you think that losing a child is easy or manageable.  That would be a lie.

I'm sorry there is no hope in this blog post.  I don't want to give the impression that I am hopeless or desperate.  I am neither.  But, today all I can do is tell you how much I hurt, and how much I miss Jonah.  Maybe tomorrow I can return to finding perspective and truth and beauty amidst the heartache.  But today I will just miss my boy and continue to do just enough to keep my head above water. 

God

Sometimes it is hard to believe in God. There are nights where I wonder if my faith, and my religion are not just some grand communal delusion, an opiate of the masses as Marx would say. I have toyed with the possibility that the stories of Christianity are simply a shared story that makes this difficult life more manageable, more hopeful. I have wondered if the God I have submitted myself to is indeed kind, or is it possible that He is cruel? Have you ever asked yourself these questions?

The day Jonah died my faith wavered. I found myself asking "who is God?" There was so much pain in my heart that it was hard to find a good answer. C.S. Lewis says "You can't see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears."

It wasn't until the sharpness of the pain had subsided that I could see and remember the goodness of God. I began to think about the day Jonah was born. It was an amazing day. I remember starring into his dark eyes and wondering where his soul came from. I knew that his body had grown and developed inside me. But the spirit that gave life to his body was not my creation. I knew, deeply, that God was the father of Jonah's soul, and that he was a gift to me. On July 14, I believed that God was infinitely good.

I realize now that in order to deny the goodness of God, I would have to deny the incredible feeling I had the day Jonah was born. I cannot. The feeling was too strong. My life has been sprinkled with small moments of clarity like this one, moments when truth seemed to settle in my soul and become knowledge. I have come to believe God is like any good parent. He knows the path of least resistance rarely creates strength and understanding in children. I do not believe he throws obstacles in our way, but sometimes he lets us struggle and experience difficult things. He knows that we learn when our souls are challenged, when our hearts are broken, and he would not deny us that experience.

And yet he also knows our pain, and is compassionate. The other night as I tried to fall asleep, tears flooding my eyes and pain in my heart, it was almost as if someone whispered to me "Be at peace. There is so much to look forward to...your life will be beautiful." I felt the goodness of God fill my heart, and the truth of His words found place in my soul again.

The Weeping

A few days ago I was surfing the internet mindlessly, killing time. Jordan was out of town working and I was truly by myself for the first time since Jonah's death. I was looking for distraction and found it. I clicked on someone's Facebook link for The Sing Off, a show I haven't followed at all. Jordan and I don't even have a TV. Anyway, before I knew it I watched about 10 videos, and finally randomly clicked on this video without noticing the title. The song is called "If I Die Young" and includes these lyrics...


Lord make me a rainbow, I'll shine down on my mother
She'll know I'm safe with you when she stands under my colors, oh and Life ain't always what you think it ought to be,
no Ain't even grey, but she buries her baby


And this is how the weeping happens, triggered by the simplest phrase or song. A song I would have dismissed as sappy at any other time in my life. The reaction is sudden, it is unpredictable, and it is not pretty. The word weeping itself is far too delicate to describe the reality of the situation. The reality is convulsive, crumbling, and full of snot. It is physically painful. It makes my forehead hurt, and trying to hold it back hurts even more. I always feel better after this kind of crying, but I don't enjoy it...it is like touching a bruise, you want to feel just enough pain to remind you of the original wound, but at the same time know that you are healing.

Here are some other songs that trigger the weeping...

He'll Carry You by Hilary Weeks

Not Enough by Emmylou Harris

Godspeed (Sweet Dreams) by The Dixie Chicks

Consider the Lilies by The Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Thank You

C.S. Lewis wrote "no one ever told me about the laziness of grief." I feel that. I intend to write thank you cards everyday. I think, today I will make myself sit down and write 5 notes, or today I will make a list of people to thank, and then I find myself so overwhelmed by the task that I can hardly put pen to paper. There are just too many people. I am amazed by the kind, generous, thoughtful, immediate, and continued acts of kindness that have flooded our family. It has made me wonder, would I have done the same if our roles were reversed?

It is hard to know what to do for someone who has experienced loss. I have often stopped myself from reaching out to someone because of fear of imposing, offending, not knowing what to say, or not knowing what to expect. Now I would say it is always better to act, to do something, and that we are given the urge to help for a reason. Here are some of things that people have done for me that I have loved.

Notice: The morning after Jonah died people began ringing our doorbell. Most came with food, some came with words of comfort, some tried to offer explanation, some didn't know what to say, but each came because they noticed that someone who was so important to us was gone. When you lose someone it seems as though the whole world should stop and notice, but people continue driving, shopping, laughing... I was so grateful for the people that stopped their lives for a moment to tell us they noticed our loss. I cried with each new person that came until I ran out of tears, and then they cried for me.

Service: Almost every person that came to our home asked "Is there anything we can do?" I think everyone feels helpless when tragedy strikes, and it is our impulse to do something. Our dear friends told us that as soon as they heard about Jonah they started making cookies because they didn't know what else to do. I love that. Our family, friends, and neighbors were left to their own devices to find ways of helping us and healing us. Here are a few beautiful things they have done for us...

• shined Jordan's shoes for the funeral
• shared books that helped them during their own loss or grief
• brought beautiful flowers
• gave me personalized jewelry to remember Jonah
• wrote down tender memories of Jonah
• arranged meals for my family
• set-up a bank account to help with funeral and medical expenses
• gave us gift cards, so Jordan and I could spend time alone together
• donated money
• helped me get ready the morning of the funeral
• brought me waterproof mascara
  
• sent me pictures of Jonah
• called all of Jonah's doctors and specialists
• brought healthy drinks, because I couldn't eat anything for days
• traveled great distances for the funeral and to be with us
• created beautiful art to remember Jonah
• asked me to go walking in the morning
• arranged the food for the funeral
• continued to invite me to lunch (even though I didn't feel like going for awhile)
• brought a Costco pack of Kleenex, and Tupperware for leftovers
• called me
• brought soothing music
• put Jonah's pictures into a beautiful photo album
• took beautiful pictures of the funeral
• made cookies, bread, and other comfort food
• put all of my videos of Jonah on a DVD
• visited Jonah's grave
• helped me shop for a dress and shoes to wear to the funeral
• took care of my other family members that were struggling
• prayed and fasted for us
• helped me clean my house
• helped me plant bulbs to brighten my yard in the spring
• offered legal advice to help with insurance
• arranged to have balloons at Jonah's grave
• wept with me
• donated picture frames to use at the funeral
  

Love: I have had a lot of people tell me that they are impressed by my strength in dealing with Jonah's death. Honestly I too am astonished by the strength I feel. The day Jonah died I never thought I would feel strong again. The only explanation I can give is that I have been lifted and strengthened by the selfless Christ-like love that people have shown to me. In his talk, You are My Hands, Dieter F. Ucthdorf wrote,

When I think of the Savior, I often picture Him with hands outstretched, reaching out to comfort, heal, bless, and love. And He always talked with, never down to, people. He loved the humble and the meek and walked among them, ministering to them and offering hope and salvation...As we emulate His perfect example, our hands can become His hands; our eyes, His eyes; our heart, His heart.

I don't know when I will be able to send you a proper personal thank you note, but I hope until then this note will do. Thank you!

A Grief Observed

I am reading A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. He wrote it as a personal journal when his wife passed away after battling cancer. It is absolutely one of the most raw and deeply personal descriptions of grief, doubt and hope I have encountered.

Here are some quotes that I love from the book...

"If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to 'glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her. But not to her motherhood. The specifically maternal happiness must be written off. Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild."

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief."

"And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn’t seem worth starting anything. I can’t settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness."

“God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't."