GOD loves me anyway

My grief is not weakness.  My grief is not sin.  My grief is not a lack of faith.  My grief does not offend GOD.  It is a very human response to a very profound, devastating loss.

I am flawed, broken person.  I make mistakes.  GOD knows me and loves me anyway.

I live for somedays.  Somedays, I am OK.  Somedays, I am not OK.  Somedays I make good decisions and I make progress.  Somedays I make stupid decisions and I slide back.  Somedays, I do all that before my first cup of coffee.  I know GOD loves me anyway, that’s why I keep trying.

Some days, I do things I don’t really understand, like carry a pebble around all day, clutching it for dear life.  Someday, I will retire and explore other ways to support my family.  Someday, I will go to the World Equestrian Games in North Carolina – and Someday I will go to Ireland and take my followers along.  Someday, I will be able to devote myself full time to hobby farming and crafting.  Someday I will something- …. Or maybe never, maybe nothing – I really don’t know.

I chose to share my journey, not force it on anyone.  I do not know where this journey will lead me – I don’t have that kind of “written-in-stone” plan.  I cannot look that far ahead.  I may have to change directions, alter my path a few times as I trod along.  I will stumble.  I will take wrong turns.  I will continue.  I will make my journey with GOD, communing with and answering to GOD.

If in my little rantings even just one person can find a pebble they want to pick up and hold for comfort – I am grateful.  If sharing my journey can let them know they are not a bad Christian if they scream out in pain, if they cry in the shower, if they suffer with grief or depression or pain – let them know they are loved as they are– then this is a journey worth sharing.  GOD loves us all anyway.

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To be absent from the body and Present before the LORD

2 Corinthians 5:8

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

I should be happy for you, my Son – I guess that is what this passage is trying to tell me.  That is a hard thing for me to process.  You are absent from your body, but also absent from our lives.  I know you are with the LORD, present before HIM.  That must be glorious.  At the same time, I know you did not want to leave your family and friends.  I know being with LORD is wonderful – but I selfishly want you with me, with us.

GOD, YOU have my baby – I know he is YOUR precious child too.  I believe, I know YOU love my baby– so please take care of him.

Help me to focus on the joy he is feeling being with YOU.  Help me to understand.  Basically, just help me.

This definitely does not get any easier.  30 month and 4 days – and it is still a pain that defies words.

Hold it in.  Keep trying.

My prayers are with all who are hurting and struggling.  Just keep holding on.

Today, this Lakota prayer for the dead shared by a friend comforts me – I pray it comforts others too:

GrandFather Sky:

May your songs of the winds and clouds sweep the pain and sadness out of my friends’ hearts; as they hear those songs, let them know the spirits who are with those songs are at peace. 

 

 

 

Halloween Spoiler Alert

In an effort to escape my dark, dark mood  –  I decided to work on acclimating my horses to their upcoming halloween costumes.  OK, you may be able to guess the theme, but as you can see, Wildfire was not at all afraid of the sombrero.  Horses and dogs and cat and goose, all make great therapist.  The journey is still very hard, but they lift me up.

Playing the game

OK, I am not a sports person, at least not any sport that does not include a horse.  So please forgive me if I use the wrong terms.  

My husband is a sports fan, all sports.  He was watching a replay of some baseball game – one team was down by 12 runs or something like that.  Essentially, the game was over for them.  They already lost.  But they keep playing, taking their bat turns.

It made me cry and I struggled to understand why – I don’t care about baseball.  But then, I realized, it is how I feel.  The game is already over.  I lost, when I lost my son – GAME OVER.    But I am still playing.  There are still innings left.  I don’t know why,  but apparently, I still have innings left.

Just like the baseball players keep playing for the sake of their pride or their team or their fans or advertisers – whatever reason.  I keep playing.  I keep playing for my husband, my family, my animals – I just keep getting up to take my turn at bat.  I will never get a home run or even a hit – I just feel like I can only strike out – but I am going to keep swinging.  I know there are so many depending on me.  

I am sorry, this is such a dismal post this evening.   I am just on the dark side tonight – strong people break too – they just break on the inside where no one sees.

Thank you, GOD, for loving me.  Thank you for my Charlie Dog.  Hugging him helps so much.

The sun will come up tomorrow.

Prayers for all enduring storms.

Amazing Sky

Siblings watching Snake City

Power of Music – Irish Rovers

Now, truly – I love almost all music – from classical to show tunes to rap to pop to R&B – but grew up in the age of Rock N Roll!!!  Unfortunately, I find, in the deepest of my grief attacks, George Thorogood and the Destroyers and Joan Jett just don’t reach me.  AC/DC, Pink Floyd, and CCR don’t not relieve my mind and Sugarhill Gang or Led Zeppilin just don’t do it.  I have tried them all.

Somewhere in my travels, on a friends radio, I heard the familiar lyrics “You’ll see green alligators and long necked geese…..”  The Unicorn song!!  I remember that from a far distant childhood in a whole other lifetime.  So, I recently purchased 20 years of the Irish Rovers from iTunes.  I can’t help myself – I am tapping my foot.  I found myself dancing to “The Bonnie Lady”!!  What!!  Dancing!!!

I know, it is only a temporary diversion – but for a moment…just a brief moment – I felt lighter.  Thank you, GOD – for the moments.  I know my journey is made up of moments – help me to see YOU in those moments.

Music truly has power.

 

Grief and Quicksand

For me, on my grief journey – I feel grief is like quicksand.  There are times, I feel like I am beginning to come out of the heavy, dark, painful weight of the grief.  I feel like I can smile and maybe get excited about a craft project or event.

Then BAM!!!  It sucks me right back down.  This weekend was one of those mired in the quicksand weekends.  I didn’t answer the phone when people called.  I didn’t even go into my craft room.  I didn’t read.  I just didn’t.

My husband was having the same experience so we just wallowed on the couch together.  We talked.  We shared.  We hurt.  We raged.  We remembered.  We cried.  We grew closer.

I wailed and yelled at the world, and cried out to GOD – I begged and pleaded for forgiveness and grace.  I looked at photos and drenched each one with fresh tears.  I let myself sink.  My husband let himself sink too.  We just held each other at the bottom of the quicksand.  Our dogs curled up with us too.  What an odd little “PACK” we are – but we support one another.

Maybe, the quicksand periods are necessary and useful – my body needed rest.  My marriage needed work.  The pain is still there – always will be.  But at least, today, my head is above the quicksand.  I may not return any phone calls.  But I am up, showered, at work, and fake smiling – so that is a start.

 

I am a Horse-a-chondriac

The upcoming solar eclipse is an exciting event – but I cannot help but worry about my horses and outdoor pets.  Is that silly?  Should I be concerned?

I can keep my house dogs in the house, I will just shut the dog door.

I think Gertie Goose is nearly blind already, so no worries for her.  I think Flip Flop Kitty will be OK.

But what about my red mares?  I know they are little stinkers, but they are my little stinkers and I love them.

Strolling with the Ghosts

If you do not know by now, I am a country bumpkin.  I was born in the country and that is where I belong.  I love being in the country – and I am definitely not a city dweller.  Traffic, people, noise, bustling about – not for me.  I would rather be on a tractor than an expressway.  My visits to the city are rare and only when I simply MUST.

Because I love my job and, well, frankly, I like paying the mortgage – I obeyed a supervisor command to “Go to the city”.  So here I am, back in Richmond, VA today.  I parked in a central parking deck and decided to walk to my meeting.  I walked by VCU/MCV Medical Center and it hit me like a lightning bolt.

So many ghosts here – both young and old.

When my son was just a little boy, he was so very ill.  He was here at this very medical center so many times.  While strolling with the ghosts, I stopped on a street corner where my son and I shared a hot dog and a soda, awaiting test results.  I can picture his little face, looking up at me – questions I just couldn’t answer.

I strolled along a little farther to the entrance of the Medical Center and I stopped to recall several visits.  Sometimes we came out crying.  Sometimes we came out smiling.

I saw young college students wearing their VCU gear, and I flashed forward to my son in college at VCU.  He walked down these streets, through these doors as a very sick little boy – and then again as an adult – a young college student full of promise and dreams.

VCU launched his career – he became a great doctor.  Many people are alive today because he was there to help them.   He bravely participated in helicopter rescue and on scene emergencies.  Yes, that gives me comfort – but, I am ashamed to admit – sometimes it makes me angry.  Why couldn’t some one help him?  I stop myself.  I try to disrupt those negative thoughts as quickly as I can.  I cannot go there – not now.  Not while I stroll among the ghosts.

I think I will walk past his first dorm building, and maybe take the longer stroll to his first apartment building.  Torture?  Yes.  Healing journey?  I pray so.