Tag: grief

Five – FIVE?! – years

Gravestone

There’s actually something easier about saying “five years” than saying “five months.” And then, there’s something just unreasonably, ridiculously, stupidly horrible about saying “five years.” Five. Freaking. Years.

I can’t help but think of the beginning of the movie Elizabethtown. The main character has lost his company $972 million and the owner of the company is explaining to him how big that is. “How do I make the number real to you?” He talks about the basketball team and natural watchdog project the company owns that will have to go, and he emphasizes the fact that small countries are run for that amount of money.

That’s how I feel about trying to describe 5 years of being a young widower. How do I make that length of time as a young widower real to you? I’ve been a widower for one thousand eight hundred twenty-six days (as of October 14). You could basically round that to 2000 days at this point. Soon enough (March 15, 2016 to be exact), I will have been widowed for longer than I was married. Most people would have to live to be 120 years old to ever reach that point. I’m 34. I’m not even halfway through my 30s. But it makes me feel like I’m 70. It took me longer to graduate elementary school than it did for me to have a wife die. Both my kids have had more life without a mom than they had with one. I have friends who have grown their families from 0 to 3 kids in that time.

Five.
Years.

And yet, it can still feel easier than five months. At five months, it’s fresh. You wonder daily — instead of occasionally — if you’re going to wake up from the nightmare. You can’t imagine a day or a world that doesn’t involve figuring out how to do life without that other person. At 5 years, you’ve pretty well learned to manage life without. (What a horrible thing to be able to say?)

And that sometimes feels even worse. Effectively, I’m saying that I don’t need Stephanie. And if I don’t need her now, I never really did. It feels like such a horrible thing to say about someone you love so much. And yet, it’s a sentiment Stephanie and I shared towards each other. Our lives were not dependent on each other. We need God; not each other. Stephanie, in the midst of a struggle we were having, said to me, “I don’t need you.” She was right. She had promised to God to be married to me, no matter how hard things got between us. And that’s what she deferred to in the midst of struggles, rather than deferring to any presumed need for me. And that sentiment had the effect of spurring us on to work through that struggle and many others. I’m convinced that it is what made our marriage so wonderful. But, do hear me: I really wanted her in my life for 50 years or more. “Need” is not the same as “want.” If I needed her, that would mean my own sense of self was dependent on her and her existence in my life. That’s what most people would call a needy person. It gave me a great freedom to know that she was not dependent on me for who she was. And I, obviously, was not dependent on her for who I am. Five years proves that pretty well.

Furthermore, I’ve been able to grow so much in the past 5 years because I don’t need her. The man she married was not the same man she widowed. And the man she widowed is not the man I am today. As hard as it is to believe it’s been five years, this is a redemptive story. I thank God for the grace He has shown in my life and the lives of my kids. I’m stronger today than I’ve ever been. And I’m confident that I could survive any blow life can hand me, because I’ve survived this blow and seen that life does, in fact, go on.

Five years can make me cry, smile and laugh all in the same sentence. Five years can make me scream, yell and complain. Five years can make me ponder solemnly and find my pensive side. Five years can make me groan at so much life gone by, and it can make me indignant over the life left behind. Five years can make me realize I can’t imagine who my kids were when she died. I struggle to remember the Brady and Halle whom she knew, instead of the kids before me today.

But…

Five years can show me the life and growth that comes. Five years can prove the strength God has given me, the resilience of my children, and the brilliant sovereignty of God. Five years brings so many new memories, so much new joy, and a life that gets restored. And finally, five years can give me hope for the next five years.

Best and Worst

“What was the best and worst thing about your day?”

I’ve asked my kids this for quite some time every night when they go to bed. I’m hoping as the years go on that it will be a good starting point for conversations about what they have to be thankful for and also what they’re struggling with. It will give me material for my prayers for them. For now, they are pretty consistent in their responses.

Brady’s best thing is all the loved ones he got to see in his day. His worst thing, half the time, is not seeing mommy. (Other times, it may include not getting to play with a toy. Go figure.)

Halle’s best thing is pretty reliably “Seein’ Nana!” and “Seein’ you!” (By which, she means me, of course.) She doesn’t usually answer the “worst thing” part.

I love nights like tonight, though, when Brady and I delve into a deeper conversation. He expounded on not getting to see Mommy. And as we talked, he buried his head and confessed to nearly crying that Mommy is gone. So we talked about how it’s okay to miss her and be sad. We might always be sad she’s gone. But we also talked about getting a new mommy and how she will love him and Halle so well and will be special, just like “Mommy Stephanie” was special. They’re each special in their own ways, and we can love them both.

He’s sad to not have a new mommy yet, and so looking forward to it. Speaking for Halle, he said, “We will always love our first mommy. Mommy’s right in my mind and in my heart.” I love speaking words to him of remembering the past and how thankful we can be to God for who his mommy was, but also having hope for the future in looking forward to having a new mommy.

He asked me to cuddle him, and as I did: “You’re the best daddy I ever had.”

Those were words I needed to hear tonight. Thank you, Brady. And thank you, God.

Occasionally

It still happens on occasion. I get a reminder of those multitude of miserable days that are so thankfully fading out of memory. It’s never a day anymore. Maybe a moment. Maybe an hour. Maybe a night at most. But certainly noticeable, no matter how long.

It usually starts with something stupid, and often compounded by something else stupid, and with a big fat topping of “how did I end up here?”

I thank God that it’s never as bad as it used to be. I don’t fill the garbage with wet tissues. I certainly don’t shake with emotion. However, I might still bully a couple of pillows for a while. (They take it in stride.)

Pillows. That reminds me of something I said to my mentor: I have two pillows and only one head. It’s no wonder they take the brunt of my emotions. They’re partly to blame.

It’s so strange to look at pictures and wonder if those were snapshots from within a dream or not. It would certainly make sense, as I struggle to recap those events to myself because that’s the best way to not forget a dream in those moments just after you wake up.

But I’ll never be fully awake while this heart beats. Anymore, I’m convinced that Heaven is the waking moment. And at that point, true reality will finally saturate my soul. I could make the point that this life is probably more nightmare than dream in comparison to Heaven, but that might sound too dramatic and I’d have people sending psychiatrists to check on my mental state. (Don’t worry, I’m quite stable.)

And someone will tell you that I am as sure as — well, you know — not ready to be with someone else because I still think about the mother of my children on occasion. You can say that, as long as you also try to tell parents who have lost a child that they’re not ready to have any more. My heart is bigger now, not smaller. And I’ll never forget how long I’ve dreamed in my heart of being married.

And that’s what these moments remind me of. Make sense?

Fall again

Stephanie loved the fall. She got excited about the leaves turning to light the trees on fire. She loved the crisp air, even though she was cold if the temperature dipped below 80. She loved pumpkin anything, especially if it had the word “Starbucks” in it. And there was no greater excuse for her to bake constantly.

But she loved fall for another reason. And it was my favorite reason for the summer to come to an end: her birthday.

She breezed in right at the beginning of October; a fact that she quite enjoyed. She would have turned 35 today. (She barely made it past 33.) I would have racked my brain for months trying to decide what spectacular thing I could do for her celebrating a “5” birthday, worried the entire time that I could have done better, and knowing the entire time that she would absolutely do better when it came my birthday.

But here I am, writing for the world to see. And hoping, that if the world can read this, maybe she can, too. Happy birthday to the most beautiful, most caring, most loving, most compassionate, sweetest, and — [list cut short so as not to break the Internet] — woman I have yet to know. You made the years you were here count so much that it’s hard to imagine you could have poured any more life and joy and love into those around you.

Whenever summer turns to autumn, I can’t help but think of you, Stephanie. Your name is synonymous with autumn in my mind. You made me love the fall more than I ever had. And now I also hate the fall more than I ever have. It’s painfully fitting that you died in your birth month and your favorite season.

I praise God for bringing you into the world on this day 35 years ago. And I thank God and you for who you are. You changed everyone around you for the better. Just like your daughter after you, you radiated joy and you brought it into the room along with you.

I love you. Brady and Halle love you. And we miss you.

It’s fall again. Happy birthday!

Unwelcome

It happens so randomly. Out of nowhere. And it always catches me off-guard.

It’s the memory of that night. That last night. Even nearly two years later, it still jumps on my back and knocks me down. I can’t say I’m surprised. I’m sure I’ll be saying the same thing 30 years from now.

That doesn’t mean I’ll ever grow accustomed to it. It’s a hateful, hateful thing.

And I quickly scramble to try to forget it as soon as it invades my thoughts. It’s not really worth my time anymore.

Just a visit

“Daddy, I just want to pray for a new mommy tonight. And that I love my first mommy so much.”

“OK, Buddy.”

“And, maybe can we go to Heaven to see our first mommy?”

“I’m sorry, Brady, but we can’t go to Heaven for a long, long time.”

“But why not?”

“Because once we go to Heaven, we can’t ever come back. People only go to Heaven when they die. I really wish we could visit mommy, too, but I don’t want to leave you or Halle or Nana or Papa or anyone else. And do you remember how we get to Heaven? We have to believe that Jesus died for all the bad things we do and that only He can make us better from all those bad things. If we don’t believe that, we can’t go to Heaven. Mommy believed that and that’s how we know she’s in Heaven.”

“Oh. Well, maybe I want to wake up real early and look at pictures of mommy. All of them.”

“Okay, Sweetheart. We can do that.”

How much is God worth?

There’s a closeness with the Lord that comes through trials that doesn’t come any other way.
James MacDonald, When Life is Hard

There is no avoiding difficult circumstances in this life, unfortunately. I think that’s why I’ve always held fast to the book of Job and the first chapter of James throughout my entire (admittedly easy) life. (It was also God’s grace to lead me there constantly, knowing that it would prepare me best for my wife dying so young.) You can talk yourself in circles over why this thing happened or that event took place, but that very possibly won’t get you very far. It’s likely you’ll never know. All you can do is decide how you respond to it.

It’s not true that God won’t give us more than we can handle. I certainly felt like my experience was more than I could handle, but God more than made up the difference in what I was lacking. Through it all, He kept coming closer and closer, and continues to come closer. Despite my constant failures before Him, He forgives me, picks me up and moves me along.

And it has been through all of this that I have only grown closer to God. It seems harsh to say, but the relationship that I now have with God was worth Stephanie dying. He continues to show me how He is worth so much more than her life. And I will share that with anyone who will listen. If the quote above is true, as I believe it is, then it’s easy to see why we can have joy in trials the way James tells us to do.

Trials take all shapes and sizes, from big and ugly to small and annoying. You stub your toe. A dinner date is cancelled. Your job is taken away. That favorite t-shirt ends up with the red clothes in the laundry and is never the same. A loved one dies. (Almost on the same level as the t-shirt, right?) But every time, we can use it as an opportunity to spend more time with God to deal as appropriately as possible with this particular situation.

It’s easy to think our current crisis is pretty significant. I have certainly thought the death of my wife was a big deal, but it doesn’t take long to see it can always be worse. Job is a great example, losing all his children and property in a day, only to be stricken with boils soon after and then mocked by his wife and friends. More contemporary, Robert Rogers describes his loss of his wife and four children in a flash flood from which he miraculously survived. And yet, in his book Into the Deep, he says the same thing: that his relationship with God and God’s work through him was absolutely worth his family’s lives.

And sadly, how often do I push God aside so I can watch another TV show? How often do I say that I’ll just pray a little later when I have more time? How often do I let day-to-day life get in the way of God? When life as I knew it ended, I selfishly made all the time in the world for God to hear my voice. And yet I forget about Him so easily when things are going fine. It’s always the right time to turn that attitude around.

What is God worth to you? And how do your actions prove it?

365 Years per Day

Well, here it is. Don’t act surprised to find a new post here today. I’m not. What does surprise me is my apparent lack for words now that it comes to it. I even took the day off so that I could have time alone to be with my thoughts and contemplate my emotions, attempting to put them down in 10 point font.

What I recognize most is my seeming inability to cry. Why is that? Maybe because it’s been a year. Maybe it’s because I’m only closer to God now than I was then. Maybe it has to do with all the blessings I’ve received over the past year. Maybe God won’t let me stay in that place of sorrow and loneliness and anger.

But I feel like I should still cry and should still be able to cry. In a way, crying brings Stephanie close to me. And in a way, crying brings me close to God. It’s a reminder. And, for as hard as it feels to cry, it’s even harder to be able to cry. Or so it seems. It’s when I’m not trying — and least expect it — that I read something or see something or remember something. And my eyes drain.

Quickly.

And I find it hard to be sad. I really try. I miss Stephanie and I miss that part of me. I keep trying to transport myself to those days back then when I felt everything so deeply and when the thoughts just dripped from my fingers onto my keyboard. But while I have some good moments of crying hard, it’s usually hard not to be okay. It’s hard to forget how gracious God has been to me throughout all of this and throughout my life.

Every day for the past year has each felt like a year in and of itself, and yet the last year is just a blur. The days blend together better than fruit in a smoothie, and yesterday becomes the day we were still together. I’ve been saying so often that I don’t think the heart knows how to believe the loss of a loved one. It holds on forever. But it can still go on. And so I do, with or without a choice. I just wish I didn’t feel so old because of this.

I don’t have a choice because of God. Despite what came a year ago, He’s given me so much grace and so many reasons to feel blessed. Even today, as I sat alone to think and read and write, the pastors of my church came across my path — and they prayed for me. And it reminds me that God understands my sense of humor. I’m a dork and love a good pun. I call moments like that “puns of life” — what some people would call coincidence is more often God doing something really cool that makes me smile. It’s so completely random, and yet is not surprising at all in the economy of God.

So where does that leave me? I try to cry, and He makes me smile. I ache to hurt, but laugh for joy. I hate the past, excited for the future. I ask God the questions, and He tests me first. Where have I come in the past year? What have I made of my time? How have I grown and learned and made use of what God has given me, both good and bad? Those are the things I can’t stop pondering.

So much for not having anything to say.

I no longer hate “easier”

I still have a love-hate relationship with time, such as I began to have last year. As the days have marched forward over the past year, it certainly has gotten easier. The second time I tucked the kids in on my own was certainly easier than the first time. And the third time easier than the second. And so on.

Everyone told me that it would get easier with time, and I never doubted that. But I wanted them to be wrong. I didn’t want it to get easier because I was afraid that “easier” would mean the memories were fading or my love for her was diminishing. I wanted to hold tight to all those things. And as painful as it was, I never wanted to stop crying.

But I did. And it did get easier. But “easier” hasn’t been the negative thing I envisioned. Instead, I now find more meaning in those memories. The pain and tears, while good at the time, often served to only cloud my mind regarding great truths of those moments. Now, I feel like I can really truly take hold of those memories in a way that I couldn’t before. Sometimes I still cry. Other times, I laugh. And many times, I learn.

I still constantly worry that my memories will fade. But I’ve also noticed many times when a memory that felt lost suddenly returns to me because of a comment someone makes or a random circumstance that reminds me of something she said. And it restores my hope that I might not forget everything. And “time spent” is a great friend when “time ticking” is not.

And now we come to it

I feel like I’ve been waiting for this for 365 years rather than days, anticipating what it will be. The worst anniversary I could ever imagine is now upon me as October begins. 1. 3. 13. Though strangely related and all prime, what would otherwise be arbitrary numbers in any other scenario weigh infinitely heavy when they follow the seven letters representing the tenth month.

October 1, 2010 was Stephanie’s last birthday. God’s grace, once again, was in full force, as He put it in my mind to take that Friday off of work to spend the day with her – something I don’t think I did any year previously. It is a sobering thought to realize that at the time, I could never have imagined what would enter our lives just two days later.

Speaking of, that day is fast approaching when I can no longer say “a year ago, Stephanie and I…” And it will feel even sooner after that when I will be saying “two years ago” or “five years ago.” I fear the steady train into the future that will leave her standing at the station so far back on the horizon. I fear my memories will fade just as the miles fade our visibility.

On October 3, I’ll resort to thinking how that date in 2010 was the last day I was with her, talking to her. And I’m remembering that in the best way I can figure how, by having a bake sale in her honor. My coworkers especially knew Stephanie because of the treats she sent to work with me. I’m convinced she somehow found a way to bake into everything she made the pure joy she had from being in her kitchen, creating. And joy tastes absolutely wonderful! Dear friends of mine have also taken that idea and put together a cookbook of her/our favorite recipes, some created by her and others simply tweaked by her. Knowing that other people can have those recipes and continue to share some of her magic will make every morsel even sweeter.

I’ve also made the decision, once again, to experience the emotions as deeply as humanly possible. It might sound crazy to some, but it’s the only conclusion I can make. And to accomplish it, I plan to read each of my posts from a year ago as related to when those events happened. I want to remember what I was experiencing. I want to remember how God was at work. Remembering how my spirit broke is to remember how much He loves me and how deeply He sees me.

To put it concisely, I want to remember what God has done for me in 365 days.