I wonder,
I wonder how much longer people with have compassion for me.
I wonder how many days I have until I go from “that poor distraught grieving
mother” to “good, Lord Woman, get a grip, and get over it already”.
Truth is, no matter what I do…someone is gonna judge it …
I learned that as a young widow, I was either “cold” for
making plans for the future, or “weak” for not getting over John Hunt quick
enough..
It’s been 18 years, and I am still not “over John”. Every Thanksgiving week…at some point, I lose
it…years ago I became incapacitated with the brutal memories of November 25, 1995. Now, I just drive my car, pull over
somewhere…release the toxins, then reapply the make-up and drive home.
Home to my husband of
13 years, the man I adore, and am deeply in love with …and the man that is
secure enough to know, that I still weep for the husband of my youth. He not only lets me grieve, he helps me
grieve. He releases me into my pain,
knowing that the pain of my past is what makes me the woman I am today. He
knows that I truly weep with widows, because, I will always be a widow. That compassion is why I can look in the eyes
of the abandoned, the lonely, the devastated…and feel their pain. This truth is
the curse is what gives birth to the blessing.
Now, we have lost our beautiful son, Michael. You might think, in the day to day life of a
mom raising 6 children that everything is one big mess of memories and
survival. In many ways I did just hope
to survive every day with an obscene about of laundry, and ridiculous amounts
of food. Still, in all the chaos of a
big family, each of my children were brilliant, and unique to me. They are all my favorites, and I love certain
things about each of them…Tyler, charismatic, sweet, compassionate, Alexis,
kind, loving…always helping those that could not help themselves, Emily,
artistic, dramatic, and so much fun to watch and listen to. Caleb, so loving, so darn cute…so pure…so
honest. Noah, the best of me, the best
of Gary…without any of the bad.
And Michael, wild, enough energy for 4 lifetimes,
beautiful…truly, beautiful, beyond his obvious good looks…the boy had a
beautiful heart, a beautiful soul.
And I can’t get past it…the last year we had with him, the
drama, the sleepless nights, the long talks…and so many tears, from him, from
us.
I can’t get past his torment, the darkness that chased him,
the look in his eyes that screamed, “Mommy I am scared, please save me”
I will never get over it; please don’t ask me to …I would
gladly plunge a knife into my own heart so that he could live his life the way
God intended him to….why? Because he was better than me, just like all my kids,
better, kinder, more forgiving, more open, more compassionate…than I will ever
be.
Gary, Tyler, Alexis, Emily, Caleb and Noah are all sad,
distraught, completely overcome with grief.
I am all those things, but I am MAD! I am so mad at the lies Michael believed, I
am so mad that I didn’t demand that Michael stay home instead of going back to
school. I am mad at the people that enabled him, and then showed up at his
funeral and asked to be comforted…my heart races at the thought of those
people…I am not even close to forgiving them…not even, kind of close…
In in the end it does not matter how deeply I am wounded, it
does not matter that my son is gone and all that is left is a deep, dark
Michael shaped hole. God will still
expect me to forgive, because I have been forgiven. My husband will daily cast a vision for the
future, he will demand that I put away the anger, and latch on to the Truth.
My children will still need our home, and my arms to be a
soft place to fall in a world that seems to have gone completely insane…
And I will do it, I will heal, and I will help others
heal…because that is what I was created to do.
But, today I am mad.
Today I can’t find forgiveness, and I can’t remove from my mind that
last day when I held Michael. I didn’t
want to let go, and he didn’t want me to let go…but I did.
Right now I don’t want to let any of it go…and I don’t want
my kids or my husband to, before they are ready.
I want to feel pain, and I want to let the pain teach me…
Still, I wonder; how long you will let me do that?
