Six Years Ago...

I find it so hard to believe that exactly six years ago I spoke to my son for the very last time.  Hard to believe all of those words.  Six years. My son. Last time.  Still today those words defy reality.

I have of course played back in my head that conversation hundreds of times over the past six years.  Looking for clues.  Looking for evidence that proves my cause for disputing these findings.  Treasuring the normalcy and lightness of it.  Replaying his voice; the tone, his inflections, his laugh, his concern. Clinging to every word.  Hanging onto to every memory of it.  Today six years later when I can barely remember what I did an hour ago - I can recite that conversation almost word for word.

As I write this one hour and a half ago I stopped what I was doing and looked at the clock at the exact time I made that final call.  Like some force pulling me.  Just like still waking in the middle of the night like I did at exactly 4:00 A.M. Saturday morning the 23rd of August 2014 in a fit of tears without knowing why.  To this day I still periodically wake at precisely 4:00 A.M. sometimes I just look at the clock and realize why I awoke I make a mental note of it and go right back to sleep.  Other times I lay awake with them on my heart and do not - can not go back to sleep.  It isn't everyday anymore but it is still more often than not.  

Still six years later they all have their days with me.  Some days I will just sit and look at pictures of Paxton all day and cry on and off.  Think of the funny little things he did or said and laugh as if he were in the other room.  Other days are Kara's days.  I think about her all day long.  I spend time appreciating what she was to me.  How because of her I was able to have the relationship I did with him.  She was so unselfish with him.  She allowed me to have the sweetest relationship and the gift of loving him.  I think of what a great mom she was and how calm and easy she taught him.  I watch videos to hear her voice.  Then there are "Brian days" and if I'm honest there are more of them.  He was after all my child and I had a 41 year history with him.  I find that on his days I pick certain era's in his life and just relive those days.  Like thinking about different things he did or said say when he was three.  On another such day I will have a reminder of something he did at maybe 14 and then I will start thinking of all the things I can remember about the time he was 14. His first school dance with his first real crush.  He was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, red tie.  I remember thinking what a grown up outfit for such a little boy.  A very small 14 year old that looked all of 10.   

Ahh Celeste. His crush.  How he carried a torch for that little girl.  He was like that though.  Very like me in that.  He too, was one to hang on to those that mattered to him.  He was very sentimental and did not easily let go of a relationship. And he was about 13 when he met Celeste and was still secretly in love with her until the day he married though he never saw her but once after we moved.  

But once he married all of his love and attention went to his wife and children.  Though he was way too young he handled it like a trooper.  He loved being married and loved being a dad better than anything in the world.  Even when she was clearly running around on him, he never mentioned it to any of us.  I knew he was upset about something but his loyalty to her would never let him say a word against her.

He spent a lot of time with us and I was shocked when after she was openly seeing someone else, had filed for divorce and asked him to leave - he finally told us all she had been doing for over a year.  How she had been leaving every night when he came home from work and not returning until 4 or 5 in the morning --totally wasted.  How he had been working all day to come in to a filthy house, no dinner and out the door she would go leaving him to bathe the kids and get them to bed and then sit all night and wonder where his wife was.  How their four year old son told him about her friend "D" that had come to spend the night every night while he was away on a business trip to N.J. for a week.  

She had actually once left two years before, we learned later she was having an affair with her boss.  She came back claiming she wanted to work things out.  She insisted he buy her a new car and put it in her name.  She put in to buy a new house and then she turned up pregnant with their daughter all within a few months of agreeing to come back.  Their daughter was just nine months old when he found out about "D".  Shortly thereafter he found out she was pregnant again but this time he knew the baby was not his.  He was hurt.  Devastated.  I begged him to get a lawyer and fight for custody of his children.  He absolutely refused.  Saying "Mom, how could I do that to my wife! I cannot take her children away from her and I cannot take them away from their mother."  He loved her still.  He wanted her back regardless and he fell into a deep depression for over two years.  

She married D. just a few weeks after their divorce was final and she and D. spent the next several years until they divorced - tormenting his life away.  Controlling him with threats to keep his children from him or saying she'd turn them against him.  On his weekend to have them she called constantly and tried to control every moment of his visitation.  She bossed him and told him what he could and could not do with his children with threats that it would be the last time he saw them if he didn't comply.  She extorted about $80,000 from him on top of his already generous child support by beating him down and telling him what a horrible father he was because he wouldn't pay for them all to take trips to Disney or California or help pay for them a new van.  He ended up in bankruptcy, he couldn't even live on what she left him.  He never got a vacation.  He never got to take his kids anywhere but he faithfully paid for "their" trips all over.  He financed hers, D's and five children's vacations for several years.  He found out years later he'd been financing their drug habit as well.  They were both heavily on drugs and D. had even sent his 11 year old son into a crack-house to buy drugs for them. She gave her 16 year old son Xanax and then when he got caught with it at school she acted as if she was mother of the year and sent him to a drug rehab.  

After the kids got old enough to tell him some of what had gone on he lived consumed with guilt for not trying to take custody of the kids and sparing them the hell they lived in that set the tone for the near ruination of their lives when they hit their teen years.  They had been exposed to everything.

She left D. but not before she gave birth to two more children - one mixed race - after her husband had had a vasectomy claiming at five months pregnant that she'd been raped in the parking lot of a Publix by a black man. And when she left she was pregnant again with husband number three's baby.  He came from a well off family and she took them for all she could before she left him.  And shortly thereafter came baby number seven and husband number four and as I understand it - she now has husband number five.  

She is a textbook psychopath and the nicest person you'd ever meet.

And no one was happier than I was when Brian married Kara because I knew Kara was not the kind of person to sit back and let her run their life or allow her to continue to extort money from them.  And she did exactly as I expected.  She put a stop to it first thing.  For the first time in over twelve years he was somewhat free from that psychopath.  The only thing that scared me was that Kara believed that she was her friend. And she is the most manipulative person I've ever known and I was so afraid of what trouble she might cause her because Kara had stopped her gravy train. 

And weirdly after all the years of torment and bad blood between them and after being divorced for eighteen years, she was johnny on the spot at the scene of the crime from her home over 60 miles away just a short time after the kids were notified.  Chatting up the police; there for the TV cameras; there to talk with the neighbors.  She would not miss an opportunity to be in the middle of the drama.  weeks later I was told by the investigating officers that she had been calling their office regularly asking for updates about the investigation.  He asked me who she was.  I was livid.  Then she was the first one at the Memorial Service and the last one to leave.  They couldn't even close the church long after the service was over because she would not leave.

Afterward I remember the most intense anger I've ever known.  Screaming to the top of my lungs and throwing things and being in an uncontrollable rage --at her.  All the years of her torment of him culminated in the worst rage I've ever experienced.  I wasn't mad at God.  I wasn't mad at him even though they claimed he was responsible.  I was mad at his biological father and her --for all the hurt they had caused him in his life.

I have no anger now I will wait on the Lord and let Him sort out the truth and get justice for us.  I hold no grudges. 

And all of this makes the scenario the police built even more ridiculous.  After all she put him through for all those years and growing to hate her as he did - he didn't kill her.  So why on earth would he have killed the beautiful wife that he loved and the child he adored?

I'm better but there is still a hole in my heart the size of Texas that will never ever fill.  I miss them all every single day but I find peace in the fact that the days of seeing them again are getting close.  Very close. And I rest in that knowledge.

 

Fairness...

I had a revelation the other night that I felt added some clarity to a subject many including me, struggle with.  Thought I'd share...

Many places in the bible make reference to the fact that we, as believers, will suffer for Christ.  Most take that to mean literally suffer at the hand of a non-believer for admitting we are Christians.  And while this is certainly the case in many third-world countries, thankfully, most of us in this country do not have to face persecution because of our beliefs –Or do we?

Have you ever found yourself wondering about the unfairness of the way the world seems to work? I know I have. When you see the highly over-compensated CEO of an unscrupulous company that has clawed his way to the top by stepping on others along the way; not caring who he hurt, what lies he had to tell or who he had to cheat to get there; seemingly unscathed by any hardship while the dedicated young Pastor loses his forty year old wife to a medical mistake and leaving their children without a mother; or the Christian woman that has given her life to serving the Lord suffers and loses her battle with breast cancer; or the Sunday school teacher loses his teenage son to a drunk driver? Makes you wonder how that is just doesn't it?

When the bible speaks of suffering for Christ, it doesn’t just mean facing a terrorist’s gun and being given the choice to deny Christ and live or admit you’re a Christian and die.  It also means suffering through all Satan and his world can throw at you because you’ve chosen to follow Christ.

His mission is to hit you with everything he’s got to cause you to stumble; he wants to cast doubt on your beliefs; destroy your faith and ruin your witness for the Lord.

"Take up your cross and follow me." should have been a hint that the Christian life would not be easy remembering where Jesus's cross lead Him.  Satan has placed a target on your head because he doesn’t already have you.

Could it be that Christian's pay the consequences of their sins here where Satan rules and reigns and have eternal life in Paradise while that unrepentant CEO may live in comfort untouched by tragedy here, but have eternity in Hell waiting for him? 

The Second Year

It is so hard for me to believe that in so many ways the second year really is more difficult than the first.  I know I've read that for some it could be.  I just could not see how that was possible.  And it isn't in all ways but in many ways, it definitely is and I'd like to talk about that.


While the crying and the melt downs in public places is better; the grim realization has set in that this is forever and in many ways this year is actually worse.  I am much more depressed.  The shock has worn off now completely and I now see that long after I'd thought it was gone, it had still been lingering, protecting, pushing me forward.  Long after I thought I was facing this full on and that I was at least in "mid-recovery", I was steeped in deep denial; glossing over it, covering it up with "busy" and pretending.  Busy has come to a screeching halt and now I can't muster enough strength or energy or wherewithal to be busy no matter how hard I try - which by the way is not very hard.  I just don't care anymore.  If I could just sit and eat dinner on a TV tray in front of the television, read an hour, sit in a tub of hot water and then lay in bed and play solitaire on my Kindle till I get sleepy - I'd be good.  That would be my perfect evening.  Oh wait, that is my every evening.  But sooooooo not like my evenings "before".  Never been a big TV fan.  Maybe an hour in the evening to wind down was about my max.  It just always seemed like a major time suck and I always had far too much to do to justify very much TV for all of the housework, cooking, laundry, family time, pets, church, writing and I could never find time to stay ahead of it all. And all of those still exist but suddenly they are all so terribly unimportant.  I can sit for hours and binge-watch ten year old episodes of Alias without feeling a twinge of guilt at the pile of laundry I tripped over to get to the television. Dishes in the sink - fine.  Bathrooms need cleaning - so what.  Floors looking like you need to run the mower and grass catcher - I'm good.  Nothing seems important me anymore.  Everything except family seems like petty annoyances.  I have zero desire to actually "do" anything.  I can barely find enough energy to function on a low level and get by from day to day. 


In the beginning I couldn't think about these things and I was in the middle of caretaking and doing what I could for the living - postponing grief as it turns out .  Just getting from one day to the next the best I could.  This year that is no longer the case but you still have to have a reason to get up and I have no reason.  No hope.  No purpose.  I don't want to "do" anything anymore.  I think I need that puppy now or a donkey or something.  (Latest book - Flash) Whatever - but I need a reason to go on.


The second year is harder too simply because it is the second year and I thought if I could make it through the horror of the first - I would have "made it."  I would be better.  I would want life again.  I would be able to see good in things again.  I would have energy and hope and faith again.  I would be out of the danger zone.

Not so much.

Last year when I first started this blog it had been "Four Weeks" - the blog was a life vest to a drowning man.  Now...well I am floating adrift.  I don't need a life vest but I'm still in the water.  I'm not drowning but this is not living either.

Last year I had "coping skills" - this year now I'm contemplating drugs in order to make it.  What a hypocrite.  I thought if you just kept pushing on and forcing yourself to function, ignored the pain, pretended the holidays were not holidays, kept the kids alive and with me through happy stories, funny memories, pictures and videos.  If I read all the books, attended the right meetings, listened to the preaching, listened to the right music, talked to a counselor, wrote out my feelings and managed to cling to life by tooth and toenail and just make it past that magic one year mark - I would be "out of the woods".  The reality has hit me like a brick that not only is it not true that I will be okay after the first year but in fact that I will never be okay again.

Losing them did not change the number of chairs at my Thanksgiving dinner table or how many gifts I would buy at Christmas or how I spent my Sunday afternoons.  Losing them --changed everything.  Absolutely everything.  Not everything for a year or two years or five years but forever.

I don't even recognize this life.  I had goals, hopes, dreams and a strong abiding faith.  My whole life, those were the things that kept me going.  I truly do not understand how this can make me no longer be me?  I am not me.  God is not God.  Everything is just wrong.  And these are the things that I did not know last year.  I guess I couldn't face it or didn't realize it or God knew I couldn't withstand the full impact of all of that yet.  I guess it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other and remember to breath.  And yeah the first year was horrific and yet in many ways the second is still kind of worse as you come to the cold realization that the horror is never going to end.

A stubbed toe - an amputated foot - same thing right?

Well I broke down and ate in the break room today with all of the co-worker friends I used to eat with; something I had really not done in a year and a half. 

It was a colossal mistake.

I only sat there long enough to eat a bowl of soup and was back at my desk in less than twenty minutes.  It was long enough however, to wreck the rest of my day.

The table conversation was about one of the girls’12-year old dogs.  She had four when we used to eat together.  A few years ago we both had a Chihuahua and I made the mistake of asking about hers. She told me that he had died around this time last year.  I told her how sorry I was to hear that at which she replied “I know. It was awful.  Losing him was just as bad as…” and she stopped dead in her tracks leaving the unsaid words hanging in mid-air.  Both of us sat in awkward silence knowing what she was about to say.  I was sitting desperately trying to think of what I was going to do if she had actually said it.  I probably would have stuffed it down, pretended I had to run back to work and brushed it off to keep from making a scene and making her feel bad.  But I was sitting there looking down at my phone staring at the wallpaper into those beautiful smiling brown eyes and what I wanted to do was shove that picture at her and say:  “Really?  Really losing your dog is exactly like losing him? I beg to differ with you.  I’ve had dogs.  I’ve had dogs I really, really loved but at no point would I compare the loss to losing my child.”

I remember sitting and watching the videos in GriefShare and hearing the story from a mother that had lost her two-year old to a drowning, tell about being somewhere in a social situation and having someone come up to her in a gesture of “comfort” and tell her to “Look at the bright-side, at least you won’t have to potty-train him.” What is wrong with people?

A few weeks back I ran into a friend.  She was visibly upset and when I stopped and asked her if she was okay the dam broke and she burst into uncontrollable tears.  I grabbed her and said, “Hey what is wrong?  What can I do? Are you okay?”  Instantly I felt the pain of her grief because judging from her reaction clearly someone important to her --had died. 

Nope.  Turns out she had a fight with her best friend and she had not called her in four days…

I seem to compare every loss against "this" and everything seems small in comparison. However, in all fairness I have sat and thought about what was earth-shattering drama to me just weeks before this happened.  I've thought many times about what I worried about, lost sleep over and even obsessed over.  How I would love to go back to a time of innocence where my biggest worry was getting in the long check out line at Publix or how aggravating it was to get cut off in traffic. Oh to go back to when I was blissfully unaware about how terribly cruel life could really be.  

I could sit down at any given time and cry and scream solid until this time next year and not even put a dent in all I have to cry about.  We could start with how the pain of losing my child, my daughter-in -law and my baby just goes on and on and how still seventeen months later I keep reliving that horrific day or waking up in a panic as I realize it is, in fact, really “real” over and over again.  Or I could cry about my sister and all that she is having to go through as I worry over her every single day as she fights the effects of not only the leukemia but worse still the treatment; overcoming one trial just in time for the next one to hit and sometimes they are overlapping.  Not to mention the frustration of going from doctor to doctor to doctor and the multitude of medication she has to take and all of the diagnostic procedures she is still having to suffer through not to mention the financial devastation of millions upon millions of dollars in medical bills that she will never be able to pay.  Or maybe on a slow day I could cry for the way that Brian’s existing two children are running off the rails trying to deal with all of this and the feeling of despair that I feel as I watch helplessly as their lives slowly deteriorate as this cancer slowly eats away at my family.  Or when I have nothing else to cry about – I could cry about the fact that after a year and a half I still do not even know what happened to my children or why and worse still is the fact that I may never know that.  Or I could cry over the fact that my other son has not spoken to me in almost a year because he has so much anger and nowhere to constructively place it so it landed on me.  So instead of losing one son, a daughter-in-law, the baby I adored – I can, for no real reason that I can understand, lose two. 

My entire family is in shambles and if that is not enough and friends are the subject of the day if I have any tears left I could cry about the friends I have lost as a result of this – not just one but several in all areas of my life.  Church friends, neighbor friends, work friends as well as the one friend that has shared every aspect of my life for the previous 37 years.  And I don’t even have tears enough left over to cry for my loss of her.  Sadly she is way down the list.  I’m sure I will get to it eventually – maybe in eight or ten years I can find time and tears to grieve the loss of that relationship. And then as icing on the proverbial cake there is the loss of my faith as I knew it and the loss of the relationship I have always had with my God and my comforter and really --what can compare with that? 

I have so much to grieve over that I don’t even know where to begin.  It will literally take years to even get through the list and so far I’m not having much luck getting past number one.

Christmas...yet again.

As hard as it is to believe here we are back in December and chose again not to celebrate Christmas  and again this year two days from Christmas Day --sitting at a funeral.  Last year it was two days before Christmas - funeral. My aunt passed away.  This year - two days after Christmas - funeral.  Another aunt passed away.  Last year right after my aunt passed away my youngest sister lost her brother in law unexpectedly.  This year right before my aunt passed away my other sister lost a sister in law unexpectedly.  Both were in their mid 50's.  Last year we had Christmas dinner in the Waffle House and I thought that was bad.  This year we were in the middle of nowhere in South Georgia and there wasn't even a Waffle House.  We ate day-old fried chicken from a gas station! 


Seriously, this has got to stop.  That is about more weird than I can handle.


Tomorrow is New Year's eve.  And keeping with tradition, we are heading to my best friend's house to spend the night.  Again, glad to see the year come to a close but not nearly as glad as last year and I'm not sure why because it did not change a thing. 


Christmas came and went.  We ran away from home as usual.  We went down to South Georgia to see Brian's oldest son.  I didn't want him to be alone on Christmas and it brought me closer to his dad to be with him.  Then we left there and went straight to where the funeral would be held.  Maybe this is God's way of getting me to gather with family for Christmas?  Last year it was my mother's family.  This year it was my father's.  Scares me a little wondering what's coming next Christmas.


On a different subject - I've been thinking about something lately.  Since I remember very little about Brian's Memorial Service and everything about not being at Kara and Paxton's service seemed so wrong.  The three of them separated and even in separate states just seemed so terrible to me.  I've been considering having another private Memorial Service for the three of them - maybe on the second anniversary. 


I want both families to come together and have a service for them as a family.  It is asking and expecting a lot I know and it may not be received very well but I'm just considering it - for closure - for comfort - for having them and us together - for letting go?  It's still in the thinking stages.  And it may not work out any better than the birthday dinner we planned last year for Brian's birthday - who knows?  But that is just a thought that has been steeping lately. 


December was a rough month as bad as I hate to admit it - we kind of went backward a bit.  It was an entire setback month.  Today I talked to my cousin that I'm very close to.  She lost her youngest daughter at four years old. That was in 1977.  We've almost never spoken of it because it very nearly destroyed her.  But today we did.  And I asked her "How long? How long before you actually wanted to live again?"  I know everyone is different and I know everyone grieves at a different pace but no one will even give me an idea of what to expect and I really, really need to know.  "Three years."  She said, "Maybe three years or maybe a little longer."  That gave me a measure of hope ---for about two minutes right before she added: "But I'm better now."  Now!  Now? Dear God.  Did you get that part about it being thirty nine years ago? 


We are in serious trouble.

Techno Grief

Grief, like everything has also changed with technology. Technology issues were things that were never considered just a few years ago and not something I have heard anything about in all my reading and research – how technology makes it difficult to accept a loss because your loved one keeps turning up in texts, emails, voice mails, phone contact lists, Instagram photos, Youtube videos and worse still --old news feeds.

We really don’t realize on a surface level how deeply ingrained we are in the technology that permeates our lives today.  So much so until it, at times, seems to override reality. It never occurred to me how much our subconscious minds automatically believe what they see through our daily  blasts of technology because we are so conditioned to it.  One instance was when Siri asked me if I want to call Brian.  Now on a logical level I knew that wasn’t possible but for just a split second my conscious mind wanted so badly to believe she/it could until I found myself desperately wanting to try.  And like sometimes I find myself just looking up their phone numbers on my contact list as if seeing it there makes this somehow less true or not real even if it is just for a moment.  Or looking up old texts where even seeing their words typed on a screen makes me hear their voices because I was so used to being able to actually “hear” through their typed words, their inflections and their tone – like finding the silly comments Brian had left on my Shutterfly page and as I read them I could actually “hear” the mood he was in; the lightness, humor and sarcasm in his voice --making it feel like they are actually there on the other end of my computer, email or phone.  And for just a minute – it feels so good, so right and so normal.  It is a break from the sadness and a moment of “before”.   I even find that I look on other emails I’ve sent and I note the date as being before the loss and I grasp for the lightness that was in my own voice and hang on to that free easy innocence that I will never know again.  The voice I had and the person I was “before” when the most asinine things took priority in my life and I spent my days worrying over the lifelong battle with my weight, getting my hair to behave or the fact that my phone wouldn’t hold a charge; when the little petty annoyances of an everyday life were the things that dominated my thoughts.  Or things like fretting over who was and who was not going to come to Christmas or being aggravated at the fact that I had changed the day and time four times to try and fit everyone else’s schedule.  I look at those emails and mentally take myself back to that life before I knew catastrophic multiple loss when I believed God watched over all of my children, when I thought things that horrific only happened to other people.  And I can remember and take myself back to feel the very atmosphere of the "before". 

It seems my entire world is divided into two parts.  There was me before August 23, 2014 and there is me after August 23, 2014.  August 22, 2014 – hair mattered.  August 24, 2014 - life did not matter. June 3, 2014 - I was emailing an editor to see if they had accepted a story I had written.  September 23, 2014 – I am trying to survive one day at a time by writing out my pain, my frustration, my love, my grief and Brian’s story on this blog unconcerned with whether anyone else will ever even read it or not.  March 31, 2014 I was setting up a closing with a real estate attorney to close out the sale and put Brian and Kara’s house in their name.  February 12, 2015 I am emailing a foreclosure attorney setting up a date for the sale of that same house on the courthouse steps.   

There are other things too like the notification not long ago that was on my phone when someone had hacked an old email account and I got an email in my inbox that said it was from Kara – for just one moment I was so happy and just because it sat there in real time saying that it was from her, I had a moment of relief even joy and excitement although on a conscious level I knew better.   And strangely enough, it doesn’t even feel crazy to me???  Sounds crazy.  But it doesn't feel crazy. Not because nothing is crazy now but instead because everything is, if that makes any sense.   My life, my actions, my thought processes, my logic and my reality –everything seems so skewed until even the craziest stuff seems…well… normal.

Today...

I keep trying to write but for some reason I am having a really hard time; me - the person that can sit down to write a thank you note and ramble on for ten pages.  I cannot think of anything useful or edifying to say.  I never had any plans when I started this blog for how it should go, what it was going to be about, where it was headed or when it would end.  I just needed an outlet so I jumped in and wrote whatever was on my heart that day.  I needed to be able to express the torrent of thoughts that bombarded me daily: the questions, the memories, the insecurities, the inconsistencies, the anger, sadness and confusion as well as the doubts, the lessons, the insights, the epiphanies and the other boggy, mud-covered steps I’ve taken through this process.  But eventually something would have to change.  Either there is growth and progress as I healed in which case it would eventually just ride off into the sunset or it would have to morph into something completely different but you cannot just keep going with a continuous rant about the same old stuff.  And I am certainly not healed and the journey has not ended. Not by any stretch of the imagination but instead it seems to be going in a circle and I really don’t know how much can you write about a journey where the scenery never changes?  

This has been on my heart for several weeks and I actually took the blog down from public view for a week or so.  I had a little feedback from people closest to me asking what happened or blaming themselves and so I put it back up but I suspected even as I did that – that it probably wasn’t for long.  I didn’t want to take it down again without at least letting everyone know what was going on.  I owe you that. 

It is beginning to sound like I am in a phone system loop.  Push one if you would like to hear about my unabated anger, Push two if you want to hear about my latest crying fit, push three if you would like to hear about about my faltering faith, push four if you’d like to repeat this menu…

Better instead of bitter - that's what I'm shooting for and in checking my inner feelings against those of others that have experienced profound loss I do see a few things that I feel that are different from a lot of them.  I am not now nor have I ever been angry at Brian.  I do not see other people that still have their sons or grandchildren and feel jealousy or anger at them and wonder “Why my son and not yours?” That has truly never crossed my mind.  I would not want any human being to suffer this loss. And I can look at it and say instead "Why not mine?" I'm nobody special.

I can see people enjoy their small children or grandchildren and it does not bother me or make me sad. What does bother me however is a child crying over something preventable; a parent that does not seem to appreciate the child they have or a parent doing exactly what I would have done prior to this – taking something away from their child because of rules or to make a point and making that child cry.  That will make me cry in a New York minute and I do have an almost uncontrollable urge to tell them to please just give the baby whatever it wants, just let it be happy and love it while you can.  You could be sitting where I’m sitting.

So here is a progress report – I am functioning. Better.  I laugh but I also still cry – randomly and without warning. I am able to shop and pass the toy department and baby department without the trip ending in a puddle of tears and me running out of the store.  They are still the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep when I can sleep but there are more times in between that I don’t dwell on them obsessively. Strangely enough, it is getting more difficult to look at their pictures and videos??? I don't get that.  I still have most of their stuff in my building.  "Most" being the key word here.  I still have Brian’s Pepsi in my fridge and Paxton’s booster seat is still attached to my dining room chair and I am still breaking my nails on child safety latches on my kitchen cabinets.

I am beginning to go out in social situations although still few and far between.  I still prefer to be with family or close friends on a one on one basis.  I still have problems with crowds or large social functions.  But I am pushing myself.  I have tickets to a Mercy Me concert next week with my daughter, one of my two best friends and her sister.  It will be a crowd.  It is a social situation and it is not one on one or just family so that’s a baby step. 

I am planning to have Thanksgiving Dinner this year on Thanksgiving Day and try slowly to stop “pretending” (sneaky denial.)  I am still not planning to celebrate Christmas – I’m just not ready for that and I don’t have a “new normal” version to work with yet.  But again, it’s a start. 

My faith – here, we are still on shaky ground.  I’ve done everything I know to do to hold it together. One corner falls down and I run get a book or two and put under it.  It holds it for a little while and then the other side begins to lean – I go grab some Christian music and a few podcasts from Charles Stanley and carefully prop it up on that side.  We’re good for a week or two and the other side starts crumbling again.  I borrow some faith from my sister to use to fill the cracks, nail another sermon from church to that side and grab a chapter or two from the bible and glue them along the sides.  And I’ve managed to hold it together long enough to go search for more material. It is not a plumb, square or sound structure. And it is just as shabby as it sounds and I hate that but I’m doing all I know to do.  Truthfully, some days I want to take a bulldozer and just mow down what’s left of it and push the whole mess off a cliff.  And actually that may be what it takes. Maybe I will have to let God rebuild it from the ground up because my shoddy patch job trying to put it back together with the scraps I’ve got is just not working all that well.

To me, that is still the scariest part; the saddest part and believe it or not, the worst part of all of this. 

And how much longer I will keep the blog going is still up in the air but for what it’s worth that is where we are today.

I've been thinking...

And I'd like to know what you think.

And I've been reading again and for anyone going through a faith crisis this is the best resource I have found that addresses grief, loss, tragedy - as they relate to your faith. Lifelines for Tough Times by Mike Fabarez.

In the book it says that good comes from these tragedies although not always like you might expect; that sometimes other people's lives are positively affected or changed in some way.

So with that in mind, what I am wondering is could this tragedy have brought some to know God; or brought someone closer to God? Could it have given some a clearer appreciation of the life they have; or a deeper appreciation for the loved ones they have?   Could it have made some aware of issues in their own family that need addressing?  Could it have lead some to pay attention to what could be warning signs?  Could it have made someone change the way they relate to others; comfort others in their grief or judge others? Has this made anyone aware that everything they see on the news might not be true and that every story has another side?  Has it made anyone question their complete trust and faith in local law enforcement?  Has it made anyone in hearing a tragic story on the news now think about the alleged guilty party's family?  Has it made anyone think that this could happen to you?

Has my story, Brian's story or this blog in any way affected you?  If so, I would like to hear your story. Would you please let me know?

The Storms of Life

I have been bombarded lately with a common message coming at me from a variety of areas.  I listen to Charles Stanley’s radio message at 5:30 every morning on my ride to work.  I also listen to a local Christian radio station that does a Daily Devotion every morning.  I also have a Bible app that has a Bible verse of the day.  These three different forms of media have all come together with a common message this week. The Storms of Life – their cause and meaning.   There are three types of storms that God allows in your life. 

There are Protecting storms – as in you did not get that job that you were hoping and praying for – you feel at the time that it was a storm or an unanswered prayer but perhaps instead it was because the company was going to close and you would have been left jobless.  Or perhaps you prayed for things to work out in a relationship with a certain person but that did not happen and you are disappointed but you later meet the love of your life.  Your seemingly unanswered prayer was actually a form of God’s protection.  I’m sure if you think back you can recall a time when you have asked God for something only to find out later that you were thankful He did not allow you to have whatever you had asked for.

Then there are Correcting storms – storms that hit your life as a direct result of some sin or some wrong choice that you have made.  God is not trying to destroy you with these storms of correction but instead guide you to the best choices for your life for your own benefit. - Proverbs 3:11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction for who the Lord loveth, he correcteth even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.  Ask yourself this about whatever you are going through – Is this a storm of correction?  Is there something in my life that needs correcting.  Is this a disciplinary storm that God has allowed in my life to open my eyes to something I am doing that is out of His will or is pushing me farther away from my walk with Him?  His purpose is to move us constantly in the direction of a closer walk with Him. Our goal should be to be more Christ-like.  Is there something in your life; gossip, lust, envy, an addiction or an error in thinking that may be blocking that goal?  If so, He will do whatever it takes to get your attention and get you back on the right track.  That is a correcting storm.

And then there are Perfecting storms – A storm that has come into your life as a test to refine you like gold in a fire to remove the impurities in your life or like in Luke 22:31-32 where Jesus tells the Apostle Peter “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon that your faith may not fail.  And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”  This was an Apostle of Jesus Christ who had listened to his teachings and left his personal life to walk with Jesus for three years.  But Simon Peter had such a love and loyalty to Jesus he began to be arrogant about it.  In the next verse 33: Peter says, “Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.”  In Matthew 26: 33:  “Though all men shall be offended because of thee yet will I never be offended.”  And in verse 35 he goes on to say “I should die with thee yet will I not deny thee.”  But when Jesus asked him to come to the garden with Him and watch and pray – he fell asleep.  And when the guards came and arrested Jesus Peter in fear for his own life, denied even knowing Jesus three different times.  So though Peter loved the Lord, he was arrogant and prideful about that love and his faith.  He was not nearly as strong as he had thought.  So Jesus agreed to let Satan “sift” him as wheat – to test and try his faith not so Jesus would know the depth of that faith for He already knew but so that Peter could see his own shortcomings.  So he could no longer hide from his failures as a loyal friend and follower of Jesus.  I’m sure this was an eye opening experience for Peter.  I’m sure he was filled with confusion, remorse and shame.  But it gave him an honest assessment of how his strength, bravery, loyalty and faith was tested and found lacking. God knew that Peter’s pride was going to have to be destroyed if he were ever going to be of any real use.  Peter suffered a Perfecting storm.

And yet again this morning still another confirmation as Charles Stanley spoke of “works” making you feel justified when in fact nothing but what Jesus did on the cross could ever justify you.  There is nothing you, personally, can ever do to make Him love you more or make you right in His eyes.  Nothing.  He was saying that just because you go to church three times a week, tithe 10%, teach Sunday School or sing in the choir --that does not justify you to Jesus.  He was making the point that you were made “free” from the bondage of the law but it hit home with a different message to my heart entirely.

I have spent nearly thirteen months assessing the Tsunami that decimated our lives August 2014; initially just trying to survive the storm - dodge flying debris, tread the rising flood waters, cling desperately to whatever small pieces of solid ground I could find and then after I survived the first waves of destruction I began trying to make sense of it. 

Prior to that storm I, like Peter, would have sworn nothing could shake my faith. I pretty much felt like I too, would have gone to prison or faced death in a minute.  I was “secure” in my faith and my relationship with God was, I thought, unshakable.  I was in church almost every week for the past 22 years, I tithed, and did all of the other things that I thought was expected of me as a Christian. I cared about people, I gave to charities and tried to help people in need.  I was proud to be able to do what little I did in the church and while I never consciously thought I could “work” my way into Heaven or gain brownie points with God or even work to make restitution for any sins in my life, I apparently did think it would somehow keep disasters of this magnitude away from my life because the first thing that hit me was the unfairness and the devastating feeling that I had been betrayed by the God I loved and trusted. 

Obviously, I had a huge issue with pride as well.  Let me tell you there is absolutely nothing that can humble you right down to the dirt like the devastation of losing three members of your family at once and the shame and horror and yes, even guilt of having the whole world believe the son you love with all your heart --took the life of his wife and child. 

While I recall thinking I would gladly give my life for God – I can confess here and now that I absolutely never entertained the illusion that I would be willing to give the life of my child or grandchild.  Giving one’s life sounds like the maximum sacrifice but let me assure you it is not.  I know first-hand what a maximum sacrifice looks like and it is certainly not my life.  My life has not meant two cents to me this entire year.  Sacrificing my life would seem like a cheesy consolation prize.

Like Peter, when three times he denied even knowing Jesus, I have come to the humbling conclusion – that my faith, love and loyalty has been “sifted as wheat" and found seriously lacking.   

Whatever you do for the least of these...

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I have felt abandoned by God in all of this misery. 

So I got to thinking about where I have found my comfort and support.  Of course my family first and foremost my daughter, my son in law, my husband, my sisters, my brother & my best friend but where was God in all of this?  Well the first help and comfort I received was from my church family – all of whom were with us from the moment we found out and there for us throughout that entire horrific day.  Then throughout the week following their deaths – we heavily depended on them for so much.  There was the Preacher and his wife – to preach the service and play the piano and to be there to sit with us, cry with us and pray for us.  There was a steady stream of Deacons and their wives, and the rest of the church family all there, at one time or another bringing food, drinks, paper goods, hugs, tears, offers of help in any way we needed.  They continued with phone calls, cards, emails and sporadic visits for many months even bringing us fresh vegetables from their gardens.  And even this past week a drop in visit as they remembered that the anniversary was coming up and they thought I may need someone to be with me.

Then there were all the cards and the beautiful and thoughtful “comfort basket” from my daughter’s Sabbath School class.  A group of ladies from the Seventh Day Adventist Church my daughter attends – all women that did not know me but sent me inspirational books, cards, a special coffee mug, picture frames, soft cuddly throws and CHOCOLATE!  It was the sweetest gesture.


I have even received, right along with my sister, a steady stream of funny, sweet, uplifting cards for a solid year now from the mother of the preacher at my sister's church.  

Then we attended Grief Share classes at one of the largest Church of God churches in Atlanta where we were given books, advice, comfort and support while we met in a group of people who had all experienced loss and watched inspirational, helpful & hopeful videos to give us hope and teach us ways to survive this loss.  I also made a good friend there that has kept in touch and I’ve had dinner with several times.

And when my sister went home and the grief blind-sided me again – she (as if she had nothing else to think about!) contacted a church sponsored group called Stephen Ministries.  Where they have volunteers that train to be paired up with someone in an emotionally trying situation of loss to listen and offer friendship and comfort.  I have been meeting weekly with the sweetest lady that sits for a couple of hours a week and listens while I tell her the details of this horrific story.  A heavy burden emotionally for her yet she keeps coming back.  She actively listens.  She isn’t judgmental or disgusted.  And, when I want to talk about my love for my son, I don’t get “The Look”.  She is kind and considerate and thoughtful and she also meets with a group of “prayer warriors” weekly in a Prayer Shawl group and they knit or crochet shawls or afghans and the entire group prays over it and then they give them to someone in need of prayer.  She brought me the most beautiful blanket that all of the women in her group had prayed over for me!  They are from a Methodist Church fifteen miles away.

Days after the kids were found, we received a letter in his mail box addressed to the "Family of Brian, Kara & Paxton" expressing sympathy and telling us how sorry they were and how they were praying for us.  It was from a church fifty miles from us.

I have spent days and days listening to the comforting messages of Charles Stanley, a minister from the largest Baptist Church in Atlanta.  He is on the radio and his sermons are broadcast on TV and online from their website.   I listen every day to what has -- at times been a life-saving message.

I have also for the first time in my life begun listening to Praise and Worship music.  I am a Southern Gospel old Church Hymnal kind of girl and have never cared for the new age modern worship music but the very first person to contact me from my blog sent me a link to a song by Mercy Me called the Hurt and The Healer and I fell in love.  And I’ve been listening to them and all praise and worship music ever since.  It has become such a comfort and such a help to me and I have found a new love that I will no doubt hang onto from here on out.

So what is the common denominator here? 

Yep, God.  That same God that I felt had abandoned me. 

There have been Churches  -  Baptist Churches, Seventh Day Adventist Churches, Methodist Churches, Church of God Churches, Presbyterian Churches – all sending help and comfort my way continuously.  All God’s people --doing God’s work; “being Jesus to the least of these.”  God was bringing me help and comfort in my grief and pain – through the kind acts of His people.  I couldn’t feel Him or find Him but He was there all the time; sending His earthly workers to be the music that soothed my soul, the inspirational teaching that got me through that day, various formal ministries to be my listeners and my guides through the strange and hostile world of catastrophic grief, new friends and even strangers to be my comforters and my own church family to be my physical help. 

He has been there for me --through all of you!

If you ever think that what you do does not matter – think again.  If you have a talent (and everyone does) whether it be carpentry, gardening, crocheting, knitting, talking and being an inspiration to someone, or listening to give someone an outlet for their pain, cooking to provide a meal, singing, preaching or praying – God can use it if you let him.  And trust me when I tell you, it makes a difference.  Some days the difference between life and death.

Sometimes You are all of the God some people ever see.  I know because I have been one of them.

 

Shipwrecked

I’ve been thinking a lot about my biggest fear and greatest loss through this.  And with so very much loss it seems I have a lot to choose from.  And as hard as it is to believe, the clear winner is the loss of my faith as I knew it. 

Some days are better than others but I have to admit I still struggle and any one of you that choose to judge – I challenge you to walk a mile in my shoes – if you dare - before you say it could never happen to you.

I feel terrible for it – certainly.  And I worry that I won’t be forgiven for the doubts and anger that have plagued my days for nine months now.  The anger has let up some – thank goodness but now I live with the constant guilt left in its wake.  

What has taken the place of that anger is a cavern of emptiness.   I have days when I feel better about things and there are days when I look at the way I used to “know” God and realize that there is no way that could have ever worked.  But what is worrying me is that I seem to have had far more clarity on that months ago.  There are days when I see clearly that God had to destroy the self-centered, worldly image that I had of Him in order for me to know His real, true nature – but I also know that we’re only half-way there.  He destroyed the image that I had – that’s for sure.  But I haven’t found the replacement image as yet to know who He really is because He seems very far away right now.  And I’m a little afraid of rebuilding that “house of cards” as C.S. Lewis put it. Like if you tried handing me another baby and saying “Here fall in love with this child and let’s see how this one works out.” 

Not going to happen.

And I’m not sure I can build another belief system out of the shreds of faith I have left either.   I hope and pray that I can and that though I am not there yet – in time I will be –but at this point, I honestly do not know.

As I look back over the months and I reread here what I’ve written along this horrific journey, it appears that in many ways I seem to be going backwards.

 

I was in counseling.  I was reading a lot of grief books, self-help books and inspirational books.  I was watching videos.  I was going to Grief Share.  I had my sister to talk to a lot and had daily responsibilities that kept me out of the closet and after nine months you’d assume I’d be on my way up out of the depths of despair. 

When the numbness wore off and I was so devastated and so broken and so fragile I was running 90 MPH trying to “do” everything I could think of, to keep me from wanting to die every minute of every day.  

I lived with the daily fear that I would succumb and wreak more havoc on my already devastated family.  I wrote on the blog the first entry that I was not sure I could live through this but this was my attempt to at least postpone “not living through it” as long as possible.  Even I, thought if I could just postpone it for some reasonable amount of time that I would be kind of past the danger period.  Not over it -- I knew better than that -- but dealing with it enough that I was comfortable that I would not do anything stupid.

So I bombarded myself with every avenue that I thought may help.  Everything anyone suggested – I tried.   I devoured everything anyone sent me – books, articles, videos, inspirational quotes cards and letters.  I was doing what I do -- being obsessive about it and hitting it with everything I had in my arsenal. 

Still I went to bed at night hoping and praying that I would not wake up.  I didn’t want to be the actual cause myself of any more pain to my family but if it happened ---well I’d have been perfectly happy.   And when I woke up every morning I was pissed off.  But human nature is such that I still continued to fight.  If I wasn’t going to die then I was going to have to find whatever it took to give me the will to live. 

So I prepared for the battle.  I have never known this kind of profound grief and despair and I had to literally learn how to survive it.  So I found out what to do and what not to do in order to heal.  I learned grief was messy and had no defined timeline.  I learned that you lean into the grief and you do not hide it or run from it or attempt to cover it up if you want to heal and not get stuck.  I learned you should feel and express your emotions.  I learned the language and what to expect: “melt downs” and “ambushes” and “triggers”.  I learned we all grieve differently and on different timelines.  I learned it was work and that you needed to talk about your loss and acknowledge your loved ones. 

I attacked it like I would any other project.  It was here.  I couldn’t avoid it.  So I would research it, find out all I could about it and just deal with it head on.  I was fighting; fighting to survive it though I didn’t even want to – I was doing it for the rest of my family and my few closest friends.  As it turns out two thirds of the family and friends I was so concerned about “sparing” any additional pain, have chosen to walk away and cut all ties so there was very little need to worry.  I'm kind of thinking they would have been just fine.

My sister has gone to her own home now.  I am back at work fulltime.  I am out of the rental house and back home where all of their memories were (and still are) and where every weekend I had breakdown after breakdown as the triggers here slapped me in the face the minute I arrived and stayed long after I left.

I can no longer attend Grief Share since it is not close and my spare time is now spent in a nearly four hour daily commute. 

All the books began to run together and all the information I'd read was pretty well internalized so I felt I was ready to let go of all of the external efforts and obsessing and put what I learned to practice so I could finally begin to heal. 

I knew the Kubler-Ross  five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, sadness & acceptance)  I was aware of the danger signs of depression and I was prepared so as not to fall off a cliff there.  I knew to steer clear of temporary “feel better” fixes like alcohol, drugs, shopping, over-eating or having an affair.  I knew not to make major changes in my life or make major decisions while still in this state. 

The plan was to fix it in whatever way was in my control – I guess I was going to “Type A” it into submission.  And apparently while I thought I was facing it head-on – it was just another way to throw the focus on my "obsession with dealing with it" and avoid the obvious.  And now here I am nine months down the road...wondering if I am any better or actually worse --again?

In looking back over the previous nine months of posts – which is also what I was supposed to do in order to “realize growth” – I'm not sure that is what I’m seeing...There are no longer sweet baby stories, or amusing anecdotes of our time together, no more inspirational epiphanies about life or love or God; no more accounts of miracles in the face of this tragedy. 

My mind keeps drifting to thoughts of a shipwreck.  Someone stranded in a lifeboat on the high seas.  The first few days they fight with blind determination to make it through.  That is of course when they still have plenty of food and water.  They pray.  They cling to hope.  They look diligently for the rescue boats to come.  But then as days stretch into weeks, the food runs out, the fresh water runs low and they see hope draining out of the bottom of the near-empty water source.  Then come the rains and hope is rekindled.  They have a measure of relief.  They praise God for the gift of the fresh Heaven sent water.  Suddenly the gentle welcome rain takes an evil turn as swirling, menacing darks clouds appear; lightening begins popping all around; thunder roars, gale-force winds whip and the waves become huge and raging.    The little boat is tossed and battered as is the struggling soul on board.  Finally, the storm subsides and hope springs forth - a little slower this time and not quite as high.  The sun comes out - a welcome sight then it begins to beat down relentlessly until the suffering soul on board starts to hallucinate; slipping in and out of consciousness. "Surviving" has lost its momentum.  Then one day without any foresight or fanfare - he just slips quietly under the water…

One choice

Brian could never have imagined how many lives "this" has affected.  The trickle down fallout of this kind of tragic loss, and the mind-boggling mysteries and deep confusion, has hurt, disillusioned and literally destroyed so many.  Like ripples in a pond --they just keep radiating out touching more and more in all directions. 


No one thinks about how many people their one single life touches.  Or how one single act can keep on destroying lives for years to come.  The mental images that keep one up night after night; the depression that sucks all joy from another; the marriages that could not survive all the grief and sadness; the self-destructive behaviors of still another; the guilt; the anger; the blame; the falling away of the previously devout Christian; the faltering faith of others.  The ripple effect has touched so many, hurt so many, destroyed so many...


It is impossible to know how many.  Not one life or two lives or even the three lives affected that night...but hundreds of lives forever altered.


Could any of us imagine that one single decision we might make has the ability to alter hundreds of other people's lives?  Could we even guess that one simple choice, made in a weak moment could have such far-reaching, devastating effects on so many?  We would never be so bold or so arrogant as to believe we could affect another's eternal future and yet, that is what every single choice we ever make is capable of doing. 


Not just the choice to take a life but every single choice we make -- every word --every deed good or bad makes a difference in someone's life.  We either make the choice to help, to uplift, to edify, to improve, to comfort, to encourage or to love or we make the choice to hurt, to embarrass, to discourage, to disillusion or to depress someone. 


Very few, if any, choices we make have "no" effect on those whose lives we touch.  Even "paper or plastic" has far-reaching, long term effects on the planet which consequently hurts --everybody.


So before you light that cigarette; before you reach for that joint or that pill or that drug of choice, before you pick up that bottle, before you make that secret phone call, hit send on that text, before you post the next message on Facebook or cut someone off in traffic - think about what unalterable difference you may be making in someone else's life. 


Sometimes one simple decision, one seemingly innocent choice can: lead to a divorce that alters the rest of your child's life; lead to a drug overdose that you may not come back from; can cause someone else to feel so hopeless or despondent as to commit suicide; can cause a wreck that will kill someone's mother, husband or child; can ruin someone's reputation and leave them bitter and angry; can cause the loss of a job that supports a family; can cause someone to have their children permanently taken away; can cause someone to lose their faith. 


One choice.


One choice caused almost 3,000 people to lose their lives on September 11, 2001 leaving in the wake orphaned children, widowed wives and husbands, devastated families, neighbors, friends, co-workers and even strangers thousands of miles away were affected.


One choice cost up to 20 million Jews to live in the most horrific conditions and then lose their lives in the gas chambers during the holocaust.


And One choice caused the downfall of mankind to sin - causing suffering and sickness and death to come to the whole world until the end of time.


What will your next choice cause?

Six months later...

Today is six months since the horrific day that rocked our world.  The day that forever changed everything about who we were as a family; how we celebrate holidays; how I spend my weekends and how I now view the world.


There have been as I've noted before many changes since that tragic August day but much more than just the tangible physical changes such as my living arrangements, my best friends, my work arrangements etc.  The changes I refer to now are emotional and spiritual in nature.  Things like my tolerance, my fears, my views of security, my views on life and death, prayer, expectation, love and life goals.


My tolerance for certain things seems to have completely reversed.  The things I used to have a low tolerance for like waiting in a doctors office or sitting in traffic or having my dinner interrupted by sales calls - suddenly do not bother me hardly at all.  After seven months of sitting in the BMT clinic hours on end and having no control over anything regarding the course of my daily life - those no longer rattle me.  However, I find that I have almost no tolerance now for shallow, disloyal and self-centered people. Suddenly now I am quick to let go of people that I should have let go of long ago but just never could.  I think it comes down to finally realizing what I do and do not have control over.


My fears - in some things I have less fear and in others I now have more.  I have less fear about illness, disease or death.  They seem totally unimportant to me now.  But fears where my family are concerned are much stronger as I came to realize that the worst I could ever have imagined - has already happened so anything is possible.  In a little over six weeks I faced losing my sister and best friend as she was diagnosed with Acute Leukemia and then lost my youngest son, my daughter in law and the baby that I adored.  I realized cruelly that we are not exempt from the worst that the world has to offer and suddenly I no longer feel protected.  Prayers did not stop this and my false sense of security has been shattered.  So that fear is very real as I now know I live with no safety net.


Goals - I used to have life goals, hopes dreams and expectations for how our life would be.  My to do list now consists of just being able to get my shoes on the right feet today.


Prayer - I used to pray when I woke up; pray when I drove; pray before I went to sleep and sometimes in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep.  I kept a prayer journal --several as a matter of fact.  I didn't just pray at church on Sunday I literally prayed about everything.  I asked for God's guidance in everything.  I looked for His hand in every situation and I saw miracles in the everyday.  For someone that literally prayed about everything six months ago - I am now afraid to pray for or about anything.  And my everyday miracle now is that I am still waking up.


I think back about some of the last things I prayed for before all of this happened.  I prayed for a closer relationship with my daughter.  And we certainly have that now as we have been drawn closer together by the common bond of the tragic loss of three people we dearly loved.  We now share in the mystery, the pain and the horror of living through a triple death. 


I prayed I could be more patient and tolerant.  As I said that too was answered as I sat an average of six hours a day in a bone marrow transplant clinic with my sister and my best friend as she went through hell fighting for her life. 


I also prayed that Brian would be able to find some peace in his life...


And the last thing on my constant list that I prayed for before all this happened was for God to help me be a better person and give me a closer walk with God.  I have just read, in a book called Walking with God through Pain and Suffering --that tragedy and affliction brings a whole new level of closeness in one's relationship to God. 


I might suggest now that you be very careful what you pray for.

Regrets...

Brian, how I wish I could have just one more day with you.  How I wish I had been a better mother to you.  How I wish I could have told you how I loved you with all my heart always .  How I wish I could tell you how proud I was of you and how I admired the father you always were.  How not only me, but everyone you ever came in contact with, knew that above all, you loved your children and put them first in your life.

How I wish I could tell you how I enjoyed your sense of humor and your practical jokes and the quirky and unusual way you looked at ordinary things. 

I wish I could have let you know how I beamed with pride at your many skills that we could never figure out where you learned. I wish I could tell you how the things you knew how to do amazed me: skills on your job, skills with carpentry, woodworking, furniture making, drawing, writing and your ability to just look at something and know how to take it apart and figure out how to fix it, rebuild it or reengineer it.  There was literally nothing you couldn’t do. 

Unfortunately, with most artistic gifts comes the curse of the hardship that fostered that creativity.  You had such a difficult adult life.  I couldn’t even think about it without crying and though you certainly deserved the sympathy  – I could never bring myself to tell you how hard I thought you had it and how sorry I felt for you all the time.  I didn’t dare make it worse.  I wanted you to somehow get past it without living your life in regret and making it the focus of your life, I didn't want what ruined your past to forever ruin your future too.  But trust me, I knew you struggled.  I always knew.  The one choice you made at 17 years old forever altered the course of your life.  That one crossroad that looked perfectly normal and completely innocent turned the rest of your life upside down.

You were always such an intense child. You took everything so seriously.  You had a tendency to worry too much about everything and you felt responsible for everybody.  You couldn’t say no to anyone.  You could never turn away from anyone in need especially if it was someone you loved --even to your own detriment.  Just days before we lost you, you called asking where you could be tested to see if you could donate bone marrow to my sister.  Had it been a lung or a kidney I have no doubt you would have made the offer just as readily. 

You could never hold a grudge and were always quick to forgive anyone and take the blame on yourself if you could until you nearly collapsed under the weight of all the world's problems.  And even when things in your life went right you had a hard time enjoying them for worrying about when the rug would be pulled out from under you again and sadly even when it wasn’t, you would sometimes sabotage your own happiness yourself because you never in your heart felt like you deserved anything good.  I knew.  A mother always knows the heart of her child.  

You were such a sweet, funny, happy-go-lucky kid but as you grew up – like watching a train wreck, I watched as life beat you down and took all the joy from your life.

I still don’t know how I will live with this.  I’m still not sure that I can.  I struggle day by day as hard as I know how, using every coping skill in my bag of tricks to survive it.  And only because I know what this loss has done to all of us, and I do not ever want to inflict that pain on anyone.  But I still feel it will be a miracle if I do.  God will have to pull me close and stay my hand and give me His peace that passes all understanding.  That will be the only way.

I have seen so much in my lifetime.  I have experienced what I thought was horror and great loss but nothing could have prepared me for this.  This loss has been greater than I ever could have imagined and I know in my heart there will never come a day for the rest of my life that this pain and deep anguish will not be with me.  I pray that like I read and like others say, that it will ease with time but I know in my heart that it can’t ease much.  The sheer agony of it has felt like it would kill me all by itself.  Losing the baby hit me so hard until I thought I would just surely stop breathing and die from pure unbearable pain and overwhelming sorrow.  Yet I always knew he was just first – not the worst.  You would be by far the worst when I was finally able to even begin to deal with losing you.  But I could only take it in little snippets - one at a time - as I was able to bear it, just one at a time. 

There was just so much. 

My quest to know what happened redirected my grieving you.  I had to know exactly all of “what” I was grieving – where to even place that pain.  I had so many questions.  There was so much mystery and then the intense anger --trying without let up trying to figure out what really happened and make something make sense.

Exactly to the moment right now, 8:35PM - five months have passed since the last time I ever heard your voice.  I was tired and emotionally wrung out.  I'd spent more than 13 hours at the clinic and hospital and I just wanted to get home.  How I wish I had held you on the phone a little longer and clung to every word.  It is still as fresh to me today as it was the next day. 

What I wouldn’t give to just hear your voice one more time and just have one more day. 

I hope and pray that you are finally at peace.  I pray that you are resting in the loving arms of God.  I pray that you never have to know another minute of pain, disappointment or despair.  I hope that you have finally found your joy again and I pray too that someday so will I.  

I love you always. 

Mom

Life lessons about love...

As I've said before, I had dreamed about Paxton before he was even conceived.  When we did not even think Kara could ever carry a baby, I dreamed of seeing and loving him.  Loving him so much it was like no love I’d ever known.  When I awoke I “knew” he was real.  He was not a child I’d just had a dream about – I knew he was going to "be"--in fact, already was.  My love for him was real and I knew absolutely that he was real.

I felt he’d been sent to me by God in that dream and he would be sent to me in real life too.  And because of that I had complete faith in that message and felt secure in loving him with complete abandon. 

Up to then, I was very guarded about how much I allowed myself to let go and love someone else’s child.  I’d been torn apart in the past loving children that had been snatched away from me leaving me devastated and broken.  Not once but three times.  I vowed I would never allow myself to completely fall in love with a child that belonged to someone else like that again.   But because of that dream and only because of that dream I felt safe to love him freely and give my heart over to him.  I felt he was sent to us and I felt that was my promise that he would be safe to love without fear that he would be taken away from me.  Then on August 23^rd that promise was broken in the worst imaginable way as he was most certainly taken from me in the cruelest and most permanent way. 

I felt betrayed and devastated on so many levels. 

At first I was angry and confused railing at God that it would have been better to have never had him at all than to have loved that deeply and lost him so cruelly.

But I was wrong.

I would rather have had him and known that love for even that short amount of time than to have missed that love or to have missed one minute with him.

And the strangest thing is that it was my love flowing to him and not necessarily his to me that was so powerful and profound.  It was no secret he loved his Mama and his Daddy much more than he did me.  He loved me but he’d throw me over in a minute for either of them.  Unlike my first granddaughter – she preferred me over anyone.  She cried for me, clung to me and never wanted to go home when she was his age.  He was never like that.  When either of his parents were present he would not let me so much as hold him – so afraid, he was that they would slip off and leave him behind.  He enjoyed himself and had a great time once they were 10 minutes gone but he always cried for them and had the choice been his --he never would have stayed.

If I could know and love a child that had not even been conceived; then I can love that same child after he has left this world.  if he existed before he was ever born then it would also be true that he exists still today.  I loved him before he was born.  I loved him while he was here.  And I love him now.  I feel it when I see his pictures.  I feel it when I watch his videos.  I didn’t "used" to love him.  I still love him.  I will always love him. 

I think we tend to believe it is receiving love that makes us happy.  But what loving him taught me was that you can be deliriously happy in the love that you have for others because it truly never mattered to me whether he loved me or not.  My joy was in loving him. 

Like we are with our own children, you love them even when they are angry, belligerent, or in trouble and you love them whether they love you back or not. 

As I thought about that I realized the bigger picture as it relates to God’s love for us too.  He loves us unconditionally but like our own children we really don’t think about it or appreciate it in the beginning.  It is only when we choose to love Him back that we really experience the true meaning and magnitude of God’s love.  It is only when we give love that we truly begin to experience the true joy of love. 

On Faith...

Although I still have moments - much like I do when the meltdowns of grief and disbelief periodically pose a sneak attack – I have been able to find my faith again. Some days I have realizations and moments of clarity and truth about my doubts and anger.

And since I hope at some point, some of what I have been through can help someone else in pain I would like to record some of those moments of truth and the things that have been revealed to me about my feelings of being deserted by God.

I have realized in my disappointment and anger with God for allowing this to happen in spite of all the prayers for the safety of my children, that God cannot answer everyone’s prayers in a positive way because other people are also involved. 

People make bad choices, break promises to God, get involved with dangerous people, refuse to heed God's warnings,  ignore His second chances or simply have a different desired outcome.  And all of these are factors in your prayers too and most of the time – they are unknown to you.  Say for instance you have one person praying for rain on their crops while another has a very important function that rain will ruin now you have two people praying to the same God for opposite answers.  While an issue with the weather in no way compares to a triple tragedy such as this the principle behind it is the same:  God cannot work out His plan according to “our” desires since our desires may differ from each other or may involve someone else's sinful circumstances. And our desires are typically selfish, fluid and fickle. 

I know that I have even felt this was seriously unjust because I am a Christian.  I do what I can to live like I am supposed to, I've prayed and I had unwavering faith at the time of my prayer. Something just seemed really wrong about the fact that in spite of that - my children were taken in the cruelest of ways.  But the issue here lies with my expectations and not God’s promises because He never promised us a pain-free, trouble free life that was fair.  And if I got preferential treatment because I am a Christian human nature would have people waiting in line at the church doors vying for a chance to be Christians to take advantage of the fringe benefits membership would buy them and not for the worship and glory that God deserves.

Our open line of prayer is not the “Make a Wish” foundation.  We cannot just pray for whatever we want that sounds reasonable and does not go against scripture and expect that all prayers will be magically answered as ordered.  That would not be a God that anyone could really trust --would it?  Wouldn’t it be like the answer to prayers would go to the highest bidder/tither, the best prayer warrior or someone that had the most “good deeds” under his belt?  

That goes against the scriptures in that "God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34) and salvation was bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ and “Not of works, lest any man should boast.”  (Eph. 2:9)

If it worked that way then we would have the opposite of a fair and just God. We would have a God that was partial, could be swayed and one that took bribes.  Sounds kind of like how the world works doesn't it?  I'm pretty sure that role is already taken.  That would be Satan’s role – the ruler of this world. 

A God worthy of your love and devotion and respect would be a God that loves all equally; answers prayers, according to His divine plan; and would make “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”  (Romans 8: 28)

That would be the God we have.