First You Die

It’s been over two years . . . I’m learning not to expect stability in myself. I started this blog almost a year ago. At the time, I was feeling hopeful – that I was on an incline towards “getting better”. Of course, that wasn’t the case, and I can look back, or read back through my entries and see the gamut of my states of mind.

Books have always been my friends, ever since I can remember. When I was little I could get lost in another world when the one I lived in was painful or lonely.

I can point to significant books that have touched me all along my walk through life. So, it’s been no different since the trauma of getting that phone call one night and hearing the words no parent can fathom hearing.
I’ve listed the books in the sidebar, and who knows, maybe someone else may find some sort of solace or at least affirmation of knowing that when they feel like they’ve lost it, there might eventually be a way back. Not to what they were before, but at least to want to live again.

The latest book which I just finished is called First You Die – Learn to Live After the Death of Your Child by Marie Levine.
An excerpt: “People still innocently ask if I have children. I don’t hesitate any longer when I tell them my son is dead. They still reel. I don’t. They still say, ‘I don’t know how you do it.’ I still wonder what ‘it’ is that I do. I guess the fact is that I ‘do’ life. What choice do I have? I holed up a long time in my despair. I missed a lot of sunrises and sunsets. Then one day, I felt like Peter was watching me and he wasn’t happy. I think I realized then that I was living for two and I made a Herculean effort to re-engage in the world. I’m glad now that I did. Eternity will come soon enough.”

As for me, somewhere in me is a will to “re-engage”. If I look ahead, I realize that I don’t want to go down a road that leads to a life not well lived, or to being entrenched in bitterness.

Interestingly enough, I have been drawn to some books not on the subject of grief. Through this period of intense grief, I have pulled away from God and have barely spoken to Him. I am just starting to feel the void in my life. I’m opening back up to wanting to be with Him, to wanting to pray – even though I now question what prayer should look like. Right now, I think for me, that is simply spending time with Him.

Two books that have been sitting on the shelf waiting for me are The World As I Remember It: Through the Eyes of a Ragamuffin by Rich Mullins.  Page 44: “Someday I will rise up like the sun in the morning — someday I will shine like the saints who watch from cathedral windows. I know this, not because of any evidence I have produced of myself, but because  of the witness of His Scriptures, because of the evidence of His grace, and because of the testimony of this sky that washes over me at dusk.”

Snow Falling on Snow – Themes from the Spiritual Landscape by Robert J. Wicks. Page 9:

Kneeling in Silence

Most of the time I pray and sing
while sitting or standing straight,
But now
the only way to release my soul
is to gently kneel and wait.

Ordinarily a few spoken words
would open up my heart.
But now
to hear Your gentle voice
deep silence needs a place.

My soul is now too lonely
to hear just spoken words.
And sitting or standing
before You
no longer bears my faith.

So I quietly kneel
in reverence
until Your Silence comes
to touch the sadness in my soul
and to heal me . . . once again.

quiet

This morning I was sitting with my coffee in the quiet, just sort of letting my thoughts meander. It seems I have been craving “quiet” lately. For a while I would pop on the TV first thing and watch anything from news to Animal Cops to What Not to Wear . . . or play music and work on the computer (or play). Lately I’ve not been very busy with work and have had a lot of time to myself – not going out much at all. I almost felt guilty about not participating in anything outside of home.

So, this morning, in the quiet, I was able to see the value . . . the necessity of this period of time. My pastors have a blog all about sabbath and sabbaticals – and I am starting to see my withdrawal as a form of sabbatical. I’ve been learning that grief is a process and a journey that is different for everyone, and everyone has their own unique way of making their way.

Pastor Tom Gaddis has been reminding us to bear in mind things for which to be grateful. Instead of being bummed that I haven’t gotten any jobs lately, I’m grateful that I’ve been allowed to have this season of quietness. I’m grateful for my husband Rex, who has been so patient and compassionate and understanding. For my friends who have stuck by me when I’m a jerk. For my pastors who have never tried to guilt-trip me when I don’t show up at church, but instead continue to love and encourage me gently.
This day.

Sabbath and Sabbaticals is at http://susangaddis.wordpress.com

hope

On Sept. 11 I posted a collection of words that described where I was at. It is a mystery to me how you can be in the depths of despair, and then somehow find a thread to hold on to and not succumb. Lately I’ve found myself taking steps toward caring about not just life, but life with the colors back in it.
This morning something in a book stood out to me (how often books have been my friends with words that teach and enrich my life . . .) and I want to share it, even though it’s a bit long.

It begins with Emily Dickinson:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all

“Sometimes we know hope as much by its absence as by its presence. When we’re depressed, hope seems almost unknowable, a total illusion. We feel inwardly flattened, unable to move, or as if we are just going through the motions. The song of hope of which the poet speaks is muted. Yet the will of the spirit, as well as of the body, is for life, even zestful life. Then something happens — a friend calls, and we mobilize ourselves, making an effort to be useful, to ourselves or to someone else. The energy quickens. At least the moment has some meaning again and that persistent note of hope, without which we cannot live, starts thrumming in our minds once more.”

“Sometimes all I can hope for is that I’ll feel more hopeful tomorrow.”
Martha Whitmore Hickman

here’s how it happens . . .

You fill your time with things and manage to push away the sharpness of the grief. Then pretty soon, you go out to play an end of the day game of ball with your dog. She runs to catch it and you happen to look up in the sky. The colors are so pretty . . . even the jet trails. One of the trails is still sharp and together and you can see the jet. People are off to who knows where. Why then, at that moment does my heart break all over again? My son loved traveling and adventuring . . .

There’s no answer . . . only pain felt deeply yet once again.

sept. 14, 2007 . . .

We have kept a guest book at legacy.com – the memories and stories shared by Zac’s friends are a treasure to us.

http://www.legacy.com/gb2/default.aspx?bookid=2551305230481&cid=full

random thoughts

It’s so weird how I don’t deal with things right now. Like I can read or hear something very meaningful, but before I feel it or process it, it quick gets sent to a box (in my head somewhere). I may leave it there for a day, a week, or who knows how long sometimes . . .

How can I love someone and not show it? Or not be there for them? How is it I would rather stay in my hole than be with someone or talk with them? Why is it some days I can reach out and connect but so many others I can’t. I know there is a difference between can’t and won’t. I think it’s can’t for me.

Two years ago Rex and I sat watching a netflix at 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14th. Until 11:30 I had 2 more hours before my world was turned upside down. Why didn’t we get that feeling some people say they get when something horrible happens to someone they love?

I used to love that song “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor back in the 70″s. I remember one night my cousin and I were driving back from some dance place in the valley (San Fernando) when that song came on the radio. We pulled over into some parking lot and turned it full blast and danced one last dance that night.

Will I survive? I think we all have crazy, carefree memories . . . then later we look back on them from such a different place in our lives.

I just (literally) had a friend show up  (Kate Cody) out of the blue. How I treasure friends who push through my phlegm (see last entry). My best friend Bonnie called me yesterday and left a message. I didn’t call her back. She called me again today. She didn’t guilt trip me for not calling her back. She wanted me to know that she was totally available to me on Monday (Sept. 14) not matter what – whether I called her or not. I have a number of friends who totally accept me where I’m at, with no expectations. How blessed I am!

inertia

inertia: a feeling of unwillingness to do anything

phlegm: apathy demonstrated by an absence of emotional reactions

languor: a feeling of lack of interest or energy

lethargy: weakness characterized by a lack of vitality or energy

dream vs reality

Last night I dreamed I was somewhere like at an art class. At some point I looked over and Zac was walking up to me. At that point I sort of split up – like being in the dream, and watching the dream. The me in the dream was at first in disbelief, not able to believe that Zac was really there and really ok — and then and gradually began to think it could be true and began to feel the joy of seeing him back  – the me watching knew he wasn’t real and was sobbing with renewed grief. Then I woke up.

Haven’t read my latest grief book in a long time. The chapter this morning: I Didn’t Cry This Morning. Apple, the author, writes about the gradual process of not feeling the grief every day.  “The soul-crushing weight of grief is almost more than a person can bear, and we often wonder if the day will ever come when we’ll smile or laugh again.” At the end of the chapter he says that the first five years represent the worst of the nightmare. On one hand, I feel relief to know that we’re (Rex and I) not the only ones – on the other, a sense of wondering how we’ll ever really be ok again – and if so, how do we endure the passage of time until we are.

How isolating to know that people who haven’t been through it have no way of understanding, and I’m sure not a few keep wondering why we don’t move on, or move on faster than we are.

Mother’s Day came and went . . .

I’ve been keeping busy and trying to focus on the business of living. It’s weird — there is an overall relief of the undercurrent of sadness that I usually live with – and yet in flash I can become undone.

Twice last weekend (Mother’s Day weekend) I was asked how many kids I have. I crumbled both times . . . somehow managing to slip out of answering (I was at a photography workshop and so fortunately a lot was going on. ) I imagine someday I will be able to answer that question without blinking . . .

I came across an article on a blogsite that I subscribe to called Open to Hope which prompted me to write again. I will try to insert the link.

http://opentohope.com/hope/dealing-with-grief/women-and-grief/honoring-a-mother-who-has-lost-a-child/

An excerpt:

“Some of the people she knows obviously don’t realize that grieving is a lifelong process and everyone works through it in their own way and time. As one of the instructors who trained me to become a grief support volunteer put it, “No one should be ’should’ upon.”

Just because a year has passed doesn’t mean the bereaved mother “should be getting over it.” There are no timetables with grief, nor are there magical elixirs that can erase the pain and emptiness.”

Zac would have been 30 today, April 18, 2009

Eddie Vedder was probably Zac’s favorite musician . . .