Chase comes down the stairs as I hurl the can into the trash as hard as I can. All my pent up frustration, anger, hurt, and pain release on the innocent can.
That stupid Walmart employee who filled my order for pick up got the wrong kind of canned oranges. I can't use these - they have ingredients that give me migranes. I think, as if the poor soul knew and did it on purpose.
Chase passes through the kitchen and advises the kids not to come in there for a few minutes. Meanwhile I wonder if I broke open the can when I threw it. I hope I did.
It's the longest day of the year. And man, does it feel like an eternity today.
But I'm not ready to talk. I just need to hurt for a while. Maybe forever, I'm not sure. I just hurt.
...
People ask me how I'm feeling, how I'm doing? And I smile and answer that I'm doing fine.
I see the question still in their eyes because they don't really believe me, so I blather on about how some moments are hard but mostly we just have so much to be grateful for. Don't question if I answer you this way. Truly. I am doing fine. We are doing fine.
99% of the time, I focus on the positives - we have so much to be grateful for, so much to be thankful for, so much to look forward to. We live in that state of gratitude - at least I do. I look around me and don't know how to do anything else. A devoted spouse, 4 healthy children with another on the way, a home I prayed for years for that God gave me, and every need you can image that He's met for me. How could I be anything but grateful?
But I knew from the second we found out we'd lost Thomas that I'd get mad. It's one of the primary ways I process hurt. I just do. I've learned to soften and direct and appropriately time my anger better over the years, but hurt comes out of me as anger first.
Many of the hurtful things I know I will face are predictable, and what's bringing all this on was predictable. I'm not surprised I'm struggling today/tonight. I knew when I hit this point - when it was time to face these things - I would lose it.
So I do. I lose it. On a can of oranges. When I thought I was alone in my kitchen. But I got caught.
I don't mind Chase knowing. He asks what's wrong, and I feel bad telling him - these things are no surprise to him. They are the same things we've been over before and they are the same things we'll go over again. Things pile up for me in these situations - it's not just Thomas, though that's a huge part of it. It's Thomas, it's the twins, it's relationships lost, changing, evolving in ways they never would have if death and sin weren't part of this world.
I hate it. I hate sin. I hate my own sin. Was it a sin to explode on that can of oranges? I'm not sure, but it wasn't virtue. Of that I am certain.
...
How am I doing? I am doing fine. Please don't question when I answer that way. I truly am.
I am living normal life. I am feeling well - better than I have in months. I can be the wife, mom, friend, person that I used to be/want to be, and I am grateful for that. I can commit to doing things again. I can show up and have normal conversations rather than sitting in a corner working to keep my eyelids open. I'm getting my house back under control one room and a time - one blessed room at a time. (Bathrooms are next - pray for me. Ha!!!)
I'm not mad at God. I'm not questioning my faith. My identity is not shaken because my identity was never founded in twins, or another son, or a perfect pregnancy, or any of those things. And most of the time I don't really even hurt. Most of the time I am just fine.
But today, tonight, I hurt.
...
I crash onto my bed in the midst of a pile of unfolded laundry as soon as the kids are down.
My stomach feels weird. I should probably eat. Maybe a blizzard from DQ would be good tonight? Maybe that would ease the hurt?
No. No it wouldn't. Plus it's too late to go get one.
Maybe I should get out my book and read. That will help - get my mind off of things. It'll all look better tomorrow.
No. I won't be able to focus on a book. That won't help, not tonight.
Maybe I should turn on Netflix. But I've watched everything I've wanted to watch on there. It's not like there's anything that will keep my interest, distract my mind.
A tear rolls down my cheek.
Maybe I should call a friend - use a life line - like on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Friends have offered, and they offered really meaning it. I could wake one; I could call one I know would be awake; I could call one who knows all the gory details of all of my hurts right now so I don't have to explain anything; or I could call one who knows nothing so I could rehash everything and maybe that would help?
No. Not tonight.
I've been in this place before. It's just another visit from this miserable mistress called grief. It's the kind of night where it won't matter what I eat, what I do, or who I talk to - I will just hurt.
I hurt over the memory of the moment my world turned upside-down. I hurt over plans for the future that are now never to be. I hurt over the way my own processing affects those I love most. I hurt over the little, daily things that hurt. I hurt over the fact that I have been severed from something that ought not to have been taken, but it was. I hurt over life lost.
...
I'm not naive. These things I feel are in no way unique to me or to my situation. And I know too that in terms of intensity now and over the years, this doesn't scratch the surface of what so many face. A spouse buried. A father no longer there. A daughter taken at the height of youth. And so many others.
I know I grieve a life, but mostly I grieve the hopes and dreams and experiences that were to come. And that's in part what grief is - processing the loss of the future. But I didn't have much past. Just 6 weeks. That's all the time we had the hope and promise of Thomas.
Now some of you, if we were talking in person, would look me carefully in the eye at this point and say, "Yes, but that doesn't negate your grief over your son."
And I respond that you are 100% right. But I also know that the grief carried by those who have lost one with whom they have lived life is so very different. So much more intense. And I just want to acknowledge that.
I think of a friend who recently lost her husband of 68 years. Sixty. Eight. Years. And another who lost her husband of 1/3 that long. And parents in our state who are planning funerals for their teenage daughters killed in an accident that was all over the news this week. Ain't no blizzard from DQ, show on Netflix, or friend in the world who can make them feel better.
...
I don't have a sweet wrap up this time. I still just hurt. But it's ok to hurt. Sometimes (though not always) the best response is to face that mistress of grief. Look her in the eye and just be with her. Then sometimes, in my experience, she lets you live a bit of life, not outside of her shadow, but outside of her fierce grip.
Blessedly as days, weeks, months, and years pass, her hold lessens, her interest fades, and grief is a visitor you can control to a point. But she never completely leaves, and there is beauty even in that, because it validates the value of the loss.
I am doing fine. But tonight, I hurt.
