letter to a grieving mom

Was it uploading files of photos to Shutterfly and running across 25 pictures of Gabe's pacifier that made me think of how far God has brought us?

Was it seeing other people just beginning the grief road?

I don't know why, but I've had these thoughts whirling around in my head these days, things I would have told the grieving, shattered young woman that was me. 



Dear Mamma-of-a-child-in-Heaven,

It is so hard.

I know.

It does hurt to breathe.

Your arms do physically ache.  It's not your imagination.  You're not going crazy.

Your heart does do weird stuff.  Grief affects us physically.  It's normal.

It's not normal.

It hurts so bad.

You are seeing people that reach out to you, people that have lost children, and they seem okay.  That is freaky scary.  How are they okay?  That intimidates you.  Don't let it.  Grasp the reaching hand they are stretching.  They aren't okay, they just want you to know there is hope. 

You can't sleep.  It's okay.  It's normal.  Your mind runs a movie reel of your child's death endlessly and you can't block it.  That's normal too.  Your mind needs to convince your heart that your baby isn't there anymore.  It's a process.  You can't rush it.  The movie reel won't always keep running, out of your control. 

That little boy wearing the same shirt as your son's-  take a deep breath.  This will not always be the sharp knife that it is now.  His mamma doesn't hate you.  It's not her fault.  If his mamma knew that was your son's outfit too, she never would have made you endure that.  It won't always be so wrenching.  Grief will tell your mind crazy things.  Don't let it lie to you about people.

The family reunion photos that seem like a prison sentence. . . I know, it's not a real family photo.  I know, you're thinking about the glaring omission and a cold little grave and everyone else is smiling.  Don't hate them for smiling.  I know.  I understand.  Take a deep breath.  It's okay not to smile.  It won't always be so brutal. 

Your first phone call hearing someone died, visiting a funeral home again - I know, you feel like you're panicking and going to vomit and you can't do it.  Cry out to Jesus.  Hug those sad people hard.  Get some more Kleenex.  Let the tears flow.  It's healing. 


Your kids talk about death, or play that they die, or their dolls die-  that is normal.  They cry.  It's normal.  They don't cry.  That's okay too.  Children are resilient.  Love them.  Give them hugs.  They hurt to see you sad too.  They will be okay.  The grief road for your kids is much shorter than it is for you.  Be thankful for that. 


Find the safe people.  You might not feel strong enough to look, but they are there. Find them.  You can pour it out to them.    In almost every situation and at almost every social event, there's someone who understands pain. . . you might find that safe place when everyone is laughing and you see a face, a heart, that isn't.  Don't expect everyone to be safe.  It's too much to ask of the entire world.

There are no ways to soften first birthdays, first holidays, death anniversaries.  It's just going to be sad.  I'm so sorry.  I wish you didn't have to go through it. 

You do things to cope.  You take pictures of keepsakes.  You carry little mementos in your purse.  You hope no one notices and then pray that they will.  Maybe then someone will ask how you're doing, let you cry on their shoulder, tell you that they love you and that they know you loved him.  You will always feel the need to commemorate and acknowledge but the ways of doing it will change.  And that's good.  

You won't get over it.  You will learn how to live with it.  You don't get over part of your heart being gone.  That's just your painful reality.  But you will laugh, you will smile, you will live again.  You can. 

What do I wish I could tell you, you with the dark circles under your eyes and the light on late into the night?  I want you to know that God will carry you if you let Him.  He will carry your pain.  He is so near to the broken hearted.  When He seems far away- and He seems light years away sometimes- cry out to Him.  He is there. 

There are things that happen, words that hurt deeply, that people say and do inadvertently now.  You will cringe and ache.  They don't mean to hurt you.  You will see this in a few years, but it will take years.  Be gentle with them and gentle with yourself, too.  It's okay to back up a little from painful situations, but don't think people mean to hurt you.  They don't.  Believe me. You'll see someday.

Oh dear one, weighed down with the heavy load of grief, know that someday the load will be lighter, and God will give you the incredible gift of helping someone else carry their own burden.  You don't know now, but healing will come from weeping with those who weep. 

One day you will wake up and realize. . .

we have this treasure in jars of clay

 to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us

we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;

perplexed, but not in despair; 

persecuted, but not abandoned;

struck down, but not destroyed

. . .therefore we do not lose heart

{from II Corinthians 4}

 

don't lose heart

 

Love,

 

hayley

25,000 graves & 10,000 reasons

You would think by looking at the little brick building with it's steep roof and swooping covered drive that it was from a fairy tale. . . 

The covered drive breaks away to cobblestones and then asphalt,  lined with trees, magnificent grandfather trees, strong, old, wise, shading the path that sharply rises.

At the crest of the hill, up through that  tree-canopied drive, is my little man's resting place.

And that's why we're in the little brick building, which isn't a fairy tale at all.  It's hot and stuffy and lined with monuments and markers and urns.  Daniel and I are seated in 1970's era squeaky chairs with papers spread on the Formica table.  Polly, the lady helping us design Gabe's stone is new to our ideas.  She isn't familiar with substituting different fonts.  She wants to add clip art.  We don't want clip art.  She seems relieved to answer the phone and her associate begins to small talk.

Twenty-five thousand people buried out there, he begins, waving his arm in the general direction of the tree lined drive and we're quite aware that he is just referring to the size of the cemetery. . . but my baby is numbered there now. 

Maybe thirty thousand.

Maybe I hate death.

Maybe I never wanted to drive through cemeteries trying to pick a spot to bury our son.

Maybe I'd rather be anywhere but here in your office.

I think back to the days of wanting to scream at the unthinking comments of well-meaning people.  I did scream. 

Two weeks after Gabe's death Daniel asked me if I was going to stop crying.  I remember being incoherent, retching, wailing, screaming the grief out at him. . . I want my babyyyyyyyyy. . . . .

He didn't know.  He was just scared, too, unsure, life spun out of control and searching desperately for mooring.  He wasn't finding any stability in me.

I bring myself  back to the present, a startling new concept for me. The Hayley of a year ago didn't have the strength to overcome insensitive words. This is a new Hayley, a different one.  Mr. Cemetery Man (Tom? Ted?) is rambling on about how they do rubbings of grave markers all the time. 

We finalize a bunch of details and write a check for an enormous sum that still doesn't feel like enough and then we leave and I feel spent and wasted.

There won't be Cubbies, swimming lessons, drivers ed or football. No snow-shoveling businesses, no camping trips, no first car, no graduation parties, no wedding plans.

I feel like this is the last thing I get to plan for my little man.

Yay!  We get to plan a grave stone!

Oh, I'd so much rather plan little boy stuff right now. . .



My friend Loren asks me how I'm doing and I tell her that I'm fine.

I tell her that I think I'm just stuffing the grief away because life is so good right now and the grief. . . two years of it. . .was so very dark.

It was, frankly, a nightmare.

I've reached the point in my grieving that it feels like reopening a deep wound to go back to the grief, the loss. 

It took so much time.  It was exhausting.  It was sleepless night upon sleepless night.  It was so dark.  I cry just thinking about the darkness. 

And now it's different.  I don't know exactly at what point it changed, but now I have the ability to cope, to laugh, to sleep, to smile about Gabe.

This is freeing.

It is not fun to be the people with red rimmed eyes.

It is not fun to be the drain on your friends and family.

It is not fun to be broken and needy.

But the grief didn't really go away, it just sinks below the surface, and the calm, apparently still waters of life hold so much deep pain.

On Mother's Day this year. . . that's the last time I broke down and wept for everything that could have been.

That was . . .well, two months ago.  Initially I never imagined being able to go a day without the screaming, burning pain being eased by tears.  But even in the tears of today, the calmer, gentler tears, there is a different sort of grief.

On Mother's Day. . .  Cambria (with much help from my sister Elizabeth) brings me breakfast in bed at 6:30 am.  I am thinking about Mother's Day two years ago and our happy little family, untouched by loss.  Gabe "wrote" me a mother's day card too, and I still have it, treasured. We ate at Las Lomas and he nibbled on beans and rice.  Details that would normally be forgotten are seared in my brain because it's all I have left of him. One week away will mark two years without Gabe and the grief is mixed up with Eli's laughter and the music playing. . .

The sun comes up

It's a new day dawning

It's time to sing Your song again

Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me

Let me be singing when the evening comes

The tears spill over and I weep for all of the pain and the growing and the changing and I cry because God is still so good.

I cry for the weariness that comes from "fighting the lies of the economy of deficit."  I cry for the simple trust that is broken and will never return, because I found out that life was cruel and earth is not my home not by being told, but by finding my little son asleep forever in his safe little bed.

That cruelty, that brokenness, that's not a reflection of God.

Those twenty-five thousand graves (or thirty) - that's not about God, that's about sin.

He is not okay with all of this pain.

He is not sitting in the Heavens watching suffering, cold and unmoving.

He is the only way out.

He is the only reprieve from the suffering.

You're rich in love and You're slow to anger

Your name is great and Your heart is kind

For all Your goodness I will keep on singing

Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

So I while I weep for the 25,000 graves (mostly just one), I look for the 10,000 reasons that His heart is kind.



Well, it's not tidy and it's not neat, but there's the grief post for the summer. 

Deuteronomy 18. . . and The Three Trees. . . and Jesus

Lots of things swirling around in my mind today.

Cambria, while I was organizing her {extremely messy} room. . . Mommy, Jesus died on the cross for me.

I turned to look, wanting to burn that moment forever in my heart.

Cheesy grin.

Reading The Tale of Three Trees.

*naked*

Hmm. 



Lately the issue of communication with the those not here has surfaced frequently.  Maybe because someone I love has died. . .?  I know that the grace of God has kept this desire from my heart and I'm thankful for that;  today I went searching for answers from God's Word.  As a believer, it's easy to pass off, gloss over, and ignore this issue, but when you are faced with it, I don't want to simply dismiss someone and their earnest desire to see or hear from their loved one again.

I expected to find what I thought was there; a negative command.  Don't do it.  I found that.  I also found an
incredible promise, right there in the middle of the Old Testament. . .

. . .proof to me that the One who created our hearts also knows how to care for them, even in unthinkable sorrow. . .

After God says not to ask for answers from the dark. . . He says this. . . "The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet. . .listen to Him. . ." {Dt. 18:15}

In one of those light bulb moments, I realized that once again, God always gives so much more.  Instead of psychics, how about eternity with all of the answers and Gabe?  In place of shadowy quests for bits of hope. . . Jesus, the Light of the World, and our firm foundation.

I'd pick Jesus any day.