laughter and tears

I asked God for joy. I asked Him to be able to look at Damon’s pictures and feel joy. I asked Him to be able to tell Damon’s stories and not dissolve into a heap of sobs. Yesterday I did both.

I still cried, a lot, but it wasn’t the gut wrenching, screaming, aching cry as before. Yesterday there was just a little sweetness mixed in with the bitterness of my tears.

It occurred to me that maybe part of the “acceptance” (I take serious exception to this word by the way but that is another rant for another day) process is acknowledging that there will never again be pure happiness. There will never again be a moment that is purely good. Every good from March 27^th on will remind me that there is a precious someone missing from that moment.

The instinctual response to such a truth is rejection but rejection only postpones the inevitable. So I evolve from thinking that nothing will ever be good again to “accepting” that there will never again be a good without a core of pain and loss.
  

There is an odd peace in this realization, probably because I knew it all along.

So I’m struggling to adjust to my new reality. I’m struggling to adjust to a world where tears are as much a part of my daily routine as anything else and pain is my constant companion.

This new season frightens me, as every evolution in grief does. What does this mean now? When will the next wave of crushing agony hit? It’s more terrifying to be in a place with a semblance of peace than it is to be at the bottom of the ocean of sorrow. At the bottom I know exactly where I am and no matter how many waves pound above the swirling, swimming pain remains constant. Crippling sorrow makes sense. I don’t know how to handle a moment when I feel even this tiny measure of peace.

Will and I laughed today. It was a silly, giddy, uncontrived laugh. It felt good but there were tears behind the laugh. Above his smile I could see the ever present pain in my man’s eyes. Pain I knew was mirrored in mine.

I miss Damon. I miss him every second of every minute of every day. I see him everywhere. I imagine what he would be doing everywhere I go. In the midst of lengthy porch conversations I ache for the chaos that never would have let me sit still for such a thing.

I can’t wait to see him again. I hear stories of parents who lost their children ten or twelve or fifteen years ago. They speak of healing and renewed joy and all I can think is FIFTEEN YEARS?! You’ve had to stay behind without your child for FIFTEEN YEARS? Oh, God, please no.

Maybe the development of the duality of grief is to accommodate just this paradox. The constant almost debilitating ache to go home and the acknowledgement, and perhaps someday welcoming, of the good God still has to give on earth.

I have no idea what the next five minutes will bring, much less tomorrow and to try to conceive what may or may not occur in months or years clenches my heart with the agony of overwhelmed panic. So, I breathe and desperately try to see beauty emerging from ashes. Damon’s death will never ever never never be good, never. Nothing about his death is good, nothing. But God promises to bring beauty from ashes. I’m striving with everything I am to believe this. To have faith.

Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.” - John 20:29