Marriage

I don’t acknowledge how incredible my man is nearly enough. I love him. I miss him. I adore him.

I remember somewhere through the haze realizing or being told that the divorce rate for parents who lose a child positively sky rockets. At the time, some months ago, I thought ‘That’s insane! How could anyone ever let go of the one person who understands? The one person who hurts as much as they do? The one person who knows?’

Since then I’ve slowly started to get it. No, Will and I are not separating or divorcing or not speaking or anything like that, No! But I sooooo get it. There are so many things I get now that I wish I didn’t… the list keeps getting longer. I ask God often ‘will you not leave any wound with which I cannot deeply empathize?’

There are so many layers to this one and more are mined every day.

The thing is it’s painful to be together, truly together, hearts open and bonded to each other. It’s painful because the throbbing in my heart multiplies his and vice versa. It’s nearly impossible to breathe most days and then to see your beloved in debilitating agony… unbearable doesn’t begin to describe it.

Navigating that chasm is beyond human ability. We have each long been each other’s comforter, back rubber, soothing word speaker, sounding board, secret keeper and lover. Now, the constant undercurrent of pain breeds exhaustion which leads to impatience and the negativity snowballs. Each hurting too much to be of any comfort we do a dance of relearning how to communicate. It’s a battle fought with weary limbs.

I can see how this could go to a very bad place, fast. I get why marriages don’t survive this. I get why mothers and fathers don’t survive, let alone have the strength to hold on to each other amid the riptides and tsunamis.

And I’ve realized that he doesn’t know, neither do I. As close as we are as much as we each love Damon I don’t get his loss and he doesn’t get mine. That was a sickening revelation. I started to notice that many of the places that cause me great suffering and many of the daily moments that send me hurling down the black chasm of pain pass him unnoticed. Because his routine and mine were wholly different. The life I lived with Damon was full of everyday routine, breakfasts, school drop offs and pickups, grocery stores, parks, and cooking. Most days Will wasn’t present for these things… his ache, his triggers, his missing is completely different and no less awful.

This produces further isolation, ‘you don’t get it!’ Ugh, and there is no denying that fact.

There is no recipe. There is no ‘right’ answer. I’m becoming painfully aware that those simple explanations and formulas in which I took comfort just aren’t real. Real pain, real life, real grief is not simple.

The other day on the radio I heard “life is complicated, God is not.” I almost screamed. I have to disagree. God is very very complicated as is my relationship with Him.

At present He and I are in a place of ‘betweeness’ I think my concept of Him is undergoing a complete overhaul. I’m picking up every splinter of my shattered faith one at a time, examining it and determining if it should stay or go. If it should stay it gets tucked back into my heart, though into a disheveled pile, if it should go it gets cast away. This is a long and painful process wrought with stops and starts, fury, confusion and gut wrenching realizations.

One of the things I have recognized with certainty is my need for Him. Some days that just pisses me off. Some days He is the last ‘person’ in the world I want to need. I’m down right irate. ‘WHO ARE YOU?’ But I do need Him and much to my confusion even when I don’t want to need Him if I go to Him He fulfills that need.

 Confusing, I know!

I think I’m starting to ‘get’ “Be still and know that I am God.” I don’t think the “knowing” is even remotely intellectual, at least not in my case. I’ve never been more confused about who or what or where God is. I am learning the inexpendable value of stillness in His presence. I quiet my mind and I slip into a place that is wholly other. Here He fills me. I don’t understand it. I don’t have to. I don’t think I can but only here do I gain the ability to be the woman, the wife, I want to be even when my heart is torn to pieces.