unexpected companions

I’m falling in love with the Jewish people. At least with the writings I’ve devoured recently. I feel a community, an honestly, a ‘coming along with’ in the voices of these authors. The horrors and brutality of the Holocaust (to them Shoah) color their writing with unapologetic honesty. Here I find a sort of brotherhood in rejection of the ‘easy answers.’

I do not find comfort in the suffering of this people, my spiritual ancestors. Today, their suffering slices through me like white hot metal. I refuse to turn away. Oh, God, how could you?

My “brothers in suffering” offer no justification for their abandonment by God. They reject all attempts to insist that God always acts justly. How could anyone even propose such a thing to a child who was incinerated in a death camp or to a father who survived his wife and children? I would hope no one would dare but the insistent rejection by these who are telling their story tells me someone clearly has.

There are no easy answers. Sometimes there are NO EXPLAINATIONS. Sometimes it has to be ok to believe God has acted unjustly, whether it be true or not. Deep, horrific suffering cannot be explained away, minimized or smoothed over. Sometimes God’s action, or inaction sucks and doesn’t make any sense.

To these people who suffered inhuman atrocities I am intensely and achingly grateful. I am grateful for their painful honestly that I’m certain has heaped yet more cost onto a mountain of agony. To speak about a truth the world so desperately wants to forget. To feel as if their agony and history is a blip on everyone else’s happy and prosperous life. I know a touch of this, for them I feel an ever deepening love.     

Just cry

Today has been a day of tears. This morning the dam broke and weeks’ worth of anguish screamed out of me. Normally when this happens (wow, this is my normal) I spend the day in bed. I cry myself out then don’t move much for the rest of the day. Today I had commitments. So, for the first time I willed myself into composure and ‘did life,’ fell apart again, then ‘did life again’ and am currently in the midst of falling apart again.

Tonight I lay in bed with my six year old and held him while he cried a howling, gut wrenching, sobbing cry. He doesn’t understand why he needs to do this. He honestly doesn’t make the mental connection but I do. I know why he needs to cry. I know why every once in a while he just falls apart and sobs.

Tonight I sobbed with him. I said “Just cry baby. It’s ok, just cry.” I told him it’s ok to cry when you’re sad and you don’t even have to know why you’re sad. He clung to me fiercely and I held him as tight as I could. After a while his body stopped shaking. He rolled over and said “sometimes I just have to roll over to get compterble” and fell asleep.

a birthday and a funeral

I sat down here to write and the scene surrounding my computer screen is a painful depiction of my life. Just above the row of font and paragraph tools on my word processor sits a stack of books. This is not unusual in my house. To my left and right are shelves laden with books, literally bowing under the weight. But this stack of books speaks to pain, fear and desperation. “When God Doesn’t Answer Your Prayer,” “Get Out of That Pit” and “A Grief Observed” are among the titles. Behind these stands a world of fantasy and adventure; “Eragon,” “The Fellowship of the Ring,” and “The Silvership and the Sea.” The latter has long sat untouched. I discovered early in this agonizing journey that the escape is not worth the price of return. I stay firmly in this world these days. The former group has been searched, scoured and discarded. There are no answers here.

To my left a topper for a birthday cake sits. Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Piglet bear gifts and balloons and, if I remember correctly, they sing too. It screams agonizing memories of happiness, of a future, of hopes shattered. I cannot touch it. I cannot move it. There it sits.

Further left is a stack of thank you cards, virtually untouched. How do I say thank you? I stare at the cards trying to pull words from my exhausted mind. They don’t come. Thank you for… that’s as far as I get. Inside the box is a stamp and an orange stamp pad. The stamp reads “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” I’ve tried… I can’t. The cold seeps into my bones and the water rises above my head. I can’t.

In a sickening representation of my reality a stack of birthday invitations from Damon’s first birthday is hidden beneath the Thank You cards. On the front is a big blue “D.” You can’t see them but I know they are there. I remember making them, hand writing each invitation, buying little zoo animal stickers to decorate them. There they sit, burning a hole in my soul.

And on the same desk sits a stack of cards from my baby’s funeral… not even a year after those happy birthday invitations were mailed we sat in a church with our son in a casket while friends and family wrote these notes.

This is a four by six foot space in my house. Every inch is the same, loss, pain, confusion is everywhere.

Today is a screaming day. This morning I sat in the car and sobbed and screamed until my throat hurt. I beat the dash and screamed some more.

Damon.

Food for thought

Just watched a documentary about happiness… I know, sounds kind of weird but I like documentaries. I like learning. I like being exposed to new perspectives and new information. This documentary centered around an emerging body of scientific research about that illusive state of mind called ‘happy.’

It was an hour and fifteen minutes long so there was a lot going on but in my impression there were a few major themes.

1)    Stuff doesn’t make people happy. Actually, quite the opposite. Once basic needs are met (and this is an important point) the pursuit of stuff actually makes people unhappy.  Interesting science…

2)    People who live in community are much happier than people who do not. Now, this isn’t people who live in a community this is people who live in community, meaning people who consistently, daily share their lives with a group of other people.

3)    Taking care of each other is pivotal. People who are happy focus on the world and caring for it and others, not on themselves… hmmm…. Sounds a lot like service to me.

It was crazy to watch this documentary centered entirely around dopamine receptors and psychology surveys say basically what a Jewish sage said two thousand years ago. Food for thought. 

Paint and leggos

I’ve been very functional lately. I think maybe the huge, gargantuan, massive relief that God didn’t take Isaiah from me may have propelled me into a bit of a “calm.” That coupled with my eldest’s need for constant post-surgical attention has kept me pretty firmly in mommy mode.

These days at home with a cuddly (and needy) six year old have given us a chance to reconnect. I think Isaiah has gotten some of the much needed attention he was missing and I’ve started to rediscover what it means to be mom.

But the few times I have moved into a period of… I don’t know what to call it… not bawling my eyes out every day? I’ve come to acknowledge when the wave crashes again that much of the “calm” was actually suppression. Don’t look at it, don’t acknowledge it, just keep moving. I’ve kept moving. I’m freaking exhausted.

Today Isaiah and I ventured out of the house to get supplies for one of my projects. In the store my heart nearly fractured with the effort it took to avoid looking at or feeling anything. When we got back to the house I couldn’t find my purchases. I have no idea where they went. Did I leave the store with them? Did I bring them inside? I have no memory of checking out, of leaving the store, of driving back to the house… apparently my paint got sucked into the void with my memory. I nearly screamed in frustration. This is what it is ALWAYS like. I can’t remember… why am I in this room? What was I about to say? Missing, pain and frustration piled on top of me.

Then Isaiah asked “Mommy, where are my leggos?” I almost puked. The answer? They’re in Damon’s room. Damon commandeered them a few months before he died. The kid LOVED leggos. They are still scattered willy-nilly about the house. I tend to leave them where they lie. I can’t move them. I couldn’t handle saying the words out loud so I changed the subject. Stellar parenting Jodie. 

Today = another epic fail. 

Mourn with those...

It’s happening again. Right now. Right at this very second there is a mommy sitting or standing or heck if she’s like I was literally on her face on the floor of her child’s hospital room, begging. Four hours ago she wrote “the neurologist said his MRI looks bad.” My throat closed with agony as I read those words, as memory of that moment flooded my consciousness. It’s happening again, to another family.

It happens every day. Since Damon died I see death everywhere. I see pain. I see suffering. I can’t not see it. So many people are suffering. So many mommies and daddies have said goodbye to their children. What the crap?

The thing that sickens me today is the knowledge that this is not new. It seems that literally every single day I hear or read of someone who has lost a beloved. Someone who is deeply mourning, who is plunging into depths of despair that will only get deeper. I read these stories now, maybe because I want these people to have a voice. Even if they don’t know me I want to know that someone shares in their suffering. I want to know that someone is hurting with them, even if that person has to be me. But six months ago I absolutely refused to let this kind of pain in. If I heard of such horrific loss I shut it out as soon and as much as I possibly could. Oh heaven forbid…  I probably said all sorts of stupid crap too. If not to the person then to myself.

I am convicted and ashamed that I refused to “mourn with those who mourn.” Not to my core, not in the way I believe the verse was intended. Because if you mourn you know how deep it goes, how much it saturates, how words cannot express the pain. I am blessed to have a community who is genuinely trying to mourn with me. Would I have had the courage to mourn with you? I hope so but I honestly don’t know.

In a culture that is increasingly pleasure saturated I beg you to see. I couldn’t or wouldn’t see the agony. I had to be plunged into the middle of it. As odd as it sounds I believe with all of my heart that as Christians we are called to feel deep agony, not superficial pain with those who are in agony. Please let it in. Don’t let us mourn alone. 

This is just my life

I’ve had to acknowledge in the past weeks that I’m “use to” this. I don’t wake in the middle of the night expecting to hear Damon cry. I don’t almost walk into his room in the morning to pick out his clothes. I don’t expect to get to pick him up any minute any more.

I ache no less. This may even hurt more. I expect the shooting, stabbing or gnawing pain. It doesn’t surprise me anymore. This is my reality. I feel as if I’ve been shot through with a harpoon. The spear dangles from the gaping wound in my chest. It’s weight ever painful and ever present. I’ve learned to carry the weight but the agony is no less.

I see the last stuffed animal he ever got. He picked it out himself. Every time I see it I see him holding it tucked under his little baby arm, smiling. I remember lunch that day with my grandparents, my Papa insisting Damon have the little stuffed lemur simply because his grandson wanted it. Damon threw crayons and forks and food through the whole meal. He always did.

I see the fingerprints on the sliding glass door and I remember him standing there watching his big brother play. I remember them matching their hands to each other across the glass. I would give anything for him to be there, dirty slimy baby hand on that glass staring back at me.

I walk past his room and see him asleep in his crib with his hands tucked under his little body, bottom in the air. I see his daddy zipping up his footie pajama’s over his baby belly and calling him ‘fat Elvis.’ I feel him heavy in my arms, drinking milk from his sippy cup while I sing “Holy Lord” and rock him before bed. I hear Will quietly sing a song that was only for his son.

I watch him play in the bathtub and remember cleaning poop out of the tub four times a week. I empty the dishwasher uninterrupted and feel utterly lost. I pull clothes out of the drier and remember that it was one of his favorite places to play. I see his giggling smiling face but I can’t touch him. I can’t hold him. He is gone forever.

There is no consolation. There is no comfort.

And I’m used to this. This is just my life. I am the mother of a dead child.

I told Will that I think maybe this is hell. I hear about people dyeing and I’m jealous. I am often reminded by the well intentioned that I still have Isaiah. I assure you I have never forgotten him. I also never forget Damon, ever.

This is just my life.   

New normal blows

I went to the grocery store near my house today. Small potatoes to you. Monumental feat of pain and endurance to me.

The very few times since Damon was ripped from my life that I have ventured into a grocery store I drove across town to the one that is unfamiliar, the one that my child never giggled and ate cookies and lived life in. I honestly think I’ve been to the grocery store a maximum of five times since my baby died. Memories… people… sights… sounds… ugh. It’s too much. I jump every time one of those women trying to sell me laundry detergent or shampoo shouts from a television hidden in an end cap. It’s freaking unnerving.  I’ve never gone with Isaiah… it’s like having half of a whole that just points to the missing piece.

Today I picked Isaiah up from school and, knowing that tomorrow he will have surgery and be down and out for days, set my sights on the store. Roughly a million times I started to turn back but I went. Isaiah and I walked in and got a cart. He climbed onto the end and talked happily. I stared at the empty child seat in front of me. I stared at the bakery where we used to always go first to get each of the boys a cookie before diving into the chaos that is shopping. Ugh… this sucks people. I hurt! I don’t want ‘new normal.’ New normal freaking blows. I want old normal back.

But I survived. I actually did one better than survive. I talked with my first born in that easy language of familiarity that I thought was innate, until it became impossible. I didn’t have to stifle a scream. I didn’t burn with impatience. As we passed the baby section the panic and pain rose in my throat and threatened to strangle me but Isaiah’s easy conversation drew me back from the ledge. Unlike what has become so familiar, closing vision, raging pulse, choking breath, I managed.

It wasn’t good. It didn’t feel good. I wonder if I will ever be able to describe life that way again.

My big accomplishment is spending thirty minutes in a grocery store without having a panic attack. Six months ago I balanced my life and the lives of all my guys. I want old normal back. I miss my son. This sucks.