This is love

Today I had lunch with two of ‘my girls.’ We talked about serious stuff and silly stuff and spent no small number of words bragging on our men. I came home slightly lighter and even a slight lift is monumental when what you are carrying weighs forty million pounds. This is love.

Yesterday I sat in a room full of people who had gathered for no other purpose than to help us carry this burden. Our small group met (for the second time) to help plan the August fundraiser for Damon’s Dance. I say they met to help… they really met to plan, prepare and carry out. Will and I are nearly useless in this process. I’m not being self-condemning; we just can’t. We’re far to broken to call area businesses and ask for silent auction donations, or to ask the police and fire men to come so hoards of kids can play with their cool stuff, or to organize a petting zoo, or get a bouncy house donated. Our family is doing this… all of it.

Tears sting my eyes as I write. Not the usual tears of pain and longing but tears of overwhelming gratitude. Children will come home because of this. This is love.

This afternoon a friend knocked on our door with a handful of restaurant gift certificates. He had spent his day, in and out of the heat, choosing to forgo a million pressing responsibilities to ask manager after manager ‘would you please donate to our cause?’ because it has become their cause. This is love.

Something struck me recently about a familiar scripture. In Ephesians 3 Paul says:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I want to shout AMEN!!

As always, God’s Word is so multidimensional. Most single verses could teach a million different things. His Word is alive and active (Heb 4). But what keeps jumping out at me about this one (that He puts in front of me almost daily) is a phrase I had most often barely noticed: together with all the Lord’s holy people.

Jesus told us bluntly that we’re all about the love. Love God, love people… that’s what it’s all about (Matt 22:37-39).

Paul told us that without love nothing else matters (1 Cor 13).

But here’s what I think… we can’t do it or experience it without each other. In Ephesians Paul is hammering the power of God and in the middle of his breathless description of God’s power he prays that we may have the power together… to grasp the love of Christ.

It’s not something we do alone. This is love.

I love you guys.  

laughter in dreams

I had a dream last night. It wasn’t one of those dreams I sometimes have where I wake, heart pounding, breathless, certain that something significant just happened. I’d been up for a few hours, read, prayed… cried. Then I remembered.

Damon was there, sitting on my left hip. He was dressed in baby blue footie pajamas. He looked exactly like Damon, except that he didn’t quite. He was brighter. His skin was perfect, gone were the circles that often rimmed his sweet little baby eyes. His halo of golden curls sprung around his head as always, except they all seemed to do it in beautiful order, curling wildly and beautifully. And he laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. He would kick his sweet little legs straight, throw his beautiful head back and giggle. He laughed constantly causing me to struggle to balance him on my hip. It was beautiful.

And there was more to the dream. Something was wrong, someone was scared. To my surprise there was a tiny little girl on my right hip. She was scared. There was something bad happening. I can’t for the life of me recall the details but I know I was scared too. I had to run. I had to rescue her, the tiny baby on my hip. There were bad people chasing; I remember that.

The thing that struck me as I explored this dream was that I was not afraid for Damon. He sat on my left, perfectly content, smiling, peaceful and I did not feel like I need to rescue him, only the huddled child on my right…

I hesitate to make too much of my wild subconscious trying to make sense of my shattered heart but something about this rings so true in me. I’m not entirely sure what… but something.

And above all it was so good to see him, to see him perfect and laughing!! I had to write it down, for fear I would forget what that picture looked like. I was so good to see my baby. I miss him more every day.  

Torn

 It’s a tsunami day. I suspected I saw the tell-tale signs, the way I shut down… hear and see things even less than usual… feel so much more exhausted… feel wound tight, ready to snap. And snap I did, cuz I always do, because I have to. The missing, the pain cannot be repressed. They can only be released, and released, and released.

My stomach churns and my throat closes when I think about what unleashed the oncoming torrent of tears and moans.

A little girl in a store, excitedly plopping herself down to put on her new anklet that had yet to be purchased. A scolding and berating mother, broken jewelry, yelling and an adult hitting a child out of anger. I don’t care what you call it. I don’t care if the blows landed on the bottom. When it’s done in anger it’s not discipline. It’s wrong.

My hands started shaking. I had to steady myself on the shelf of trinkets in front of me. I felt the wave of panic wash over me along with fury, fear, pain and longing. I desperately longed to rescue that sweet child. I more desperately longed to take my own into my arms.

I fought my way out of the store, barely seeing, choking back sobs until I burst into the open air. I practically ran to my car, climbed in and bawled, screamed and slammed my fist into the steering wheel over and over.

I vaguely remember guiding the car to my house and collapsing onto my bed. My man came, took me in his arms and said one thing “I don’t know why.” Of course he knew what I was thinking. Why does she get to keep her child?! I don’t understand.

For the millionth time I think “I can’t do this.” I CAN’T DO THIS!!!!

The tears are unlikely to stop today. My ravaged heart just continues to be torn… more every day. Every time I see the way a toddler puts his sweet little hand on the back of his mommy’s shoulder. Every time I pass my baby’s empty room. With every agonizing breath… torn.  

Sunshine and pain

Life is so pain filled now. Good moments hurt… they just hurt different. Isaiah has started to get the hang of riding his bike without training wheels and today for the first time we went on a walk, ‘all’ of us. Isaiah rode so well, and Will and I grinned at each other and shouted encouragement to our budding dare devil. We were the picture of an ideal American family… the daddy pushing the little boy a few steps then launching him to peddle peddle peddle off on his own, mom cheering and looking on.

But there was a stroller missing. Even in the middle of the genuine smiles I was so painfully aware that everything was horribly incomplete. My son was missing… my son is missing.

People going about their lives stopped to watch us walk by, grinning. The picture was so beautiful… they couldn’t see the gaping holes or the ever-present black. It seemed so ironic to me.

I hesitated to walk in the house when we got back. As incomplete as the moment had been, at least it held shades of something beautiful… hints of the woman I thought I would always be, mommy. As always, respite ends and the crushing pain is that much more severe for the absence of the dulling effects of a brief happy moment.

What did it feel like, to feel complete, to be whole, to be happy?

I don’t remember.     

Orange

Recently I spent a week in pretty intense physical pain. Recovery from my ‘minor’ surgery was considerably rougher than I expected and required regular doses of heafty pain killers. After four days of drug induced sleep and hazy consciousness I got stubborn (read: stupid) and refused to take my meds. In my defense I had some good(ish) reasons. I’m absolutely terrified of finding some form of relief by artificial means. I can’t explain how much this scares me. The pain is so absolute; if I found even a slight lift through some substance would I be able to let it go? I couldn’t feel anything through the haze and in scared me, bad.

So, I completely stopped, way too early. I spent the entire day in pain, a lot of pain. Finally, that evening I gave in. I took my meds, twenty minutes later muscles I hadn’t realized were tensed relaxed into the couch underneath me. I certainly hadn’t grasped that every muscle in my body was coiled until the pain reliever took effect and everything began to release. I almost cried with relief.

Today has been like that, an uncoiling of emotions I hadn’t realized were even tensed. I’ve been so overcome with pain, so steeped in the black depths of the tar that I didn’t even realize how much I truly hurt. I couldn’t even comprehend its height and width. I just lay curled in a ball barely breathing.

A friend sent me a message yesterday… just to tell me she loves me and she never forgets. I stared at my phone completely astonished. Not that she wrote me but that I had forgotten that I have friends. I’ve felt so wholly enclosed by the black the past few days I literally forgot that I am not alone. I felt a small crack in the darkness. Then my man took our little family out to eat and we laughed… another crack. I cuddled my little boy and he told me all about everything in his world. It’s a very exciting place you know. A friend invited us to eat dinner with her family, more laughter, less black… more cracks. Then my man and I curled together on the couch and talked, and talked, and talked.

In the past three months, since a Damon sized hole was rent from our hearts, we haven’t spoken much. Our language has primarily been touch. There just aren’t words, so we say very little. There have been days when the only sentences uttered in the walls of this house were “I miss him” and “I love you.” Nothing else really mattered.

But last night we talked, words poured out of us. I cried and cried, talked and listened. Something remarkable happened. Instead of my mind fracturing and falling to pieces as I had felt it was doing only hours before I watched as with each word, each affirmation, each tender touch cracks in the black exploded like fireworks across a fourth of July sky. Such. Indescribable. Relief.

Today has been orange.

A friend I haven’t seen in ten years held a memorial for my baby. I don’t know what all went into the planning but I know it was no small feat. More friends attended and likely helped plan and pay for the tree that was planted and the stone that now bears Damon’s name. That’s a big deal. It’s a huge deal. I’m not alone.

I just might survive. Today has been orange.

My little family lay on my bed most of the afternoon playing with toy dinosaurs and making up silly names. I didn’t want to run away. I didn’t have to fake it. It was good. Today has been orange.

I’ll take it.  

Well Done

Today brought more tears, more helpless aloneness, more suffocating black. I cried and cried. I couldn’t stop the flow of tears. I couldn’t crawl out from underneath the crushing onslaught of deafening pain. I was crippled… again.

There were few thoughts with these tears, just pain, just longing.

I cried and cried. Hopelessness choked me. I genuinely thought my mind was beginning to fracture. How much can one person take? I’m going to crack… shatter… I thought I was spiraling toward insanity. Maybe I am. I don’t know.

My husband, my strong, tender, broken man crawled in bed with me and kissed my forehead. “I talked to God this morning” he whispered. Something stirred inside me. Something that was not despair. “What did you say?” I asked. Will told me that he didn’t say much… just “why?” The question that is ever on my heart.

My beloved explained that God told him that Damon had done his job and then he got to come home. Well done good and faithful servant, echoed in my heart. Our son never suffered. He never got his heart broken. He never felt temptation. He healed his parents, then he went home.

Could it really be this simple? I don’t know but I know that my tears slowed and my heart lifted… ever so slightly.

Did Damon want to go home? I do… he who had the faith Jesus called us all toward, a child. It only makes sense.

Does this make me miss him less? Nope. Not even a little bit but it does lessen the pain, right now, in this moment. Tomorrow I will likely lie beneath the waves. I’ve learned that like no time in my life, now I need fresh words from my Father every day… every hour, really. I need Him to tell me the same things over and over and over. What spoke so boldly to my heart yesterday is snatched from my memory today. Maybe what I really need is just Him. Him.  

wanna go home

It was nearly 5pm when I forced myself from the covers today. I’d lain there and cried all day. Literally, all day, I cried. I cried angry. I cried torn. I moaned and wailed. Broken pieces of half a conversation penetrated the air like pieces flying glass, my half, a never ending whirlwind of questions. Why? Why? Why?

I miss him with an aching agony I cannot describe. I want him back!

I worked up the courage to look at a picture today, after I had dragged myself from bed. Will ordered several pictures of Damon, at my request, some time ago. The envelope sat on the counter for a week. My heart clenched every time I passed it. The images that I knew were inside swam in my mind. I literally see Damon everywhere but pictures, pictures rend new holes in my soul. I remember that, I think. He’s alive in my memory. He’s in my arms in my memory. A few seconds after I took this I scooped him and kissed him… no more. The pain is unbearable. Will it ever stop getting worse?

The picture is one of my favorites. Isaiah is blowing a dandelion and Damon is running toward him, aglow, giggling, happy… alive. I want to die.

Will I ever not want to die?

I had to have surgery this week. It was ‘minor’ but I had to be fully sedated and cut open… so not so minor. Will and I approached the day with marked sobriety. Nothing is minor. We knew I could die. Granted, I could die anytime but that reality is strikingly more apparent under sedation with your belly cut open.

My husband was scared and I was scared for him. I thought about how I would feel… I sat on my front porch at 4am the morning of my surgery and asked God not to take me home that day. That was painful but the idea of the pain my passing would inflict on my man and my son was more than I could bear.

I thought that moment marked some sort of turn in my heart. I realized I needed to live and actually asked God to preserve my earthly life. I thought the desperate desire for death would be behind me. I was wrong. Today, I just want to die.

The black just keeps getting blacker. I see everything through a veil of excruciating pain. I lay in my bed today staring at the window, unable to comprehend the sunlight. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s a mockery. It doesn’t warm me or brighten the choking darkness. It lights everyone else’s lives… just not mine. 

Damon, I miss you. What are you doing my baby? Does Jesus cart you around on His regal hip? Who cuddles you if your mommy is not there? I don’t know how to live without you… will I ever figure it out? I’m so anxious to be home with you. I miss you, my love. I miss you.

I wanna go home.