Heartache (which is very real, and often outside our control) crushes a spirit.
That’s a fact, reality, truth, cause and effect.
I understand how those who have not been visited with hard, unchangeable, traumatic life circumstances can be tempted to see only the “choice” side of this verse. But those of us who have had our hearts shattered, our worlds destroyed, our lives ripped asunder know that sometimes there is no choice in heartache.
And we should not be guilted into smiling when our hearts are breaking.
If you follow my personal Facebook page you know that part of my family evacuated ahead of Hurricane Dorian.
We are waiting the storm out at my parents’ farm in a safe spot. It was an unexpected opportunity to see one another and a sweet blessing (the visit, not the storm!) but a houseful makes it hard to do the kind of writing I normally do.
So…you’ll see some reposts for a couple days.
Hurricanes and random shootings and awful accidents can make a heart remember that relationships are really what matters.
One hard, hard lesson I’ve learned from waking up one morning to a never-coming-home son is this: You may not have another chance to make amends, say “I love you“, kiss a face or hug a neck.
I’m here to tell you: don’t drown your important relationships in unsaid words, unshared feelings, unacknowledged wounds.
All that does is guarantee distance grows between your hearts.
If you let the distance become too vast, or the pile of unsaid truth get too high, you might just find you can’t reach that far or that high to reconnect.
It takes a bit of brave to say what’s important and uncomfortable.
I have never been one of those women who lied about her age.
My weight…well, you will have to threaten me with something that matters to get THAT number out of my lips.
But I’ve noticed this year more than others since Dominic left us that the wear and tear of years and tears and life and loss are showing up on my face as well as my hips.
I am definitely the worse for wear.
My daughter is getting married in May and for the first time in my life I am religious about applying under eye cream and moisturizing lotion to my face each morning and night.
I don’t want to be the sore thumb in the family pictures!
I’m not sure it’s working. I’m not sure anything can erase or roll back the marks that life and love and loss have etched on my face.
I’m not sure I want to.
Because each wrinkle, each line, each saggy, baggy skin flap says, “I loved, I lived and I am surviving-even though it’s hard.”
Before Dom left I was camera shy. I still am, a bit. But I’m trying hard to suck up my pride and my insecurity and let those flashes pop. Memories are made one day at a time and photos help preserve them.
So whether I’m at my best, at my worst or somewhere in between, I won’t say no to a Kodak moment.
I wish I had more of them from “before”.
I wish I hadn’t’ been so darned particular about what I looked like, what I was wearing and whether or not my wrinkles or big butt showed.
Worse for wear?
Who cares?
This one wasn’t made to last.
❤
For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.
I weigh more today than I’ve weighed in ten years.
Just before Dominic graduated high school in 2008, I decided that being “fluffy” was not good for my health, not good for my joints and for the first time in my married life I had the extra energy, time and attention to work on losing weight.
I lost over fifty pounds.
Still not skinny, but definitely a much smaller version of me than had existed since I started having children.
June 2013
But after Dom left us, a series of choices and out-of-my-control health issues combined to make it harder and harder to maintain the weight loss I had (fairly) effortlessly maintained for six years.
I’m scheduled to see my GP tomorrow and you know what makes me more nervous than all the bloodwork they will have to do? Stepping on the scales!
Why is it more deplorable to be fat than to be mean?
Why is it considered a greater moral failure to lug around extra pounds than to lug around a hateful heart?
I feel more like a failure because I’ve allowed pounds to creep back up on my backside than for so many other things that are so much more important.
Menopause, middle age and many sleepless nights which increase my cortisol levels have conspired to make it harder this time than last time to rid my body of excess weight.
I’m active, eat well and in limited amounts (no Twinkies or high fructose corn syrup!) but my hips refuse to get smaller.
I try hard not to blame everything on child loss.
But I’m pretty sure a significant portion of responsibility sits squarely on the fact that my heart is broken. I am exercising so much self-control every. single. day. that I don’t have any left over.
I rarely cry any more in public.
Goodness! I rarely cry any more in private.
I can return a cheery, “Have a nice day!” to any and everyone I meet.
But that means I am constantly running a tape in my head that goes something like this: “Don’t take it out on her. She has no idea. Keep smiling. People don’t know that you were about to cry just a minute ago. Don’t let that person’s ugly attitude unleash the beast inside you.”
Can I be honest here?
I’m tired.
I’m tired of everything being hard.
I don’t know if or when I’ll lose weight (please don’t inbox me with your latest, greatest sales pitch).
I’m trying most days.
But sometimes I just don’t have it in me to try. Sometimes I just want to be normal-whatever THAT is. Sometimes I just want to have one corner of life where things are easy and don’t require constant vigilance or extreme restraint. Sometimes I want to eat ALL the things and not give a hoot if it adds inches to my waist.
As a counterweight to yesterday’s post, I wanted to share this one.
While I am a huge advocate for not flying off the handle (I repeat that here), I am also an advocate for speaking aloud things that need to be said.
I want to create a safe space where friends and family can share what’s on their hearts without fear of my reaction or recrimination. ❤
Someone commented the other day on my post, Shadows and Celebrations, that they thought my child’s remark was selfish.
I countered that I didn’t think so.
Instead, I thought it was honest.
Of course my heart hurts any time I’m unable to meet my family’s expectations, but that doesn’t mean they should refrain from sharing them with me.
One of the things I’m learning in this Valley is that I must make room for observations, for sharing, for venting and for genuine conversation. It’s the only way any of us are going to survive.
I can’t pass judgement on every word spoken.
I needn’t assume responsibility for every unmet expectation.
I don’t have to fix every situation.
I can’t.
Sometimes we just need to give voice to something. Because when we name it, when we share it, when we speak it aloud, it often ceases to have power over us.
I wrote this three years ago and it was probably one of the first posts where I was bold enough to bare it all.
I was afraid to hit “publish” because I was afraid it would be misunderstood or seem pushy or too raw.
But then something amazing happened-I was out shopping later that day and had an email come through from the Huffington Post.
I thought it was a joke.
It wasn’t-they wanted to publish this on their blogging website platform. And they did. (You can read it here.)
It’s still one of my favorite posts-not because it was picked up by them but because it’s been shared by many, many grieving parents in an attempt to open the door of the closet full of emotions we often keep hidden.
People say, “I can’t imagine.“
But then they do.
They think that missing a dead child is like missing your kid at college or on the mission field but harder and longer.
That’s not it at all.
It isn’t nostalgia for a time when things were different or better or you talked more: it’s a gut-wrenching, breath-robbing, knee-buckling, aching groan that lives inside you begging to be released.
In the South, we tend to pussyfoot around hard truths because most of us grew up with the admonition, “Now just be nice!”
And while that makes for charming dinner table conversation, it makes for lousy long-term relationships.
Because we all know the longer you live with, work with and love another body, the more things that should be said but aren’t add up.
Pretty soon the pile is so big it obscures the love or fun or shared interests that should be holding hearts together and instead they drift apart.
I haven’t been all that good at following the southern tradition of code words and cute phrases that mask true intent. But I used to be guilty of it from time to time.
These past years of heartache and hardship have pretty much stripped all the veneer that was left off my tongue.
I doubt you will find a soul that would call me a silver-tongued devil. They’re more likely to call me a brash something else.
But I have important things to say and I don’t want to waste time sugar-coating them. I don’t want the meat of my message hidden inside a puff pastry of silly words. I believe truth should be easy to swallow but not necessarily tasty.
Often the most efficacious medicine leaves a nasty aftertaste.
So I’m here to tell you: don’t drown your important relationships in unsaid words, unshared feelings, unacknowledged wounds.
All that does is guarantee distance grows between your hearts.
If you let the distance become too vast, or the pile of unsaid truth get too high, you might just find you can’t reach that far or that high to reconnect.
It takes a bit of brave to say what’s important and uncomfortable.
But it’s worth it.
And it’s really the only way to authentic and lasting relationships.
I’ve often been the person who refused to go along with some group’s plan to ignore a real issue and try to talk around it.
I usually begin like this, “I know it’s hard to talk about, but let’s be honest and…”
I’m even more inclined in that direction now. If my son’s instant and untimely death has taught me anything, it’s taught me that there’s no use pretending.
So I’m not going to pretend: Western society doesn’t do grief well.
I’m not sure that was always the case but like so many other unpleasant, sad and/or uncomfortable aspects of life, we’ve sequestered grief to separate buildings and specialists. We’ve tried to clean it up and clear it away from the everyday.
Like they say, “Out of sight, out of mind.”
If we can hide it, we don’t have to deal with it.
But I’m here to tell you, you WILL have to deal with it. One day, one way or another, death will come knocking at YOUR door. No one gets out of here alive.
So let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
Let’s stop ignoring death and grief and how one person’s departure for Heaven leaves others behind trying to deal with the loss, the pain, and the hole that missing life leaves in their hearts.
I know it will take effort to learn the language of grief. It’s a lost language and it will feel strange on your tongue.
The more you use it, the more you will realize that it’s really just the language of love with a slight accent. There are a few more pauses between words, a bit more emphasis in some places and less in others.
And when you don’t know what to say, it’s fine to admit that.
Just say, “I don’t know what to say, but I want you to know I care.”
And we all try on different masks trying to hide the real us just in case we aren’t.
But none of them fit, none of them are comfortable and none of them really hide everything we wish they did.
So we go through life pretending to be someone we’re not, hoping the performance is adequate, making friends with people who are also wearing a mask and wondering why in the world it feels so false and unfulfilling.
I love, love, love this little poem by Shel Silverstein. He had a way of distilling truth to a few memorable words:
One of the gifts grief has given me is that I just do not have the energy to keep my mask on straight.
So I’ve decided to take it off.
And I find that when I do, people aren’t horrified, they are relieved.
thelifeididntchoose 