Let There Be Light.......

It's that time of year.  I'm headed straight into the hardest month of the year for me emotionally.  People (and even my own rational brain sometimes) tell me to not let it get to me.  That these days are just days, not unlike any other day of the year.  True enough I suppose.  However, these two particular days that I'm facing soon, have never been "any other day of the year".  January 22.  Adam's birthday.  I think, without question, this is the toughest.  This is when, for his entire life, I woke my son up by singing Happy Birthday, without fail, no matter where he was.  I still sing it and hope somewhere he hears me.  This was "our" day.  It was a day that he and I shared exclusively in our own way for 33 years.  I was a single mother, giving birth to this beautiful boy, and it was the two of us against the world for a time. His birthday is a remembrance of one of the two greatest gifts God has ever blessed me with.  I have had the incredible fortune to have the very dearest of friends with me for his birthday since he died.  They are making their pilgrimage to me again, but this year his birthday falls on a weekday and I'm worried about how I cope with that.  Have I grown enough to do that day alone?  Can I go to work and not be a mess?  It's so hard to explain to anyone who has not lost a child.  I don't mean to be needy, or emotionally overwrought, or nuts.  I think sometimes, I try TOO hard to overcome it all and maybe no longer give in to the pain when I need to.  Everyone wants me to be better.  I want to be better.  But what if I'm not?  What if I never will be?

Then comes Valentine's Day.  Odd that just three weeks to the day on the calendar after I remember Adam on his birthday, comes the day he left this earth for heaven.  Valentine's Day.  My dad's birthday.  The day my grandfather was buried.  The day for lovers.  A stark reminder that I now am no longer part of a couple, but instead a widow.  The day that is glorified for weeks on the radio, TV, Internet and everywhere else to celebrate with the one that you love.  Marketing is harsh for those who grieve and are lonely.

I'm not writing this for the purpose of pity.  This is my purging.  No one wants to listen to me whine about how I dread this dreary time of year.  But I have to get it out of my being and onto paper.  I have to expel some of the angst that I carry with me about this.  And if I write it, I will share it, for those who are in the same boat I am, as so many of my newer friends are.  But if you're tired of it, it's so simple; you just don't have to read it.

I've known people in my life who have lost children prior to my son's death.  Some very close to me.  And even then, I knew I couldn't understand it and I marveled at how there didn't seem to be a script for it.  Everyone managed differently.  Everyone did the best that they could.  And they all were in very different places.  Sometimes I feel that parents who have buried the children are the walking dead.  Make no mistake, something very real dies within you when your child dies before you.  And it is my job to be sure that I don't let that death inside cause everything else to rot inside me and around me.  It takes more nurturing than gardening and I never had much patience for that either.

This past six months or so, I have worked VERY hard at trying to establish a new normal.  I have made a habit of putting myself back into the rhythm of life beyond my home and my job.  I have gone many places, spent time with many people and can say that most of the time I have had an absolutely delightful time.  The difference is that I used to be able to do those things and go home and still feel fulfilled.  Home now is just a shelter.  It is not necessarily a respite.  It is a place where I spend time I don't have scheduled, where the chores never end, where I sleep and where very few people come to visit.  It is where the mask comes off and the pain of my reality comes back to haunt me.  I feel that "home" eludes me as home is where your heart is, is it not?  And my heart is truly adrift.

I've shared before that the most accurate definition I've read about grief is this:  "Grief is love with nowhere to go".  I don't know who authored that but it is spot on.  I have so much love that needs a receptacle, but that is not easy either.  I have so many people in my life already that I love and who love me.  But that love already has been budgeted and is accounted for.  The problem is now after losing my husband and son I have a surplus.  And as much as I want to be able to share that with someone, I am equally terrified.  Love requires risk.  Love has brought me my greatest joys, but also my greatest sorrows.  I am learning, very slowly, to let go of the fear of being hurt again.  I have decided that the greatest tragedy would be to live without loving fully again.  Will it happen for me?  Only God knows.  I believe it might.  I don't know with whom or when, but there is always a chance.

I am my own worst enemy and harshest critic.  I over think, I worry, I doubt and I mourn.  And I think sometimes the reason I am so very lost in this is because that is so counter to my personality.  I love to laugh, I love to be with people, I love to have fun, I love to live.  So.  It's time to think of all I've overcome in the past, draw on that, and arm myself with what I know works and shrug off what doesn't.  May I find the grace to grant myself the same patience and tenderness I would willingly give to others.  May I find the courage to know I will be not just okay, but good in this life, whether I go it alone or find someone to share my life with.  May these special days bring more smiles of happy memories than tears of sorrow for what I missed.  May I be grateful more for what I have been given than what I have lost.  I will continue to go forward into the next month armed with my faith, the care and concern of those who love me, and a desire to do better and be better.  God decided that many close to me should die before me.  He did not sentence me to death.  I need to be about the business of living, fully, in love and in light as He has willed it so.  And with His help and grace, I will find my way.  During this dark month, I will use Matthew 5:15 as my inspiration; "Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house".  

Happy Birthday Adam.  Happy Valentine's Day to everyone I love.  This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine........