One month out July 27, 2007
In this farewell/There’s no blood/There’s no alibi
‘Cause I’ve drawn regret/From the truth/Of a thousand lies
So let mercy come/And wash away/What I’ve done
I’ll face myself/To cross out what I’ve become/Erase myself
And let go of what I’ve done
Put to rest/What you thought of me
While I clean this slate/With the hands of uncertainty
For what I’ve done/I start again
And whatever pain may come/Today this ends
I’m forgiving what I’ve done
One month. There is not enough space. I am tired of dealing with myself, tired of dealing with others who have to deal with me, tired of the mixed message that I don’t have to be okay but why am I not okay? I suppose it doesn’t much matter. I suppose that life will go back to normal, at least on the surface. I suppose I can return to a more benign form of the being okay and functioning that I knew several years ago. But it’s infuriating to know that what is ultimately taught and lived out is productivity over people. It hurts to think the pain and vulnerability of healing isn’t what’s valued and that, in the end, functionality triumphs over health and being whole. It hurts to hear the nagging whispers that it wasn’t worth it after all. And maybe it wasn’t.
July 26, 2007
Worship hits me in a new way. I didn’t think about it until two weeks ago as we stood in church singing It is Well. I closed my eyes and started from the realization that this is one thing that my Mom and I can still do together. When I stand worshiping I am in some way entering into the perpetual praise of the saints. The communal worship of saints, living and dead. I found this less comforting than I would have imagined. I had this sudden suspicion that if my Mom is at peace and in the presence of God, that is where her attention will be riveted. The entering into worship with her is only a valid sharing if I focus on God and not on her, but how painful! It’s like seeing a person you love in a noisy crowd and finding yourself unable to get their attention. For all that I shout “Look at me! Love me! Care about me! that’s not where her eyes are focused. And I can only keep my eyes fixed for so long. Such an odd thing to want to shout “Stop looking at Jesus and look at ME!”
July 26, 2007
I think if I could go back, one of the things I would do would be to come to some sort of belief system regarding the communion of saints. It was always in the prayers and I had no problem praying that “Light perpetual would shine upon them.” I had no qualms about praying for a friend of my Mom’s when she died several years ago and left her kids behind. It all seemed to fit together and make sense and now, when it matters most, it makes no sense at all.
I know so little and understand even less. I wonder if my Mom can see us or hear us. The whole heaven things baffles me. Because if she’s so engrossed in worshipping God then she wouldn’t even care about what’s going on down here, right? Any solidifying of my view on the saints or talking to them at this point seems like it would simply be a faux security blanket, and I don’t want that. My black and white thinking tells me to expect nothing and then everything will seem a pleasant surprise. Such a nice way to live, isn’t it?
It’s weird having a family member in heaven like that. It leaves me oddly disconcerted at those moments when I wonder if I should asked God to say hi to my Mom or the other way around. I mean, it’s not like you can just stop talking to someone when they die, right? Especially after being so comfortable talking with them on earth. Which leads me right back into the whole do saints in glory hear us and do they care?
Angry: A rant July 24, 2007
Things I’ve learned today
-Lives are meant to be lived in compartments. Are you keeping your lid on today?
-It would be considered more reasonable (and be paid for) if I were to take off 2 hours a day to stand in line at the DMV. Not so much if I take the time to try to function well at work while giving myself space to grieve. Forget the not so much, not at all is what I should have said. Pity I didn’t know that two-and-a-half weeks ago.
-Emotions should be bottled up at work. Because you know, they just do so much better that way. And I used to do this so well a few years back.
-I should be able to just focus on work in order to not cry or be upset. What? Surely I’m not the only one competent enough at filing, paperwork, and data entry that my thoughts multi-task without a direct order?
-The Time of Bereavement is given from the day of the death until the day after the funeral to allow ample time for funeral preparations and grieving. Bravo! Up to a week given to grieve… does it get any more generous than that?
-Caring for the soul is underrated. For that matter, so is the idea that human beings are holistic creatures.
So I go back to work full time next week. Time to get back into the swing of things. Good Lord, a whole month since the death and I’m not back to normal. How very very extravagant of me.
I am beyond angry. The slam into a brick wall type of angry.
A comment at dinner… July 22, 2007
regarding my husband and me.
“You’re so adorable… just like puppies!”
That’s a new one. I’m not sure what startled me more, being compared to a puppy or being encouraged by an 85 year old woman with 7 marathons under her belt to run another marathon soon.
July 21, 2007
Sometimes it feels like the landscape has utterly changed. Like a person who always walks home the same way, cresting the same hill, seeing the same house at the end of the same trail… as if that person knew there house had burned down but walked the same path anyway, expected the same thing, saw everything familiar until the top of the hill when they saw that life really had unalterably changed.
Life feels a lot right now like cresting the hill. Over and over and over again.
Drawing the line July 20, 2007
This is the last time I put 95 charges on my work credit card in one month. Seriously. The four pages of small type needing to be justified and backed up with receipts and paperwork is enough to send anyone under their desk to cry.
Another Buechner quote July 19, 2007
…His tongue so dry he could hardly wrap it around the words which are among the few he ever spoke that the people remembered in the language he spoke them in probably because having once heard them, they could never forget them no matter how hard they tried, and probably they tried hard and often: “My God, my God, why have you__” and then the Aramaic verb from the Arabic root meaning to run out on, leave in the lurch, to be the hell and gone. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”. My God, where the Hell are you, meaning if thou art our Father who art in Heaven, be thou also our Father who art in Hell because Hell is where the action is, where I am and the cross is. It is where the pitiless storm is. It is where men labor and are heavy laden under the burden of their own lives without you. Where they cut themselves shaving and smoke three packs a day though they know the surgeon general’s warning by heart.
July 19, 2007
My husband mentioned at lunch today that he’d gone through the 33 messages on our answering machine. Three were from my mom. Very brief. Very to the point “Hi Ingrid, this is mom, it’s about 7:30 right now…” But it’s her voice.
I’ve taken to not erasing messages when I first receive them now, at least not if they’re from family and friends. My first thought is, “What if they die?”
