It’s been awhile since I have posted on here. Grief has been ugly and messy and unpredictable and still so very very painful, to a level that’s difficult to articulate. I know it’s uncomfortable being faced with someone’s profound grief or pain, particularly for anyone who has experienced their own deep loss. And let’s be honest, it’s just plain awkward, because there really isn’t any “right” thing to say or do.
Yet despite that, I’m coming to better understand and appreciate the commandment to mourn with those that mourn. I have to go through this (reminds me of the children’s book “Going on a Bear Hunt”: I can’t go under it, I can’t go over it, guess I have to go through it…), but time and time again the Lord puts people in my life to help me through it. The sister who came over late one night to just sit with me, not knowing I was in such a bad place and couldn’t bear to be alone with the pain on my own for yet another long tortuous night. The friends and family who have gone out of their way to visit or include me or my family in events despite the awkwardness or my not being the best of company. The book club friends who have temporarily become “Suzanne’s external brain” and helping me remember and do basic adult tasks that used to be so easy. Listening ears who have just let me talk when I’ve needed to.
And yet, things have seemed to get harder, not better over the past month. Maybe it was finally being past the immediate crises (they just kept coming!) that gave my brain permission to begin processing through some things. Maybe the permanence and challenges and realities of this situation finally sunk in. Maybe I have pushed too hard trying to just get through the trauma work with EMDR as I’ve verbalized and tried to process aspects of this trauma that I had never before admitted out loud or shared with anyone else. But whatever the reason(s), I’ve been struggling. I have not been OK.
Until late last Thursday night, when I hit a turning point. Everything had been emptied out from my bedroom and master closet earlier that evening in preparation for getting new carpet installed the next morning. I was getting ready to sleep (or attempt to sleep, but really preparing for another night of not really sleeping), when I noticed a stack of old journals that had been emptied out of my bookcase. I ended up pulling one and then staying up for hours reading through it. Who could have predicted that that journal would end up being an answer to many desperate prayers.
It’s hard to describe the experience. The journal spanned about eight months, starting when Kendall had been gone on his mission for about a year and ending right before my junior year of college. It was also the summer my family moved from Virginia to New York, and I was making big life decisions about things like my major, where to live, if I should go on a mission, etc. I was also dealing with health challenges, and loneliness. It may sound silly, but I had somehow forgotten that I had had another time in my life when I was struggling with loneliness, even surrounded by roommates and family and friends. It was surprising how much my life right now related to that of my 19 and 20-year-old self.
I find it funny that apparently the person I most needed to hear from and who ended up helping me the most (other than divine help of course) was, well, ME. It was so inspiring to read about my faith and growth and general attitude during that time. It reconnected me with a sense of who I really am as a person, something I’ve felt completely unanchored from these past four months. I haven’t been sure who I am without Kendall, but reading my thoughts from that time reminded me, re-grounded me in a really fundamental way. And helped me remember that difficult times in life don’t last forever, and can end up being some of our finest moments of growth.
It’s certainly not completely smooth sailing now, but I have felt a profound internal shift these past four days. I’ve just felt happier in general, and whether that is a temporary reprieve or an actual step on my journey, I am grateful. And I’m still trying to have realistic expectations about myself and our family’s situation now. I know that milestones of any sort are by nature difficult, as Kendall isn’t a part of them. Three of my kids have had birthdays since Kendall passed (and the fourth and mine were in February while he was in the hospital, so we’ve all celebrated birthdays now without him). We actually just had a birthday last weekend. I miss spending that time with Kendall when a child’s birthday was approaching, talking together about how that child was growing up and how proud we were of them, brainstorming about presents, and planning birthday parties together.
Along that same line, I’m sure the start of a new school year will feel especially emotional this time around. No counseling together about how to set up new routines, having him help me take first day of school pictures, tag teaming for back to school nights or parent teacher conferences. And for many many years Kendall would take off a week of work so that I could attend BYU’s Education Week, which often coincided with the first week of school. It was literally my favorite week of the entire year.
Really I’m bracing for all of August. August 10th will be our 20th wedding anniversary, something we were planning for for several years. I really wish this year could have been #19, or 22, or really anything but such a momentous one. And then August 27th is not only Kendall’s birthday, but the day we learned about the tumor and when our lives completely exploded. Nothing was ever normal again after that. (In some ways it feels surreal that was only one year ago, when it feels like a lifetime.) So yes, I anticipate that August will be hard.
And yet. Danny Gokey’s song “Tell Your Heart to Beat Again” has become my current favorite song. He reminds that, “Yesterday’s a closing door, you don’t live there anymore. Say good-bye to where you’ve been, and tell your heart to beat again.” I know that God has bigger plans than I can see. My story is far from over.
