The Abounding Lifeboats

Post 3

I keep coming back to lifesaving devices. I feel that one of the ways I relate to grief or am able to describe it’s feeling often times brings me back to the sea, the ocean, the body of something so huge that it is difficult to conceptualize it’s magnitude. We have seen the ocean. Many of us have enjoyed the ocean from our chairs on the beach. We are such tiny objects to the her magnificence. To any body of water truly. They say it’s true we can drown in only 2 inches of water. How crazy is that? We “mighty humans” can be taken out by something that doesn’t even reach the top of our ankles. If that doesn’t humble us then we need to re-examine our common sense. The feeling of immediate grief is all engulfing. It is submersing. It is literally drowning, without the actual water. The air is sucked from your lungs. The impending pressure on your heart, mind, soul and body is REAL… and is unrelenting. The initial thing that happens to us is horrifying and if you think about the biological process to it you will see that it is also amazing (more on that later). So there is “THE MOMENT”. The moment that will change our lives forever. The moment everyone who has experienced it will never forget. The moment that “IT” happens. Some of us will recall every single detail. Down to what you were wearing and why you chose to put it on. Your life has now become split into separate realms. You will from this moment on… Have a before “this” and an after “this”. Nothing. Nothing will ever return or be the same. And you despise it. You fight it. You run from it. You battle with it. Regardless of your efforts, it is going to win. I am sorry to break that news to you but if I can be nothing else, I can be honest. The heartbreaking news is that your life will never be the same again. The good news is that we have the opportunity to rebuild the best life we can on this other side. We have the option to let it drown us and lose our faith or we can choose to cling to our Father who has given us all we need to survive. It is a choice. Misery or Might. Sometimes I want to choose misery. Sometimes I want to be the person who completely loses their mind and nobody knows what to do with me! I want to be person that gets to spiral ridiculously out of control that it just astounds my loved ones to the point that they can physically witness the chaos and absolute shattering of my life and soul that remains invisible and only seen through sympathetic eyes (for which I am grateful ). I use the words “gets to” because I think everyone around you totally understands that this is a very real and logical thing to do! They can and are trying to empathize. That is a ridiculous thing to wish for I suppose. But there is the part of you that becomes angry at the devastation that you have been left with… “WHERE IS FEMA!!?? Who is going to DECLARE this a national disaster and send emergency help?”. Well, humanly speaking, there is not such a thing. The ones who love us and care for us will rush to try and then stumble on their own words realizing that they have no earthly idea how to help. Some were just given the gift to just know. It is a selfish notion to want to literally burst into a million pieces and be left there to expire on your own. Or is it? Perhaps there are some people who genuinely just cannot help it. I desire it at times. Just so that it is a physical and visible manifestation of the massacre life has just inflicted on my world. But you know what? It’s just not in me. I just do not have the propensity to crumble on the outside. I learned it long ago. When I was a young woman. I understood that physical pain is also a personal decision. Everything in life may not give you a choice. Obviously. But what you are given is a choice to REACT. Our mind is the most powerful thing we possess. We can choose to scream at pain and sometimes it is so intense that we must. But there are times when we can react with inner strength. It is our choice in how we deal with levels of pain in some instances. As a nurse, I have seen all sides. I have seen great big men who are tattooed all over who nearly melt down at the sight of a needle. I have also seen children who I have mentally spent time preparing them for a much needed IV who barely get upset. What I did learn was the my comfort level and confidence gave many people the ease that they needed to find their own inner strength. I have had so many patients, as most nurses have, who say… “I pass out when I get an IV or blood drawn”-all the nurses present are shaking their heads in affirmation. Here’s a reality for you. I NEVER had a patient pass out on me. Never. I took my time if it was a non emergent situation to lend them what they needed to endure a procedure. It was maybe one of my favorite things about nursing. The ability to truly comfort a person who is scared. So I also learned that emotional pain is never a choice. And what happens is that it is a pain that must be described by the person experiencing it. Some of us do not have the capacity to find the words to accurately describe the amount of pain they are enduring. That is frustrating. That is why writing is so important to me because it allows me to verbalize what is stabbing me from within. It’s pretty easy when a patient comes in with a bone sticking through their skin that the first thing we should do is “treat the pain”… because it is pretty darn obvious that its painful. The truly fascinating thing is when some of those people are just sitting there quietly expressing that they are not in grave pain when it is so clear that they have every right to be. We have the ability to cultivate our inner strength in regard to physical pain. Emotional pain is not quite so easy. That’s why I would take a broken limb over emotional pain any day. I’d take a punch in the face rather than to deal with stressful situations I sometimes have no way to avoid. I bet many of you would too. The physical pain will hopefully recede with medication, a procedure or just healing in general. Emotional pain is so complex and complicated that most times we do not even know where to begin to start the healing process and for some they never find their way out of it sadly. Back to the part where I told you our brain can do amazing things we are not even aware are happening. I recently enrolled in a grief counseling session online. Onsite. It is in Tennessee. If you have not visited their site, I highly recommend it to ANYONE. Even if you are on the outside of your best friends pain, your sisters pain or your best friends widows pain it will guide you in how to help them. What this site did for me was “normalize” my grief. It explained to me how grief is working it’s way through my body, mind and soul. It taught me how to REACT to what is happening to me. So the initial “Moment” we are confronted with the most terrible thing that we could imagine in our lives our brain puts us into a state of shock. That’s why your eyes become clouded and you instantly get tunnel vision. Your ears become pressurized and sound is distorted. You breathing changes. Your digestion changes. Your comprehension is dampened. Your incredible brain is protecting you from the worst possible thing you have ever imagined. It is a cellular process. How amazing! This can last six weeks or longer. I believe that I had double shock with Jake. I think the first layer probably took a year to resolve and the rest took 2 more before I could find myself in “a new normal”-(don’t you just HATE that!). My good friend who is also my Healthcare provider told me something that I will never forget and something I have passed on many times to trauma victims I have worked with as a nurse—even as a friend. She told me that I was going to experience PTSD- Post traumatic stress disorder. And she was right. But you wanna know the thing that made it tolerable? Knowing ahead of time that it was coming. Being prepared… to react. Understanding that it is a normal part of the process. I had the ability to understand that I was not getting ready to go down a spiral into hell again. It was an expected part of this. I recognized it when it did come. We squared off, it punched me in the face and we shook hands. I knew that it had now become a part of me and would define a particular part of my journey. But my choice would be to let it come, let it do it’s job and then come to some type of agreement with it to leave me be. It showed up less and less. He’s still there to remind me but I have the inner strength now to manage to what degree I will allow him to take control of me. And sometimes, it is necessary to get down in the mud with him and wrestle it around again. I have always had the ability to get back up and clean myself up and feel slightly better about “IT”. I am thankful for that.

So while there is nothing humanly designed like FEMA for the soul to rescue us from tragedies, traumas, etc. that some of us are handed in life there is a divine FEMA. There is our Heavenly Father. I would talk to others who had lost a child or a spouse and became so angry with God they had either lost their faith or it had become so damaged it was a detriment to their healing. I had people ask me how I could not be angry at God for “taking them away”. I just couldn’t. I am not a regular parishioner as of my later life. I tried as a young mother and afterward. I am certainly not an evangelist. I am simply God’s child. Imperfect in too many ways. But I am here to give my testimony that I felt the warmth and the love of the Holy Spirit wash over me the morning after I lost my son. I walked out the door and He descended upon me and I was filled with the most faith I had ever experienced in my life. It was real. I can still feel it. It did not take away the pain of being human but it restored a part of me that I needed to help those around me and not only keep my faith intact but to feel it grow. He gave me that gift. But what I will also tell you is that He prepared me. He sent me to my Milligan where I earned my Bachelors of Science in Nursing—If I mention that a lot it’s because its something I am incredibly proud of, going to Milligan College AND also earning my BSN. He gave me the knowledge I was going to need to recognize the Holy Spirit when He came. He gave me the eyes to see the preparations He had made for me. But I had a choice. I could have been angry and turned my back. Or I could use my might and open my heart to what had been given to me.

Just recently I was invited to visit with some of my ex-husbands family who had gotten to know my Todd. I was overwhelmed at the “lifeboats” that showed up to surround my little ducky float and protect me from whatever swells that life was giving me. They certainly did not have to. But they did. They floated up, surrounded me and sheltered me. The turmoil of the sea was buffered by their lifeboats and my little ducky and I could just float effortlessly in the calm for a while. I felt undeserving of this abundance of love that was pouring out to me. I felt incredibly humbled. The encouragement I received cannot be made up. What I am trying to convey is that they made the choice to embrace me. I made the choice to receive it. It is a very difficult thing during grief to “allow people to love you”. It is very difficult because you feel so touched and overwhelmed that you know there is no way you can repay this gift and that there is no way that you can make people understand how HUGE even a simple act of kindness can touch a grieving heart. The emotions are too big. The feels are too much. It is not that we do not want to see people,especially the people that we love the most. It is that with them comes the flood of emotion that we are not equipped yet to manage. So I made a choice. I let them love me. It is not an easy choice as dumb as that may sound. But if you know… then you know. Please do not take offense when your grieving friend will not come out of their comfortable shell to “let you love them”. Please understand that sometimes the best thing you can give them is your word that you will never leave them and that you will be there when they are ready to handle those tremendous emotions. Leaving someone be is not a bad thing. I think it is culturally proper to want to “never let us be alone”. But we must. It is where we will confront ourselves. It is where we will begin to find the start to the puzzle laid before us to navigate. When the time comes that they will need your help during that navigation you will know. But being alone is our new reality. Even just our closest family or friend near sometimes blocks that time we are in need of in searching for our “starting point”. There is also a time that surrounding your person with lifeboats eases the pain for a little while that is also needed. Remember I said grief was complex and complicated? I know. How the hell are YOU supposed to figure it out when we ourselves cant? Good luck. I will say this. I appreciate the abounding lifeboats that show up daily to lessen the chaos in my heart. Every single one. I am bewildered that I can be the reason someone takes the time out of their day to read my post, send me a text or “ding dong dash” flowers and candy at my door. I am undeserving. I am grateful to My God for sending such love to me through my friends and family. I am humbled at your words of encouragement. With that, I will say thank you. With all there is… thank you.

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