HANDICAPPED HELP

HOW I REFUSE TO COMPLICATE THE GRIEF

SHOES: VERONICKA CLEAR

My mom has been gone three weeks and in the ground for two. This has been a rollercoaster thus far and I'm only 23 days in. This experience is so different from when I lost my grandfather almost 9 years ago. There has been a lot of attention from my last blog post. I'm sure a fair amount of interest is just to see how I'm handling it and whether or not I'll sink or die and I'm cool with that but I also think there is a group that needs somebody to talk honestly and unapologetically about this and as per usual that is me. One thing that people will have to learn about GOS is if you want to understand HIM is HE is a big picture person and HE is very in to sacrifices. Some of this may sound weird to you if you don't believe but the truth of the matter is even in AA they tell you that you have to pick a higher power to believe in and that is for the simple fact that you NEED something to believe in. If Jesus is what you choose (and you should by the way), then sacrifice is one of HIS key laws. If you being in pain will provide solace to dozens, hundreds, thousands and dare I say millions of others he will inflict someone strong enough to handle the grief of life so others can live.

Loss is hard and it's something that is not reserved for someone just passing away. I've spent years of my life grieving more relationships. When things go south you wind up grieving the life you planned and the hope that surrounded it. You could suffer loss in your quality of life meaning maybe now you're not as mobile as you once were and so plans you had have now been altered. Dreams also can be unpredictable. There's just many things that you can grieve. I would of preferred a few different things other than my mother but alas I'm not sovereign.

SHOES: VERONICKA CLEAR

When my Grandfather died December 21st 2012 I was completely unequipped to handle it. Death is not one of those things in life that people warn you about or prepare you for. When you lose someone close to you there is part of you that goes in the ground with them. You are never the person you were before they died ever again. That part of you is gone forever and no one warns you of that. Depending upon how you handle it that can be good or bad or both. With my Grandfather there was a mean part of me that died with him because his death broke me. I became A LOT easier to deal with in relationships with men because I was broken now. The one male that protected me was gone and so for some reason it took some of my defenses down because I needed somebody else to do it I guess.

I suppose one of the first lessons with grief is you have to let it do its job. Romans 8:28 is probably one of the biggest clichés used from the Bible but it is the truth that if you choose to trust, all things really do work together for the good of them that love the Lord. The issue is you have to TRUST HIM even when you HATE what HE has done. You can't achieve that without the choice of maturity because that is a choice.

SHOES: VERONICKA CLEAR

Another thing I was unprepared for when my Grandfather passed was the reality that the funeral was not the worst part. I thought if I just got through that I'd be fine and it wasn't until we were leaving the cemetery that I realized now life without him really began. This time with my mother I knew. I knew to begin accepting it from the moment I went up the steps after my father came outside and said she was gone. As I talked to her and closed her eyes and rubbed her head and kissed her. I knew at that moment I needed to begin to live with the reality that she was gone. When I went back in the room to talk to her some more and kiss her and keep rubbing her head I knew. When I watched them roll her out in that black bag and shut the trunk on her, I knew. When I picked out what she was wearing......I knew. I couldn't afford to not use what I knew to help me deal with this. I had to learn from mistakes because my mother meant to much for me to not begin dealing with it from the origin of her death. And because this time I kind of knew more of what to do this oddly enough has been easier than 9 years ago when dealing with the nightmare before Christmas. So there's really just one thing I want to say and then I'm done for today.

SHOES: VERONICKA CLEAR

Thanks to my awareness of this hideous process it has created a little bit of peace for me. There are moments in days when I think of her and I don't necessarily feel pain. I feel peace and I'm okay and (this is going to sound stupid but it needs to be said) that is okay. Sometimes people have an idea of how things are supposed to go and because we believe things are supposed to be painful and or hard (and this is both to the max) they don't allow these moments where you're okay. This kind of loss sticks with you for a lifetime, you don't ever really get over this. There is no rush in trying to help the pain do its job. If GOD grants you the gift of spacing out the intensity of the pain so that you can get through the lifetime assignment of it then why try to make it all happen at once and torture yourself. We have to get out of this thing where we allow the world as a whole to tell us how things "should go". By all laws I should be handling this a million times worst. I went down to 100lbs when my grandfather died and I wouldn't fall asleep til 10am because all I did for months was cry. I hated GOD. I didn't understand how HE could tell us to use faith and then when we do make us look like fools by doing the opposite of what we were believing. I was ferociously angry. So to lose my mother in similar fashion. The woman who wasn't just my mother but my ace boogie, my best friend, one of my favorite ways to spend my free time, my boo. I should be decimated beyond belief. People have been trying to tell me how to deal and I let them talk and I'm polite but nobody is going to shove me into a painful place. I have my intense moments where I can hardly breathe and I deal with them accordingly. The truth of the matter is HE really won't put more on you than you can bare. In moments where HE gives you peace do not forfeit it because you feel like it has to be worst than this. Sometimes we handicap the help HE sends us, Don't do that anymore!