Asking Why

How many times can one person ask “why”?

Not sure, but a million isn’t the last number, I do know that.

Why did Rick not make better choices when he could? When it might have made a difference?

Why did others speak so hateful and negative to him in the midst of his confusion and pain?

Why did he listen to them, instead of rising up to fight even harder?

Why did God not intervene in a bigger and greater way – to heal him?

Why did Rick die at 55 instead of 95?

Why did he have to die, a good man, who loved me, who loved his family?

Why do I have to be a widow, when all I ever wanted was to be his wife?

I didn’t start this fire of questions, but they rise like smoke from the ashes of my life.

They curl around my mind and heart.

They sting my eyes with tears.

They suffocate my sleep, and my waking hours.

They are like buzzards circling – wide and merciless.

There should be answers – but in the hollowness of space and time, there are none.

I chase after the answers that are not there.

Then I chase the questions away – or try to.

Surely, if I chase hard enough, long enough, in the right direction, and after the right things – surely I will find something that makes even a little bit of sense!

The only thing I find?

Loss refuses to speak the language of logic.

Loss does not negotiate, nor explain.

Loss also does not apologize for the pain.

What loss does is find its way through the locked door of love and treasure 

– takes what is most precious and leaves its fingerprints on everything.

So here I sit, again, time after time, morning after night, sifting through my memories.

Looking for clues, reviewing these moments like some kind of surveillance tape after the crime of a broken heart.

I pick apart every decision Rick, or I, or we, ever made.

Every second, every minute, every hour and every day.

Every meal we ate.

Every conversation we had.

Every breath we took, and every move we made.

Like I am some kind of detective on a hard cold case, I can’t stop.

Just one more angle, one more replay.

Maybe just one more whispered “Why”.

And there will be an answer.

I am learning something.

Slowly.

I will only exhaust myself trying to find the fairness in it all.

Trying to figure out the “why”.

Looking for the logic in the taking.

Searching for that reason to make his absence hurt less.

There is only the silence –

Not the kind that just fills a room, but the kind that settles itself into my soul.

The kind that makes my own heartbeat sound different.

You know, a broken heart does sound different than one that isn’t broken.

And yet . . .

But God.

In the midst of all the ruin,

In the midst of the shattered why’s and unanswered questions,

In the midst of my bruised faith,

And these nights that never seem to end –

There is a strangeness to Mercy and Grace.

It’s not the kind of Mercy and Grace that fixes anything –

But it’s the kind that keeps me from collapsing into a heap under the weight of what no one can fix.

A Mercy and Grace that whispers –

“You don’t have to understand in order to survive.”

“You don’t have to solve what broke you.”

“You don’t have to have the answers to keep on going.”

No, I don’t understand why it all happened.

No, I don’t like being a widow – I loved being a wife.

No, I don’t have to have the answers – no matter how much I want them.

But I know this – and it’s not easy to admit, or to accept –

The same God Who owes me no explanation sits with me in the questions.

The same God Who sees the fires around me, feels them with me.

The same God Who hears my cries, catches my tears.

And somehow – impossible as it feels and seems –

That is enough, for this morning, this moment, this today.

I will just breathe this thought over and over - -

Maybe healing isn’t found in the why – what would the answers change?

Maybe healing is found in the God Who stays, even when the why’s still circle.

Struggle with the quiet and stillness of the house.

Struggle with loneliness, with the memories of long ago Saturdays.

Struggle with guilt. 

I hope today to “win” in the struggles.

To enjoy the quiet and stillness of the house – letting it propel me into concentration for accomplishing something, even if just to let my soul breathe and my body rest.

To use the memories – letting them push me into creating memories of going forward – even alone 😉

To just stop the guilt. 

LORD GOD . . . I ask for strength, Grace and Mercy. Today. Tomorrow. And this week.

LORD GOD . . . please, help me focus and do. 

I can’t do this alone. 

GOD . . . please, show me, teach me, and help me - - with the HOW.

Loneliness

Every widow has a relationship with loneliness.
Every widow’s relationship with loneliness is different.

So much of our now relationship with loneliness is related to who we were going into being a widow.

I have met widows who spent a lot of their married life alone – due to his work, or hers.
Or just due to differences in likes, dislikes, friends, family, events.
And they were comfortable with doing things not with their partner.

I have met widows who rarely spent time in their married life alone – as if the 2 lives were almost 100% melded into one another.
They were uncomfortable doing anything without their partner.

Me?
I was somewhere in-between.

I spent time alone during our marriage when he was at work.
At least until cell phones became a “thing” 

– then, we spent hours upon hours with one another via phone calls.

If Rick was not at work, we were together.
Church. Family. Friends. Shopping.
Working at & on the house/yard.
It did not matter – we were together.

My relationship with loneliness seems to be a daily changing challenge!

In the early years of being a widow, I fought the loneliness with a vengeance.
I either totally craved, yearned, and sought after, people to be around 

- - or I hid away with a totality that scared me. 
I was engulfed by grief.

Now, years and years down the road, the fire of grief has turned to a smoldering.
It no longer rages – well, I say no longer.

Every so often, it flares up and seems to consume me all over again 

– usually at the littlest thing, a smell, a memory, a picture, something that grips my soul to share . . . the little things that always did turn into a big thing.

Grief found a way to burn my life – past and at the time, present, as well as what I thought my future would be – into nothing more than a pile of ashes.

Those raw and open wounds of the early years have become deep scars – still more tender than I like to admit, but no longer oozing beyond any control.
Rarely now do they break open, unless I am in the midst of a storm, and usually only around 3 am.

It is now in these years down the road from that moment which changed it all, that the loneliness calls.
A haunting call.
A different call than in those early years and times.

When a son tells me how much he misses his dad’s wisdom and words for trials and struggles when life hits hard.
When a granddaughter talks about how much she misses her P-paw and the way just his presence made everything feel right somehow.
When a memory of an intimate time floods my mind, and there is no one to share it with.
When a stupid pun, or dad joke, comes my way and I know just how much Rick would appreciate it!
When a particular sunrise or sunset takes my breath away.
When I read something that is so soul touching it brings tears to my eyes.
When I scroll through my phone or Messenger contacts and realize there really is no one to call or message who remembers a particular event or time – because it was something that only Rick and I shared.
When the housework is done for the day, and the long hours left loom larger than life before me.
When I catch myself wandering through the house with little to nothing to do – or that I want to do.
When I struggle to create as a creator – of food, of writings, of craftings – because he is not here to support or encourage me.
When I fight the “what’s the use” mentality.
When . . . a thousand ways and times.

Loneliness has become a constant companion.
It’s not the being alone.
I pretty much have that down to an art.

It’s the soul wrenching loneliness.

If you have a quart mason jar full of marbles, they don’t rattle if you shake them.
The jar is not threatened with breakage due to the marbles.
The marbles within do not move.
The jar without is solid at holding them quiet.

If there is only 1 marble in that jar – well, it’s different.
If the jar is shaken, the marble bounces around.
If the jar is shaken too hard, too much, the glass marble can crack or break – and so can the jar.

Rick used to tease me that I had “lost all your marbles” 

– when I would do or say something off the wall, making him roll his eyes 😉.

I really have now.
Lost my marbles.
And my jar is broken.

Rick was the jar.
Life with him was my marbles.

1 marble in an empty world – loneliness.

Closed Doors

Some doors close quietly, making it hard to even realize they are closed.

Others, well, they slam shut!

Those are the ones that make your bones rattle, and you blink from the dust that flies.

Those are the ones where catching your breath seems a feat of epic proportions.

Those are also the ones where you wonder what you did wrong – hours of sleepless nights picking it all apart.

Playing and replaying every word, every movement.

Hearing over and over again the slamming of the door.

The silence of no one having answers to the questions that haunt and torment your mind and heart.

Days of arguing with yourself, and those around you, that you must not be worth much these days because of this slammed-shut door.

I tried too hard? 

Or did I not try hard enough?

I worked too much? 

Or did I not put in enough hours?

I fought so long to fit my worth, my value, into the shape of the door that slammed shut, and I cannot open now.

But, I worked so hard for what I still don’t have.

I dreamed, I hoped, I even prayed.

Why? 

Why did I spend all that time, all that energy?

Now, as the dust begins to settle, I wonder what to do, where to go.

Most of all, I question HOW to go on.

Dare I hope that today I will feel the smallest stirring, almost like a light slipping under the crack of another door that I had not noticed being there before now?

A soft reminder, quiet Mercy, Truth that is more than the loss –

I am not being pushed out.

I am being led away.

Away from the places that are too small for the fullness God is quietly forming and building inside of me.

Away from what can no longer hold the weight of His calling over my life.

Away from air where my spirit had to shrink just to breathe.

Doors that have closed because I outgrew them – without even realizing it.

Just perhaps, the slam was not rejection – but redirection.

God’s act of protection.

I am trying hard to believe that these closed doors are not the end of my story.

But they are the guardrails to keep me from falling off the cliff’s edge.

They are the Shepherd’s staff, pulling me back from wolves I never saw.

They are Mercy that I misunderstood to be punishment.

Closed doors not to be opened, leading me down a hallway to another door that will open.

The One Who guides my steps and orders my ways, knows exactly where my feet need to go next.

He is guiding me to safer ground, wider spaces, better blessings.

My hope, my prayer –

One day I will look back, with that child smile, and whisper through grateful tears:

Thank You God, that the door closed.

Because if it had not, I would never have lived to walk through the one door You have now opened.

A Witness to My Grief

I like to read, and to write, about how there is Hope after loss.

Because there IS.

But.

I also read, write, and gravitate to those words that are not uplifting and full of positivity.

Why?

Grief comes with a whirlwind of emotions.

Sadness. Anger. Guilt. Confusion. Numbness. Frustration. Annoyance. Irritation. Love. Laughter.

Not all good emotions.

Not all bad emotions.

It’s a wild mixture that mostly, well . . . makes NO sense!

And it is all over-stimulating, over-whelming, disorienting – leading to questions of “Am I normal?” or at least, “Is THIS normal?”

I remember Rick’s often words to me – “Honey, “normal” is the setting on the dryer!”

He was true and right in those years of raising our kids and building our life – He is more right now.

But, yes.

This wild ride of emotions as a widow IS “normal”.

And those mixed up emotions NEED validation, they NEED a witness.

Just so you know that you know –

Yes, this hurts.

Yes, this is unfair.

Yes, this devastation is real.

Having validation for your emotions, having a witness for this grief walk –

Is grounding.

It centers you.

It reassures you that your feelings are not just “normal”, they are justified.

You do not have to hide your pain.

You do not have to pretend all is well.

You do not have to hold your tears.

As a Griever, we all need to know that we are allowed to grieve!

There is no easy way to fix what we are going through.

Honestly? I don’t think there is a way at all to fix it!

So I cannot give you words more than these:

“I do not have the right words for this. It is awful. I am so sorry.”

This is the space with me, for you and for your grief, to exist without judgment or expectation.

This is your safe place.

This is the witness to your grief.

I know people try to offer solutions or find some kind of silver lining for all this, their attempt to somehow ease the pain.

“At least they lived a good life.”

“They wouldn’t want you to be sad.”

“You will move on and find happiness again.”

But what people who are not Grievers do not realize –

These words have a cruel way of diminishing the magnitude of my loss.

If someone, a witness to my grief, acknowledges the terribleness of it all –

It honors the love I had, I have, with Rick.

It reinforces my connection to and with Rick, even in death.

It assures me that my pain is seen and understood.

There is something amazing, beyond words, when someone stands beside me in my sorrow, instead of trying to push/pull me out of it.

There is something so needed about having a witness to my grief.

A witness who does not insist on taking away my pain and sorrow – they can’t, anymore than they can take away the love and joy I had as Rick’s wife.

A witness gives Hope that makes me feel less lonely.

A witness quietly says, “You do not have to carry this burden alone.”

May we be witnesses to one another.