New year, new what?
There's so much talk in regard to grief about the "year of firsts" and I keep thinking "what about the rest of them?" We made it through our first Christmas without our beloved husband and father and for the most part it was sweet and good and I enjoyed time with the kids. Yes those moments where it hurts so bad it takes my breath away were there but I was able to enjoy and even revel in all the moments in between. What caught me off guard was letting go of 2014 and embracing 2015. I already have learned that I have no power to stop time or would have a couple years ago, before cancer took away so much from us. It was enormously difficult to leave the year we lost Brian and even harder grabbing a hold of the harsh realities of the year ahead. I am a widow. I am now the primary bread winner. I am now a single parent. Not only do I have to push myself out the door to work, I singularly am responsible for getting the kiddo to school, doing the grocery shopping, menu planning, budgeting, fixing all the things that break, etc. etc. You know the drill, all the steps involved in being a family, the things that Brian and I did as a team rest singularly on my shoulders.
Ugh! When I step back and look at where I am today I just think "I don't want any of this!" I found it odd that some of the Christmas cards I received said something like "hope you have a better 2015". Better than what???? I suppose it is always better to not have to nurse your husband to his death, and yet, I would flash back a year ago today if I could. I would relive every stinking hard moment with Brian, just to be with him. Last January we moved his office into our bedroom so he could roll out of bed and go to work. I still remember one morning at around 6 am he got out of bed for a conference call after an extremely difficult weekend. His body was caving in fast and his suffering was just huge. And in his scratchy voice (marred by all the treatment) he said to the other person on the phone in the most gentle and authentic way "how was your weekend?". I laid in bed smiling and thinking "that's Brian, always other focused, even when he's just barely hanging on".
So at a time of year when people are making new year's resolutions and thinking about bright days ahead I find myself in a place I don't want to be: living and building a career without my best friend by my side, shouldering the joys and burdens of family without him, living a story that is still shocking to me. And the "new what?" I hope to bring to 2015 is an other focus despite the pain that screams at me each morning. I would like to be the man that I loved in the way that he thought of others first in the midst of his extreme suffering. Yes my grief is ever present and very loud to me, but the lesson learned, is that it's possible to truly and authentically extend care and grace and love to those who cross your path despite the backdrop of your own journey.
I have spent many long months pondering the meaning and purpose of life. And each time a friend or even a stranger loses someone they love I feel this tug on my heart, this disappointment that we have to go on with life with this dagger in our hearts. The other day someone asked me if I had lost my faith over losing my husband and I immediately said "no, my husband never lost his and it just seems too wimpy for me to give up on God now" and I felt so feeble in my response. I need a better story!
I think the real story is something along the lines of ... I believe in a Father God who has a great and Divine plan for each of us and I know that in His son I have found salvation and in Him I move and have my being. And every night when I say my prayers somewhere in the beginning and the middle and the end I say "...but I will trust You". I don't have a reason for why I still have faith, I just do. Perhaps one of the many reasons I do is I remember Brian saying "God has never failed us. We have never walked alone". So in all my many months of pondering on the meaning and purpose of life I don't have an intellectual answer, but this I know: we take nothing with us when we go. We leave behind everything. And all the stuff is just stuff. But the the relational context we lived exists beyond our days. So at this time of year, a time when we tend to reorganize and plan, because the reality is we have to do that. And I have to that. This push to have a career, to provide for my family, has been thrust upon me. So I reorganize and plan within the context of a story that I would have written differently if I could have. And the only conclusion I can come up with is that somehow the meaning and the purpose in it has to be about loving God and the people he puts in our path and we get to choose how we engage in all of that. And that is the stuff that lasts beyond our days.
Ugh! When I step back and look at where I am today I just think "I don't want any of this!" I found it odd that some of the Christmas cards I received said something like "hope you have a better 2015". Better than what???? I suppose it is always better to not have to nurse your husband to his death, and yet, I would flash back a year ago today if I could. I would relive every stinking hard moment with Brian, just to be with him. Last January we moved his office into our bedroom so he could roll out of bed and go to work. I still remember one morning at around 6 am he got out of bed for a conference call after an extremely difficult weekend. His body was caving in fast and his suffering was just huge. And in his scratchy voice (marred by all the treatment) he said to the other person on the phone in the most gentle and authentic way "how was your weekend?". I laid in bed smiling and thinking "that's Brian, always other focused, even when he's just barely hanging on".
So at a time of year when people are making new year's resolutions and thinking about bright days ahead I find myself in a place I don't want to be: living and building a career without my best friend by my side, shouldering the joys and burdens of family without him, living a story that is still shocking to me. And the "new what?" I hope to bring to 2015 is an other focus despite the pain that screams at me each morning. I would like to be the man that I loved in the way that he thought of others first in the midst of his extreme suffering. Yes my grief is ever present and very loud to me, but the lesson learned, is that it's possible to truly and authentically extend care and grace and love to those who cross your path despite the backdrop of your own journey.
I have spent many long months pondering the meaning and purpose of life. And each time a friend or even a stranger loses someone they love I feel this tug on my heart, this disappointment that we have to go on with life with this dagger in our hearts. The other day someone asked me if I had lost my faith over losing my husband and I immediately said "no, my husband never lost his and it just seems too wimpy for me to give up on God now" and I felt so feeble in my response. I need a better story!
I think the real story is something along the lines of ... I believe in a Father God who has a great and Divine plan for each of us and I know that in His son I have found salvation and in Him I move and have my being. And every night when I say my prayers somewhere in the beginning and the middle and the end I say "...but I will trust You". I don't have a reason for why I still have faith, I just do. Perhaps one of the many reasons I do is I remember Brian saying "God has never failed us. We have never walked alone". So in all my many months of pondering on the meaning and purpose of life I don't have an intellectual answer, but this I know: we take nothing with us when we go. We leave behind everything. And all the stuff is just stuff. But the the relational context we lived exists beyond our days. So at this time of year, a time when we tend to reorganize and plan, because the reality is we have to do that. And I have to that. This push to have a career, to provide for my family, has been thrust upon me. So I reorganize and plan within the context of a story that I would have written differently if I could have. And the only conclusion I can come up with is that somehow the meaning and the purpose in it has to be about loving God and the people he puts in our path and we get to choose how we engage in all of that. And that is the stuff that lasts beyond our days.
I see you're burning the midnight oil my friend! ;) It is great to read your post. I do want to comment on a couple of things, just to give you possibly another perspective, although it's possible you've heard these things before. ��. I believe our faith comes from God, we can not grow more of our own, it is His gift to us, we just need to trust Him. As for the other 'thing', I don't remember not knowing this acronym for JOY, Jesus Others, Yourself. When we put things in that order, we will have true JOY. I know Brian lived this in his own life, and was a great example and testimony to all that met him.
ReplyDeleteContinually praying for you and your family!
Thanks for commenting! I LOVE fresh perspective! None of us can do this journey alone. I agree wholeheartedly with your first statement! But the JOY acronym not so much. To isolate my walk with God to just my connection with Jesus, misses the complexity of the Godhead. I prefer to use the word Divine, as it encompasses my relationship to the Father and Creator, my relationship to Jesus as my Savior and my relationship to the Holy Spirit who is actively at work in my life. True joy comes from the Divine alone, an active relationship with Him expresses itself as joy and we see that expression in others and feel it internally at times in ourselves. A far as others vs self, I could not prioritize one over the other on a regular basis. It's sort of like putting the mask on yourself before putting it on the baby because the baby won't survive if you aren't there to do it for him. There are times where taking time for self, to retreat, to reconvene with God or whatever needs to be prioritized over others so that you can be other focused again. And then there are times when a preoccupation with self incapacitates you from being able to love others well. So I guess all this to day, I don't think the JOY formula works every day all the time. It's just not that simple. Walking with the Lord and others in joy requires a reliance on the Holy Spirit's work in us to give us the strength to do what is needed at the time it is needed.
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