Running

Running....I keep running hoping to outrun sadness, to run away from home or perhaps just to catch up with my now healed body. Last Friday I ran in the woods, in a quiet trail I found rarely used at the park. I have found comfort in the quiet solitude of the woods. There crying and sweating don't seem out of place, as if the rustling leaves encourage my heart to let go and as my body relaxes into the rhythm of my stride my heart too relaxes into this sadness that defines me, and it is so comfortable, like falling into a down comforter after a long day. The tears are healing, and often times I find myself calling out for comfort. Does He hear? If He does, how come I don't feel it? How come my tears are never spent? What new stage of grief is this? I'm confused, it seems to be getting more and more difficult to face life alone. I'm often weepy and tired. Even after a long run where all tension of the body and heart are released I find myself crying at the first notes of a song on the radio or at the thought of opening the door to an empty house.

Last Friday as I was running out of the trail I tripped on a root and fell, twisting my ankle and cutting the side of my knee. When I got up I couldn't stand on my right foot, blood ran down the left side of my leg mixing in with the mud from the wet trail. After I got cleaned up I realize that it was only a slight sprain, but it'll keep me from running for a few days. I missed my long run on Saturday and today's run. I hear the calling of the leaves and feel the coolness of the morning air on my face, my feet yearn for the trail but cannot move, my heart waits patiently for healing and my mind races trying to find a momentary place to cry.

My Body

My body seems to be making decisions on its own, making up its mind on how it'll handle change. After Ron's death it decided to stop eating and sleeping even though I begged for rest, it decided to fade into the pain, to blend with the grief, to ignore all the cues that would keep it alive as if choosing to follow them to death. It has taken a monumental effort to contradict it's decision. I have had to be reminded to eat. Carmel on the constant lookout for eaten power bar wrappers and making smoothies when even chewing seemed a chore. Her first question when I picked her up from school, before I could even get in a "Hi", was, "What did you have for lunch?" and if I couldn't remember she would shake her head and say, "Mom, you got to eat!" and be mad at me until she saw me eat some dinner. I began to make a greater effort, mainly because I hated to upset her. I needed her to talk to me. So before she asked I would tell her, "Today I had a turkey sandwich," "Really?" "Well, only half but it was good." And she would smile and tell me about her day. For a while I had to make an effort to remember, for Carmel, but soon I didn't have to remind myself, my body remembered and soon Carmel stopped asking. One day I asked why she didn't ask anymore and she looked at me deeply and said, "Cause I don't need to." "What makes you say that?" and like a teenager she said, "I don't know." That night after I undressed I looked at myself in the mirror for the first time and was surprised by what I saw...curves that weren't there before. My ribs weren't protruding and the bones in my spine were hidden by a healthy layer of muscle, my legs have definition and look stronger. I sat down and cried...silly but what my body told me I was not ready to hear. My body decided to move on, to live without him, to make this the new normal. Well, I wanted to scream "It's NOT normal!" My heart and mind don't want to let go. I feel betrayed! If my body is moving on, why not the rest of me, how can I be left behind? I don't want to hold on to this sadness forever, but I realize that I'm a bit attached to it, as if letting go means that I'm letting go of myself. What else will I loose? My heart is torn, my mind is confused but my body has finally entered reality and has welcomed the new life. I hope I can soon follow.....

Affliction

"An old Puritan said that if you go into the woods and are very quiet, you will not know whether there is a partridge, or a pheasant, or a rabbit in it. But when you move or make a noise, you soon see the living creatures. They rise or they run. When affliction comes into your soul and makes a disturbance and breaks your peace, your graces rise. Faith comes out of hiding and love leaps from its secret place."
C. H. Spurgeon

I love the last sentence in this paragraph..."love leaps from its secret place." The word leaps gives me the feeling of energy and intensity. Leap means action, to spring free. Love that springs free from the depth of Christ. Amazing! What I feel is affliction what He gives is active, energetic love, love that leaps like Tigger in the darkness of the Hundred Acre Woods. He continues to amaze me with His intensity, there is nothing passive about Christ. It is in my suffering that God has stated and demonstrated His great compassion.

Today, in this very moment I feel His love leaping into the depth of my heart. I can see my storm is passing leaving me once again in peaceful surrender.

Resilience

Resilience: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused by compressive stress; an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

Someone commented on the resiliency of my daughters and it caused me to look up the true meaning of the word. I don't know if I truly understood what they meant by such a comment, do you, after experiencing so much change, go back to the same life as before? To fully understand I had to go back to the word recover, and its meanings. The one that applies best to our experience is "to save from loss and restore to usefulness." I can say He is in the process of restoring back to usefulness. God saved us from the loss of Ron, He has not allowed us to drown in our own grief and sadness and is faithfully restoring us back to life. I don't think we'll ever be as we once were, but it's true, children are resilient. We are so surprise when we see children recover from the most traumatic of situations, for we adults tend to hold on to grievances, taking them out again and again when things don't go our way, using them as a ready excuse for our lack of discipline. Children take these things as part of life, we are unique in America that adversity and suffering are rare, but in most of the world, children are expose to life challenges early on. I grew up surrounded by human misery, beggars and deformed people on the streets, starving animals waiting to pray on small unattended children, famine and death, war and pestilence and these things didn't weaken or impeded my growth, in fact they made me stronger and more determined to rise above it and do something about it. No wonder I became a teacher and social worker, then when God called me, I was willing to go where He sent me. These experiences are what makes me who I am, what He so gently used to mold my heart and as I continue in this road I see He's not quite done. My daughters are no different. Loss has changed them forever, their hearts are more compassionate, their faith a little stronger, their complete surrender unhindered by logic and free to trust the One who holds our future. This change is painful, but change without pain is not truly real change. There is a steep price to be paid for the most valuable lessons in life, those are the ones that permanently mold our future, the ones that never leave us, that direct our decisions and embark us in the road less traveled. It is true my daughters are resilient, but is there less resiliency as we age? Have I reached my limit of being able to adjust to misfortune or change? Again I am at a loss when it comes to my ability to adapt and my life continues to surprise even me. I have come to understand that this is not about me but about Him, for His glory and His eternal purpose. When I began to see it that way a big burden was lifted off my shoulders for it's not how much I can take, obviously I'm weak, but how much He can take in me, so resiliency is not something that only children can experience. The true life of a believer is defined by our resiliency to His continual molding and shaping...isn't that what sanctification is all about? This is a journey in which I become more and more useful to Him who guides my steps and holds my future.

Senses

I am now finding life more arresting, feeling it with ferocity, every little experience monumental and intoxicating, as if I'm living in a world of giants and even the almost non existing smell of the ground is overwhelming. Why are my senses so acute, why do they hold me hostage, not only to my present but to my past? I have always experienced life thru my senses only leaving out sight. Many a nights I laid in my bedroom with my eyes closed tightly, listening to angry voices outside the door, smelling alcohol pouring out of my stepfather's pores, feeling the dampness of sweat in the hot and humid hours of the early dawn, engaging my mind in the ferocious act of trying to make the moment not real just because I failed to see it with my own eyes. Now I find myself facing my present with the same aggressive feelings, if only I close my eyes tightly to this maybe it's not real, but I can smell loneliness, taste the coolness of my tears, feel the presence of nostalgia in my every movement and hear sadness in every beat of my heart. I feel like a Russian character trapped in a very long novel in Siberia...cold and exhausted.

My Storms

Grieving is like being in the open ocean on a very small boat at first, so small that you feel every little movement of the water, every ripple, every wave, making you dizzy and disoriented. Then as you move along in this mass of deep water your legs become accustomed to the rhythm of the ocean and you only feel the bigger waves. Soon you exchange the little boat for a bigger one and the movement is less noticeable coupled with the fact that you're used to the water and soon you feel only the biggest of waves, but you're still traveling in this mass of water without destination and subjected to the storms the earth generates. I expect them now, when the waters have been calm for a while I know a storm is brewing and I anticipate the gale force of wind and water in my horizon. These past two days I have been bearing a storm, my emotions are as unpredictable as the waves, the force of each drowning my common sense, just tossing me around and beating up my body. The reason for each storm is still a mystery to me. What triggers the wind to hit my face and the water to almost drown me could be anything, I'm always on the alert yet each time it happens I'm unprepared. I have learned to just face each with complete surrender and let the force of my emotions exhaust me. I have tried to bear down and stop it but I'm tired and I just surrender with infinite patience for I know that eventually they will subside and I'll have rest. I'm done analyzing grief, and have just accepted it. Every one has an opinion but until you have been on that boat you can't give advice from the safety of land. Climb in this boat with me and just hold me while the storm rages on and passes. Courage is something like patience, it can only be exercise in the most uncomfortable moments in life. Soon land will be within my sight but for the moment I'm bearing down another storm, knowing this won't be the last and hoping I can have the courage to persevere.

In The Company of Women

I had a dream last night that cause me to wake up laughing. I don't remember any details or images all I remember is feelings, noise and texture. Funny how the mind works, specially mine, me being so moved by my senses. I tried to remember but all that lingered was the smell of mint tea and sugar and the feeling of having been in the company of women. That satisfying feeling I get when I hang up the phone after having a long conversation with a much loved girlfriend. Perhaps widows seek the company of women, not just for comfort but to have somebody to talk to about the mundane things of being a woman, the laundry and kids teachers, frizzy hair and our weight. Silly how those tidbits of nothing fill us so deeply.

When I visited California I needed the companionship of my girlfriends. They opened their arms and homes to me. They took me out shopping for my first pair of high heel shoes, one shared her hard kept beauty secrets (which I promised not to reveal!) and another took me out for drinks after encouraging me to buy a pair of tight fitting jeans and sexy underwear, telling me that what I wear underneath will boost my confidence and make me feel young and sexy. It worked! They made me throw out my mommy underclothes and gave me a lesson on bras and all they can accomplish no matter what size you are. They reminded me that though I feel old and worn, I'm not. That there is a lot of young desiring me left behind making me blush and laugh at the same time. Even though I don't remember my dream I'm glad I was visited last night and for a little while I was surrounded by my friends.