The Thrill is Gone

When you're young, life seems endless. Mortality isn't really part of your everyday thought process when there is simply too much to see, do, and experience! When you're 15, 30 seems light years away, when you're 20, 40 seems impossible. I haven't reached 40 yet, but it's just around the corner. For so much of my life I fantasized about my future, about the possibilities of life, about what I could and would become. Proving myself to myself and others meant everything. Life was fun, exciting, and magical, until it wasn't.

If you're fortunate enough to have strong relationships with your parents, then losing them abruptly and very close together (mine were both gone within 9 months) is likely to stop you in your tracks. That is how it was and is for me. The noose wrapped around and squeezed me just enough to remind me that I was an inch away from losing them, losing myself, at any point. My life went dark, my heart got heavy, and my brain thought faster than ever. Mostly they were thoughts about how to help, how to fix, and how to save them. My heart was so heavy and the lump in my throat so large that I could only think and do and not concentrate on feeling. When they left (dying still hurts to say), I felt as though someone had beaten me up and left me on the side of the road to slowly bleed out, and I was just waiting for the pain to subside...for anything to numb that forever ache.

The death of my parents and the loss of my relationship with my brother through it all caused everything that was to simply no longer be. The back-to-back care-taking of my parents(there are so many things I never thought I'd witness or have to participate in terms of care), the funeral arranging, the estate managing (I'll never forget feeling like I was a little kid in that lawyer's office) kicked most of what I had alive inside of me out, stole my breath and my joy, and aged me far beyond the physical. Hollow is the only word I can seem to describe my state most days.  My structure is here, but my bones whistle the sounds deep loss. I'm emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually worn thin.

At the moment life doesn't have the shine it used to. Perhaps it became dull when cancer entered our family and ate my father alive. Life doesn't have the laughter it used to. Perhaps it was choked out when my mother couldn't catch her breath and was put on a breathing machine for the rest of her life. She died breathing a wretched death rattle and altering between gray and ghost white - while I was powerless to change any of it. I simply watched the life drain from her body.  Life doesn't have the assurance it used to. God doesn't seem so close when you look for answers, comfort or signs of life after death and get silence. I really thought that in times like this, God would look different, would feel different. Perhaps I thought a ribbon of light would direct my every move, every word. Perhaps that night when I threw up an entire bottle of red wine and stumbled through my front door from simply trying to drown the pain wouldn't have happened if He had just shown up and told me it would be ok. Perhaps...perhaps He would have used my parents to show what He could do and heal them.

It's been two years after my father left me and I can now look back and see the supernatural strength provided, the grace and mercy He had on my relationship with my dad. I get it now - but I still don't want to.

There are many moments when I feel completely selfish. Did I somehow think I'd escape loss? Did I at any point think life goes on forever? Babies die everyday, people die from the most wretched diseases and living conditions every second of every day and here I am, still mourning. I can see it from a bird's eye view. I can see myself going about my day and trying, always trying, so I suppose that is a good thing.

There is simply now. I am a mother of four boys, each in a very different life stage, and I find myself thinking about my own mortality and watching the clock...wondering if I will be around longer than my parents were and if they would escape the raw ache I feel. Certainly it would be easier if my parents died at 85 or 90 instead of 65 and 66, right? Eh, probably not. Where is my faith to get me through? Where is my God? My faith is my hope that all will be made right someday, and I know that God is there, but perhaps He truly is a little further away than I'd like Him to be right now. Perhaps that's my own doing or simply just my perception, who knows.

I am determined to try to live the best life I can with the most quality as I can, with my family filling my days and my heart. I am a changed woman and seem to find that dressing in Teflon is a lot easier than wearing something sheer. There are days when I grin and bear the memories of my parents' escalation to their final moments and other days I simply drip tears at the thought of their suffering.

Everything about life is a challenge when your heart is broken. The Nothing calls to me daily. It wants me to sink into the mud, but I keep reaching up, because any other direction isn't living.

This is the blog of a crazy woman. A woman crazy for truth, for love, for feeling and BEING well. The topics will likely be as varied as my moods, so I apologize in advance for the roller coaster (not really). More than anything, this blog is likely to be therapeutic for me, because I truly believe we all have THE RIGHT TO BEAR LIFE.