Weekends have been really, really rough ... and yesterday I realized that I think I'm just going to have to be very careful not to try to "overdo" ... and to focus on "good self-care".
During the week I'm working and working and so many things are distracting me from the pain ... I'm not sure that this is good or bad or indifferent but that's the way it is ...
But at night especially ... and in the mornings ... and on weekends ... the pain comes sweeping back with a vengeance ...
And I was reflecting a few days ago that this isn't all that different from life heretofore ... pain and unhappiness and suffering are everyone's lot, for one thing, so mine as well. And even at a felt level, my unhappiness now and my unhappiness past, are they really so different?
I'm not positive ... but I think the answer is Yes and No.
Yes in this sense that I felt yesterday morning with special acuity driving down to visit you Momma ... I feel like a part of me, an enormous part of me, is missing. As if someone plunged a fist into my solar plexus, leaving me sometimes literally gasping for air, choking, gulping, wondering if I can scramble up through the waves of sorrow to gulp down fast too-short gulps of air.
I'm looking Back as once I looked Forward ... almost daily, almost hourly, almost always. That's different.
I remember a few times in my life when I would reflect, "this moment is passing and I wonder how I will remember it later." One of those moments, or a collection of such moments, occurred when I was a teen lifeguard at the Teen Club in Tripoli. That was about (oh) about 38 or 40 years ago when I think about it. I was sitting in the lifeguard chair looking out over this amazing Mediterranean Sea ... deep deep blues, amazing hues of green, pale clear water, bright, blazing sun overhead. I can remember thinking, this is amazing, and it will pass, and I wonder how it will be for me in the future?
Now is the future ... and how is it for me now?
I miss it ... I miss it terribly ... and you know ... it's all, all tied up ... with Momma ... with my nurturance, with my upbringing, with my growth, with my origins.
It feels like the wind has been knocked out of me to think of you gone Momma; to think of those days gone as well.
It feels like loss
Loss irreplaceable, loss irredeemable
And part of my Goal today must therefore be to experience or re-experience that Loss
My Goal today is to respond to the devastating catastrophe of your Loss, Momma, with some sense of integrity and honor and authenticity
I've got to remember this Goal and embrace this Goal in Christ.
In 2 days my Grief Group meets ... I've just got to be there this time, I must not miss it.
Oh Lord help me keep this commitment to help me keep my commitment to Momma, to You
I love you Momma
I love you Lord
Oh how I miss you
Charles Delacroix
Monday of 5th Week in Lent
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5 comments:
Charles
I want you to memorize I Thessalonians 4:13
13
We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
14
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
My mom died over a year ago and I did not go through what you are going through and have always felt that she was in Heaven quite quickly though I pray for her so as not to presume...but I have no leanings to over sorrow.
Hi, bilbannon,
Thank you for your kind comments. I am sorry to hear of your own mother's passing, but join you in hope that she might be in Heaven. Who knows, perhaps our mothers are conversing and rejoicing together in Our Lord's Presence now and always in God's Eternal Light.
Of course we are all so different, and respond so differently to our losses. I know that God, Who in His Love is aware even when a sparrow falls from the sky, loves us all, and our mothers, infinitely more perfectly than we mortals ever can.
Yet I also think God in His Mercy understands that we do respond to our losses in very, very different ways: and God may will very different ways for very different people. Jesus Called for one man to Follow Him without even first burying his own father. Job, on the other hand, did nothing to hide his utter devastation at his own enormous losses. And Jesus wept at the Tomb of Lazarus.
All of these ... the Man Called by Jesus, Job, and Jesus Himself ... sorrowed, or were called to sorrow, in such different ways. Yet all were blessed by God. None were apparently "[grieving] like the rest, who have no hope."
For me ... this has been simply devastating and that has nothing to do with Hope or lack of Hope. Job said that he knew that his Redeemer liveth and at last He will stand upon the earth (Job 1
Job 19:25. So although Job was a man of Hope, he was also in enormous suffering.
Jesus Christ, on the Cross, was of course God as well as Man. Yet He could and did cry out, "My God My God why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
Job knew that Christ was Coming. Yet he suffered and wept and sorrowed. His well-meaning friends ... the "Job's Comforters" ... in effect told him to "get over it" and "move on." Job would have none of this ... he spoke clearly and forthrightly of his enormous pain. And in the end, God justified him for doing so.
Now as for me ... I am no Job. But I am a man. A man who hurts and hurts and hurts. And who says so. I don't myself see what else I can really do.
In this Holy Week in which we celebrate Christ as He Walked His Way of the Cross, I beg Him to allow me to walk behind Him, bearing my little cross after His Great Cross. And I take comfort in knowing that God is not a God Who doesn't know suffering. He is a God Who embraces and loves those who are in pain. And like St Paul, God sorrows with those who are in sorrow.
Of course we all have our Ways of the Cross and we all have our sufferings. I realize that you too have your sorrows and your sufferings. May you and I pray for one another that we may persevere in Christ despite our many challenges on the Way of the Cross of Christ.
Good....as long as you know the issue of I Thess.
Yes ... but hey it never ever hurts to be reminded. Thanks, and may God bless you and yours throughout this Holy Week
Charles Delacroix
Tuesday of Holy Week
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