Today, on the fourteenth anniversary of THE terrible, horrible no
good, very bad day, I took my grief out of the mothballs in the closet. Giving it a good shake to remove the cobwebs,
I held it up to the sun and inspected it. Considering how often it has been used and abused over the past fourteen years, it is in remarkably good condition.
Through the
years I have used it less and less. But
on October 29th each year, the memories come rushing back like a tidal
wave. And no matter how much I think that time should have built up the
sandbags high enough to protect my heart, the waves of grief sweep over me once
again, drawing me down into the depths of despair.
Often it strikes suddenly and without
warning. One minute I am driving in the
car and the next I am swept down into a deep, dark place that is the memory of
the unimaginable pain of losing a child through a failed adoption. It is as if time stands still, and I am
transported back to the moment I placed her last bag into the car and watched
her drive away from me forever.
And then
suddenly I am back to reality, I can breathe again, the imaginary carving knife
is removed from my chest and life goes on. But I am left feeling as if the wind
has been knocked from my body. The world
is gray. Nothing tastes good. Colors are subdued.
As I continue working, I accomplish the tasks
before me. A phone is picked up, a
question answered, an appointment set, and an email sent. But all the time, I am bracing myself for the
next assault. For I know it will come as sure as the sun will rise each day.
And then again without
warning, another flashback to a house packed in the U-haul leaving the house dark and
empty and the tears that came until late into the night. When
you have wept longer and harder than you ever thought possible, you lay on the
floor limp and lifeless as a rag doll, hoping the ground will open and swallow you whole. But that is not the way life or Heavenly
Father works. Instead you are given a
chance to stretch and grow from the pain and to feel the comfort that only the
Savior can offer.
And suddenly it is
time to fix dinner and pick up kids and do the things that mothers do. Eventually the evening is over and the day,
THE DREADED DAY, comes to a close. But
before I go to bed, I sit quietly in my rocking chair with that grief that is as
familiar to me as my favorite pair of jeans or worn out quilt. Rocking back and forth, as if to soothe that grief back to sleep.
And as I rock that grief, I sing softly that eventually, all will be right. That perhaps someday the pain
will fade to a bearable level. All the
time knowing if that day were to come, I would feel that diminished pain to be a betrayal, and so I would never
let it happen.
My grief and I, we have
spent some special bonding time together through the years and today, and I am ready to place it back in the
closet for another year. Life will go
on. I will laugh and and I will smile and sometimes
even cry. Rationally I know that enjoying my life today does not mean I loved her any less.
But somehow, I will be forever
changed by the fact that I loved and lost.
And perhaps it is OK, because I have grown used to this person I have
become. The one that keeps a special
piece of my heart locked up and set aside for a blue eyed, blonde haired three year old
little girl, who is now seventeen.
We
will be forever connected she and I, by an invisible thread, and someday, if
not in this life, then the next, we will meet again. And it is the joy of that day that I must
cling to like a life preserver as I swim to shore out of the chilly, crippling depths of despair.
Until next year, my friend. See ya, next year.
Until next year, my friend. See ya, next year.
