My Surreal Status Quo

Up, down, laugh, cry. Smile, hope, sadness, despair. I am doing better than I ever could have imagined, and yet I am not doing well each and every day. I feel like when I hit the bottom of my tolerance I receive an encouraging word, an e-mail, a call, some insight spiritually that makes me feel lighter. When I feel better, when I think I might just make it, something happens to hit me over the head and smash me down again. I am doing remarkably well and unbelievably awful at the same time. I didn't know it was possible.

Last Tuesday at my Bible Study I felt so encouraged. I was reminded of the eternal perspective, that no matter what happens here on earth, no one and nothing can really touch my mother. She has Christ and she has eternity and she will always have them. Thursday evening the deer hit my car. Last night I felt ill after filling out the accident report. Today my knuckles turned white as I gripped the steering wheel each time I passed a semi or large truck on my way into the city. Tonight someone offered me reassurance and comfort about other fears and I actually felt reassured. 

The ups, the downs...I can't say they are more pronounced, if anything I am softer, more malelable. I am more sensitive to things, and yet I absorb them better, easier. The strain is greater, but the peace more pronounced, more noticeable. Sometimes I feel like I am someone else. Time before the accident is like a memory. I have become someone else. I don't know if that is good or bad - I suspect it is both. Perhaps my words sound confusing here on the page, but it all makes sense in my mind, in my soul. Perhaps you have to be in the middle of something like this to really understand. Maybe those of you who have experienced heartbreaking tragedy understand what I mean, maybe not. Those of you who don't, I wish you could and yet I hope you don't. I live in a new world, and though I don't feel brave, I must be so.

Flashbacks

Tonight was a bad night. My three year old and I are alright, but on our way to the grocery store this evening our car was hit by a deer. The stupid animal got up and ran off and the damage could have been a lot worse...basically structural over the right front tire. The emotional fall-out, however, is yet to be determined. Being in any sort of an accident is traumatic I'm sure, but for me it meant thinking about what happened two and half months ago to my mom. Driving along, thoughts on other things...I'm sure she never saw it coming any more than I saw that darn deer. We were fine though, she was not. I had to stop at the police station to file a report for my insurance. (The police didn't have to come to the scene since the car was drivable and the deer ran off.) I hated going to the police station. All I could think about was the cop showing up at my door at 4:30 am to give me the worst news of my life. I keep thinking about it, even now several hours later. I am thankful that we are okay, but I think it's going to take a couple days to shake this off because of the horrible memories it drags up for me. Already I'm up way too late, avoiding bed because I fear lying there unable to sleep, my mind racing. I can't put it off any longer, but I just hope I can sleep.

A Poem

What God Hath Promised

God hath not promised skies always blue,

Flower-strewn pathways all our lives thro';

God hath not promised sun without rain,

Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

God hath not promised we shall not know

Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;

He hath not told us we shall not bear

Many a burden, many a care.

But God hath promised strength for the day,

Rest for the laborer, light for the way.

Grace for the trials, help from above,

Unfailing sympathy, undying love.

~ Annie Johnson Flint

This poem was written in a card from my mom to a friend on Thursday, January 30, 1986. (It was written in her beautiful calligraphy handwriting.) It reached out to me and made me smile and cry. I'm sure she never anticipated how it would touch her daughter 23 years after she wrote it to someone else. I know she believed what is written in this poem with all of her heart and it brings me some comfort.

The Darkest Hour is Always at Night

Nights are the worst...by far. In the month following the accident I don't know that any of the immediate family really slept. My sleeplessness was aggravated by pregnancy hormones, which often had me awake for several hours. Despite my weariness I'd lie there awake, frustrating under any circumstances, but made 100 times worse by finding myself always thinking about what had happened. I sleep better now that I have a newborn, but even now sometimes when I've been up feeding him in the night I am haunted by thoughts and memories and I can't fall back asleep. It drives me crazy and I want to scream and find a way to shut down my racing thoughts, the images that flit through my mind like so many demons. 

"Things always seem worse at night." I remember both my parents telling me that as a child and even into my young adult years. It is so very true...either that or our minds are less distracted and able to see more clearly the horrors we face. There is something about the darkness, the quiet, the cold, that makes the longing deeper, the pain harsher, reality more biting, the tears flow more freely. After a night like this the day is harder too because I awaken tired and sad. Then there are the dreams. Good dreams become nightmares when you awaken from them to find they aren't true. Bad dreams become good if they involve your loved one being alive, well and whole. If I could rest, sleep, dream at night without ever thinking, I think I would be a much happier person.

Beholden

I'll admit it, I hate accepting help. Unless it's help from a close family member that with whom I'm very comfortable, I much prefer being the helper than the helpee. Ironically, my mother was the same way. This has made the past three months really difficult for me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all of the help that people have given us. There is no way we could have made it otherwise. I just feel like I've wracked up this huge debt to people that can never be repaid. I feel like I will have to spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to everyone and to me that is a huge burden. I have had so much help from meals to childcare to cleaning to the washer and dryer that were bought for us and it means a lot to me. I know my mom used to help an awful lot of people...there have been so many testimonies to her, and I know she would be happy that people have been helping us. But how on earth am I to live up to her and to all the help that's been provided? I certainly don't feel worthy or capable. I don't have a choice though, and I just hope no one is holding it against me that I haven't written a thank you note to everyone who has helped us out. If I did that I wouldn't have time to do anything but write, there's been that much help. So if you are one of those people...thank you, and please forgive me for not providing a note.

Where is God?

Those of you who know me know that I believe in God and consider myself a Christian.  I believe that my word view is distinctly shaped and molded by these factors. This means that they play a huge role in my perception of this whole horrible, messy situation. I will be honest with you right up front. Am I mad at God right now? Definitely. Do I feel like he doesn't care - yes. That he's abandoned us, yes. I can't tell you how many times I've turned to my husband and said, "It's not fair. Why does God hate us so much?" Yes, I am hurt, angry and wrestling with God...but I still believe in Him and I still believe that He loves me. In this darkest hour when I feel like we as a family are literally walking through the valley of the shadow of death one of my few comforts is that we are not alone. Christ walks with us. There is no hardship, no pain, no suffering that he hasn't known. The fact that he would sacrifice his life mine means that he does love me. But it still hurts.  

Suffering in this world is rampant. I believe that suffering is the result of sin. I also believe that God works all things out for His purposes, though they don't make sense to me and sometimes make me feel like God must be cruel. Especially right now. I feel like God has beaten me over the head, mashed me to a pulp and most certainly asked me to bear more than I can. Yet I still find myself going back to him, darn it! Am I a blind follower? Or is it maybe that he really does care, really does love me, really is working things out though I can't see or feel it. Being refined is never fun, yet the end results are often stunning...look at gold (anyone read this month's National Geographic?). I am still wrestling with all this...probably will be my whole life to be honest...just wanted people to know where I am with all of this. I am tenuously clinging, but still clinging.

How do I know that God is there, even amidst my anger and hurt? I know because I felt him and his strength...that morning when the police officer knocked on my hotel door at 4:30 in the morning, as I calmly made and fielded phone call after phone call from the hotel room where I was stuck by myself - 8 month pregnant and with two little children, as I walked into the ICU and saw my mom for the first time after the accident, those early days when we didn't know if my mom would survive, struggling through my brother's wedding just four days after the accident. He's been there. I may not get it, I may be angry, but I know he is there and He's the main reason I'm making it through all of this without completely losing my mind.

Life Sentence

It hit me like a sucker punch to the gut, but then it always does. No matter how realistic and pragmatic I try to be, those darn elements of hope and faith creep in ever so subtly so that when further discouraging confirmations come in, they knock me down all over again. The neurosurgeon's report came in...he was personable, kind, open to questions, and painfully discouraging. And the ruling he gave us, like a life sentence in prison. She wakes, sleeps, opens her eyes, looks around for naught because she isn't really awake. It seems cruel, the idea that it is most likely that she will lie in that bed day after day, year after year never speaking, never feeling, never knowing those she loves and who love her, missing all the events of our lives until some day far in the future she finally slips away for good from some infection or pneumonia or something similar. The image I'm reminded of comes from the Count of Monte Cristo when Edmond Dantes, betrayed by his best friend, is thrown into the tiny, bleak, cell in an isolated prison to serve out a sentence he didn't earn for the rest of his life. That's what we're being handed, that's what my mother is getting, though she has done nothing to deserve it. That's how we feel when we hear the news, even though we already knew in our heads that it was likely. The gavel has fallen, the judge has spoken, the ruling is against us.