Just keep swimming...

I'm sorry it's been a while… someone asked me on my birthday last week if I felt any older… I thought about it for a few minutes… no I didn’t feel any older but instead I feel older then I should. My heart and soul has journeyed paths that people three times my age haven’t even begun. All the first are horrible… first Easter, first memorial day parade, first birthday, anniversary, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Death is essential but it is simply terrible. It’s not if we will die but when, sooner or later we’ll all have to stare it in the face. I can't imagine how people make it through the loss of someone without the Lord. I have fully reached stage 4 of grief – depression, reflection and loneliness. I still have the shock stage left in me… Sometimes I'm simply blown away by how Ricky can't be here with me… but it's more sadness now then anything else. I'm focused on the daily tasks at hand which help the time pass and keeps me busy. I guess that’s a good word for it… I've become "busy" to help pass the time. A couple of months ago I started swimming when I got home from work. After measuring out the pool and figuring it up that it takes 147 laps to make a mile. I've worked all summer on getting up to swimming a mile each day. It takes about 1.5 hours to complete it… It's so quiet under the water. It's really the only time I can hear my thoughts clearly. Swimming helps me get past some of the day. 

Thank God for Mommas...

My mom taught me how to be a strong, God fearing, independent, full of love, woman of God. Now… if I can only fill the mold that she created. She always knew what to say. She could look at you and with either a wink make you feel like you were the most loved person on the face of the planet or with her “evil” eye make you check what you were up to! Our stories are similar. Her first husband died from a heart attack in his 40s. She was younger then him and did not have any children. She shared her emotions and how she won over her grief. How she drew closer to the Lord during the lowest point of her life. She would tell me the scripture that she stood on during that time. One she share was Romans 8:26, she explained to me what this scripture means to her as the Spirit of God inside of us can pray when we don’t even have the words to say. When we can’t pray because our soul is so crushed or even if we don’t feel like we can talk with the Lord what He has placed inside of us, our spirit man can pray for us. I prefer the Message Bible version. 

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayers out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.

It’s as though she knew the things she would share about her own experiences in life would help me walk through mine. She was such a good mom. If you’ve still got your mom cherish her knowledge, ask her questions, be built up by her words of encouragement. You’ll never know how much it will mean to you until later in life when she’s not here to tell her. 

Stage 2, 3, 4 and sometimes 1.

My heart has been in need of some healing and I have quietly waited for it, and by quietly I mean the Lord and I haven’t really been on speaking terms. Well, before that comes across as something bad or wrong I want to make it clear that He knows I love Him and I know He loves me. There are all kinds of walks in our life were we don’t understand what God is up to, but He is and will always be my Father. I won’t ever be able to sneak away from Him and He won’t ever leave me. Just like our earthly relationships… sometimes we love unconditionally and sometimes we don’t say a word to each other… it doesn’t change our hearts in any way, shape or form. It’s just a matter of timing when it will all shift again. Normally when the Lord speaks, shares, confronts or corrects me it comes in the form of that still small voice in my heart, yes, you know the one I’m talking about, the one we tend to ignore. It’s more of a knowing voice then a booming HEY YOU… LISTEN TO ME kind of voice.

Standing on the ocean’s shore waiting for the sun to rise one morning the Lord spoke in my heart and revealed to me how grief is similar to the ocean that He created. I was knee deep it the cool waters of the Atlantic’s coast with the moon shining bright. To the left the sun greeted the sky. A new day was dawning. The moon brings in the tide and when the sun outshines the moon the tide recedes. When relating this to grief the dark parts of your life where there is minimal light the tide of grief comes rushing in, but when the sun, or the Lord’s face outshines the dark the tide takes off running back out to sea. It was only a matter of moments the sun was sitting above the water and the tide that reached the top of my knees was now three feet away from me. The ocean is larger then the solid ground we stand on. It comes in waves. It can be both forceful and calming. There is a great undertow that could easily pull you away. It’s loud and can be heard miles away. Its sandy shores go everywhere with you… even when you try and wash it off.  

There is no due date nor expiration to the stages of grief. Order is out of the question and time is nonexistent while grieving. There are moments where you will be completely fine and others that leave you beside yourself. There is no warning of when a wave will come or when the tide will recede. For me it is just best to go along with the flow. You’re only hope of survival is swimming away from the rocks and wait for the Lord to come rescue you. 

I don’t know who created the stages of grief but I would like to say that they are spot on. I don’t necessarily believe that you walk them through in the order as follows but as far as each step along the way they are correct in my experience.

I have a great mixture of stage 2, 3, 4 and sometimes 1.

These stages were taken from www.recover-from-grief.com.

1. SHOCK & DENIAL-
You will probably react to learning of the loss with numbed disbelief. You may deny the reality of the loss at some level, in order to avoid the pain. Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once. This may last for weeks.

2. PAIN & GUILT-
As the shock wears off, it is replaced with the suffering of unbelievable pain. Although excruciating and almost unbearable, it is important that you experience the pain fully, and not hide it, avoid it or escape from it with alcohol or drugs.

You may have guilty feelings or remorse over things you did or didn't do with your loved one. Life feels chaotic and scary during this phase.

3. ANGER & BARGAINING-
Frustration gives way to anger, and you may lash out and lay unwarranted blame for the death on someone else. Please try to control this, as permanent damage to your relationships may result. This is a time for the release of bottled up emotion.

You may rail against fate, questioning "Why me?" You may also try to bargain in vain with the powers that be for a way out of your despair ("I will never drink again if you just bring him back")



4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS-
Just when your friends may think you should be getting on with your life, a long period of sad reflection will likely overtake you. This is a normal stage of grief, so do not be "talked out of it" by well-meaning outsiders. Encouragement from others is not helpful to you during this stage of grieving.

During this time, you finally realize the true magnitude of your loss, and it depresses you. You may isolate yourself on purpose, reflect on things you did with your lost one, and focus on memories of the past. You may sense feelings of emptiness or despair.

5. THE UPWARD TURN-
As you start to adjust to life without your dear one, your life becomes a little calmer and more organized. Your physical symptoms lessen, and your "depression" begins to lift slightly.

6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH-
As you become more functional, your mind starts working again, and you will find yourself seeking realistic solutions to problems posed by life without your loved one. You will start to work on practical and financial problems and reconstructing yourself and your life without him or her.

7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE-
During this, the last of the seven stages in this grief model, you learn to accept and deal with the reality of your situation. Acceptance does not necessarily mean instant happiness. Given the pain and turmoil you have experienced, you can never return to the carefree, untroubled YOU that existed before this tragedy. But you will find a way forward...

You will start to look forward and actually plan things for the future. Eventually, you will be able to think about your lost loved one without pain; sadness, yes, but the wrenching pain will be gone. You will once again anticipate some good times to come, and yes, even find joy again in the experience of living. 
 

Why call it Matthew 6:30...

... because He loves me. 


If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? (Matthew 6:30 - Message)

everything...

The smiles from across the room.

Hugs when I came home from work.

Songs he made up while taking a shower.

Falling asleep next to him.

Waking up next to him.

Prayers over each meal and before bed.

Tiptoes in the morning to not wake him.

Knowing he was right even though I pretended like he wasn’t.

Shopping trips at midnights on Fridays.

Saturday morning breakfast.

Rubbing his feet.

20 phone calls a day… just to say hey.

Swinging on the front porch in the middle of the night.

Studying together.

Fighting.

Making up.

Watching him work.

Cooking meals for him.

I miss everything about him. I miss everything about us. Even the simple things hurt the most. If I could encourage you to learn anything that I’ve learned through this it would be to stop worrying about stupid things… don’t waste your time getting mad and being upset at your loved ones. Open your heart to love and cherish your time with them. It’s hard to understand unless you’re unfortunately in the middle of not having what you should have. But just slow down and take in what you have, good and bad.

introduction... friendship... relationship... engaged...

In the late summer of 2005 I went walking in the park with my sister and her husband. I came straight from work and still had on my dress clothes. That morning I wore bright green socks which did not go with anything I had on. I rolled my dress pants up to keep them from getting dirty. We did what everyone does after a great walk in the park… we went for ice cream. Baskin Robins was down a little ways from the park. We walked in and a few friends from church were sitting inside eating ice cream. I knew them all but one…  Pat, Aimee, Laney, Makenzie and another guy. Pat made reference of my green socks… I jokingly told him I had forgot to unroll my pants before we went for ice cream. The guy was smiling ear to ear. I remember thinking how cute is this guy… I had seen him at church in the halls; he just smiled all the time. It was a couple of weeks later that I got a call from one of those in Baskin Robins, it was Aimee, she called me at work to share with me that this guy was really interested in me and she wanted to know if we’d all go out to eat, bowling or something… I was flabbergasted!  I said sure but we got off the phone without scheduling anything. Their daughter, Laney, went to the school inside of my work… she was always at my door talking to me. I didn’t put any effort in getting anything scheduled. I had asked the Lord to guard my heart… and I felt as though he would guide me to the guy he had waiting for me. I never dated and I knew that I was only going to start a relationship as friends. I just don’t know how a relationship could work without the foundation of a friendship. October rolled around which brought Judgement House, a play at church. I was formally introduced to that guy, Ricky, during Judgement House. He was working security. I spent that week walking around the church and conveniently running into him several times during each night. The week after Judgement House Laney stood in my door way of my office and asked, “Are we going to go bowling or what?!” I hesitantly agreed and that Friday night we went bowling. Our first date consisted of awkward laughs because neither of us could bowl. I remember sitting on the ledge of where you step down to the lanes because I was too nervous to set next to him on the seats. He came over and set next to me on the ledge. 

The first time Ricky took me home I boldly told him my intentions. I was only looking for a friend. Once the foundation of friendship was laid we would pray about where God would have us to go. I laugh now at how I missed how plainly God placed Ricky in front of me and I made all the rules as to not mess up what God would want… or what God had already given me. Ricky, the gentleman that he was, kindly gave me the space to realize what he already knew. We spent just about every Sunday, Wednesday, Friday and sometimes Saturday nights together double dating with Aimee and Pat. The only way we didn’t eat ourselves into being overweight was all the exercise we got from the consistent attempts at bowling… all we did for several months was bowl and eat… eat and bowl.

Our friendship was built on quality time together. We talked about everything. We had a mutual understanding to learn everything we possibly could about each other. It was November when Laney stepped outside of the door at school and called Ricky on my phone. She surprisingly asked him if he was my boyfriend… he said, “Check yes… twice…” she asked if I was his girlfriend and I replied with “Check yes with a heart.” We were officially official thanks to Laney!  

One night we were sitting at Hibachi’s eating dinner, Ricky was to my right and Laney and her friend Joli were sitting on my left. Ricky leaned over to tell them a joke of some sort… I realized at that moment how I was truly in love with him. Our first solo date was lunch together and on our second solo date we sat drinking hot chocolates at Starbucks… When he took me home my mom asked me how everything went my reply to her was “If he had asked me to marry him tonight, I would have said yes.”

St. Patrick’s Day was the first time I met Ricky’s mom, dad, sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces and nephews. We all had dinner and afterwards Ricky and I went for a walk in the park. We reached the wooden bridge where he awkwardly made reference to the way ducks eat as we watched some swim below. He stepped back and asked if he could hug me… for the first time. We had done it! We had completed the laying of our friendship foundation. We were ready for a relationship built on love and the Word of God. I spent the summer of 2006 with Ricky and his family swimming and at all the family get-togethers.

Ricky showed me the greatness of how deep and wide family and their value is. He loved his family so much. He told me that his dad once said if he is sitting in the back seat and his mom was in the front seat of a car that he missed her. I knew from that simple statement that if we could be anything like they were we’d make it in this world. He and I both had great examples of what marriage should and could be in our own family. We were in love… we spent the next 2 years learning about what made each other tick, our beliefs about God, families, dreams and goals. 

In the middle of December of 2008 Ricky and I had gone for a walk in the park again… to “our” wooden bridge. It was rainy and cold… I was sort of under the weather that day. The way to the park Ricky had been talking about taking a trip to the mountains. He thought it would be romantic to ask my hand in marriage there. All I could think about is why the heck would we go to the mountains! I thought he would take me somewhere that meant something to us… I just smiled and didn’t say anything to him. We had reached the bridge. He began the conversation about our first hug on that bridge on St. Patrick’s Day. He was quizzing me to see how much I could remember about that day. I brought up the conversation about the way the ducks eat and how we should all be on a duck diet… cause you never see an overweight duck… He stood next to me and I placed my hand in front of him pushing him back and gesturing how he stepped back and asked for a hug. I then told him that I turned around, which I did… but when I turned around I thought to myself that’s not how you did it… this time he was down on his knee with that same grin as the first time I saw him at Baskin Robins. “Amanda, will you marry me?” - “YES!” We hugged again that day… it was obviously different we weren’t shifting from friendship to relationship… we were shifting from relationship to a life long agreement to love and to cherish each other. 

Cancer did not take her... the Lord took her...

I love life. There… I feel better just getting that out. I don’t feel like I’ve been “dealt a bad hand” but instead life is just hard sometimes. I also want to make clear that this blog is in no way, shape or form a “pity party”… I only want to share my true heart and there’s gonna be a bunch of honesty left on this page because I believe there’s healing in the truth. I don’t wish or hope my trials on anyone… everyone runs their own race and has their own ups and downs, I’m just trying to explain my heart a little so that if there is someone out there that could learn or grow from what I’ve learned or how I’ve grown then I know I’ve done what God has called us to do. Love.

My heart feels bear… naked if you will. I’m not talking about my physical heart although I can physically feel my nonphysical heart more then my physical one. My rib cage has been pried opened and I’m super cautious cause it feels as though anyone or anything can reach in and mess with it. I’m about to share what has been and is my journey. There are times where I’ll be very simple in the details of days that I’ve left behind but I’m sure that once I get into this I’ll be going back to certain days to explain in depth the details of each event. I’ll let you know when I’m in rewind mode to cut down on the confusion.

In 13 months I lost the most important people in my life. My mother, who chose to let go and move to Heaven and my husband, who went to Heaven without letting us know he was leaving.

My life has been shattered and I’m praying the Lord helps me find some of the pieces so I can finish my journey until I move to Heaven. My mom shared with me many times about the way her mom, Granny Grace, died. Mom was changing a light bulb for her in the living room of her home. Granny walked passed her on the ladder and just fell completely backwards and was gone. I remember my mom telling me about the last breath she took. She knew she died before she hit the floor because she sighed a great sigh, letting everything that was within her go. That stuck with me… I never understood the depth of what that great sigh really meant until February 7th, 2010. The day that we all stood around my mom’s bed at the Hospice House watching her last breath, it was a great sigh. Her life was finally over. Though she only lived for 63 years Heaven was more real then her earthly life and she was so excited to move there and begin that new life the Lord had waiting for her. Five years earlier in April, my mom went to the emergency room where she got the report of cancer… ovarian cancer. She had surgery and began chemo immediately after. She knew from the start that she would fight. That she would kick ovarian cancer in the… well… she was going to beat it. She did. She was so close to death when she had her debulking surgery that we weren’t sure if we’d even see her alive after the surgery. I remember sitting and waiting… and waiting… and waiting… finally the doctor came to tell us the news… there was cancer everywhere but he felt confident that he got the majority and had faith that chemo would take care of what was left. I can vividly remember riding in the elevator with her. I stood next to her bed she was barely awake… at the time it was the scariest moment of my life. My mom was everything to our family and I simply couldn’t imagine her not being here with us. I did the whole prayer to God… “I’ll take care of my mom if you let her live… please let her live Lord.” He did. She lived and I did take care of her. My mom was the mom that held a wet washcloth on our forehead while we vomited up crackers and 7up that she gave us to keep her sick babies hydrated as the bugs and flus journeyed their way through our bodies. She’d roll the TV into the room, took us to the doctor appointments, checked our temperature and changed our sheets while we took baths. She was all over it. She was mom. I can remember the first time that I felt like the mom in our relationship. She was ill from the side effects of chemo… I was standing at the stove fixing her chicken noodle soup and straining the broth because it’s all she could stomach. I knew then that I was going to be the physical mom in our relationship… no one could take her spiritual mom-ness away even in her sickest moments she was still the one you went to for advice. She still knew if something was bothering you even if you tried to hide it and she still covered each of us in prayer and always kissed us goodnight. She still was my momma even though I took on the roll of taking care of her. She had ups and downs… she was healthy for a few months then sick again for another few months. This went on for the 5 years. She continued chemo treatments and still fought it everyday.

My mom told us that incase she passed away that she wanted it to be made known that CANCER DID NOT TAKE HER LIFE! THE LORD CAME AND GOT HER AND THAT’S WHY SHE’S IN HEAVEN. Is that clear? Good. She would never give cancer any glory nor say that she made it to Heaven because of cancer… it may have worn her body down but that is not what she died from. One month before my mom passed away she asked each of us individually to stop praying for healing… she knew that her ultimate healing was now in Heaven and that is where she wanted to go to be with the Lord. I did not handle this well. As soon as I left her front porch I begin the great fight between my heart, the Lord and me. How could this have happened… how could we just give up now after 5 years of fighting!? I was not going to have this… It took every second of the 25-minute ride home to get calm enough to walk into our house and share the news with Ricky. I screamed, yelled, pointed my finger and said many things I shouldn’t have at God until my throat was soar and crackled when I spoke. It took a couple of days for me to stop praying harder then I ever did and mind what my mother asked of me. To this day the Lord is still working on that part of my heart… the famous how to let go and let God moment. Trust me, you’ll run into that if you haven’t already.

Two weeks before my mom passed away Ricky and I were visiting her. We had moved her bed into the living room so she didn’t have to climb the stairs anymore. Ricky told my mom that tomorrow I was coming to spend the night with her. Ricky and I had only been married a few months… I looked over at him surprised and I said… “I am? I am.” That Sunday night I packed one change of clothes and my toothbrush and made my way to mom’s house. I stayed awake right by her side for the next 13 nights with her until she got her ultimate healing… she danced her way straight into the arms of the Lord. I believe now that Ricky knew it was close… closer then I thought it was and he was so beyond patient with me. It wasn’t easy to be away from him for two weeks in our brand new marriage but as I stood by my mom’s side, he stood by mine.

Later I’ll get into the details of how gracefully my mother helped us grieve the loss of her before she was even gone and how we experienced her entrance to Heaven and soon I’ll share our love story, the great sadness of losing Ricky and I’ll open my heart to where I am today.