It is incredible how the mind defaults into a self-defense posture one minute, only to fail me the next. The reality of grief is always there, lurking, but the full realization, while it may have reached my head, has not settled in the depths of my heart.
It has been said that is the longest distance, head to heart, and I know it to be right, on this dirt road that many are asked to walk in this life. No mileage signs signal an end, only hazard ahead around each bend.
Grief is a ruthless friend, but one that every loss must respect. He allows me to forget momentarily, then quickly be disheartened by the raw reality that is waiting on the other side of remembrance.
Countless times I reach for my phone to call her. There are so many things I want her to know. I want her to share my highs and lows and all the spaces in between; after all, that is the way a mama’s love goes. They say time heals all wounds, but I do not believe that is true. Some aches seem I will never be able to bid adieu. And if I am honest, never would I want to.
My mind is deceiving me, as it is prone to do. Feelings charade as facts, leaving me vacillating between pain and perseverance. The later must win in the end, but right now the two of them are stumbling hand in hand. To laugh, to live to carry on is to betray the loss, my disloyal thoughts deceptively whisper. On a head level, I know that is fraudulent and untrue. Maybe if I remind myself enough times, my heart will catch up too. For now, I am grappling for the grace to journey straight through the thick and heavy dew.
People are so kind and well-intended; they say do this, or that, believe this or that, and these things you must do. The problem is there is no universal recipe for the profound loss that accompanies the days I must filter through.
And my faith, it feels weak, that is undoubtedly true, but it is not up to me, for it was a gift secured by a Savior in which I had nothing to do. So I struggle, limping and tracked by the tears, as I walk the best I can, crying out and fighting to trust the only Man who will see me through. I thank Him, then question Him. I wrestle with Him and rest in Him, as all wounded warriors do. I am a paradox of emotions, The Psalms living and breathing as they once were for the writers overcome by grief so blue.
Trauma, the place I am traveling through, someday to be ousted by thankfulness-a destination I sometimes see but am not yet fully submitted to; for it is a harbor I am fighting my way towards when the anointed time is due.