Friday, May 18, 2018

What Five Years Without Brandon Looks Like


Until you've left the church that you raised your children in, with one of them in an urn, you can't fathom what life is like for those left behind.  Where most people have all these great expectations of what is yet to come, and hope for what they've yet to see, time for me has frozen in many ways and I feel a profound sense that I have already missed those things, that they're gone and I didn't realize they were happening.  That's not to say I have no hope or joy because I do, my true hope lies not in my current circumstances or what is on this earth, thank you Jesus, because in that I would truly be without hope, but all of the greatness on this earth is now tinged with some sadness for the one not here to share it with me.  Here in spirit only is simply not the same. 

People move on and expect you to do the same, "friends" don't want to keep rehashing your pain, or they're tempted to think you're playing a victim or it just plain makes them sad and, like me, they're fixers and they want to fix what you're going rhough and they think that not talking about it will fix it.  Ask the older generations how shoving things under the carpet worked out.  Please, if you're tempted to miniimalize another mama's loss of a child, stop yourself.  It is THE single most traumatic thing that can happen to her in her lifetime.  Her child is gone, she's trying to be the best mom she can to the child/ren she still has, other children make her cry, she doesn't even know how to answer the question of how many children she has and how old they are.  Forever.  That question will catch in her throat forever.  So, please just understand that this is a thicket that has burrs that scratch us up forever.  We will make it through, but the emotions ebb and flow.  

I'm currently having a tough time with babies.  I can't see them.  If they come on tv, I change the channel.  They represent the one thing I cannot forgive myself for right now-squandering time.  But, in a month, I may want to hold babies all the time.  It's something I'm working through.  We work through lots of things.  I went to the store today and stood in front of the avocados and stared until I had to wipe the tears from my eyes.  Then, I went to the pharmacy counter and listened to the pharmacist laughing with some grandpa about his grankids, which almost made me walk off.  These are things people do without thinking every single day, but for me they reminded me of when I went to the store right after Brandon died and had a complete breakdown.  Every single thing is different.  Not every moment, but life has those moments.  

I still dream about Brandon a lot.  Sometimes, like this morning, I wake up and realized, hey, I saw Brandon, and it was just kind of brief, just a fleeting thing, and I wasn't crying, it didn't linger.  That doesn't happen often, it's rare, but it does happen.  Three days ago, though, I woke myself up crying.  I don't remember the dream now, but I remember the pain and I remember knowing it was a dream as I was waking, but the pain was so intense I couldn't stop sobbing in my sleep-wake state.  I often have dreams where it begins one way, it might not involve Brandon, and then there he is, and I will end up sobbing, saying over and over, "I can't do this, I can't do this," talking about how I can't live without him, and I will wake myself up sobbing, saying that.  It sets the tone for the entire day to wake up to that kind of pain.  

But, I also wake up and realize that, yes, I have done this.  It has not been easy, but I have done it.  I have my girl, I have my faith, I have many people who've carried me, and, if you know me even a little, you know my sense of humor is intact.  I actually think death has made me funnier, somehow!  Maybe it's just age, do people get funnier with age?  I know, you're probably thinking it's just bitterness and I think bitterness can be funny, when it really isn't, but I'm pretty funny.  Well, I like to laugh, anyway, so there's that, regardless.  

I'll close with this.  I will never, EVER forget the phone call that forever changed my life.  I will never be who I was prior to a medical examiner calling me.  I don't know that I'll ever get over that whole tragic scene, it was so awful, the memory is still so, so SO horrific for me-and I had great people all around me, helping me!  You know when you have a headache and you throw your hands up to your head, fingers squeezed against your head, jaws clenched, thisclose to pulling your hair out, hands over your ears, maybe your eyes squeezed tightly shut against the world?  That's how it makes me feel, and inside my head I'm screaming, no, no, no, nonstop.  BUT.....every yeart I am reminded of this on Facbook..... This popped up on my wall on the wrong day for 'recent posts' and thought I'd pass it along...You don't know what beautiful and great things God can do with your broken heart, your broken pieces, your upside down world, your bad decisions, life's injustices until you give it all to Him

I am in awe every single year that this quote "happened" when it did.  I posted that a little over 12 hours before I was to find out that Brandon was gone and I have needed it on this day every single year since.  I know who God is, I have known him since I was very, very young, but magnificence is so beyond our imagination, the depth of his love so great, his strength so might, we need to be reminded that he is the one who holds all these broken pieces.  My life may be filled with great sadness, but were it not for him there would certainly be no joy.  



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