grief

Strong and Silent

/ Laurie / Leave a comment

Nearly three weeks ago, I received an early morning text from my younger brother. Which is a bit out of the ordinary, because we don’t talk a bunch. He said he wanted me to know he had been up early reading, my sister-in-law had directed him here, to my blog and he had read it all. He told me “the good Lord made you a talented writer and you need to tell your story” He also told me he loved me, but those words, the latter of his sentence, brought tears to my eyes. They were words that I thought, wouldn’t have believed he would ever say. I simply could have NEVER have imagined him saying, and I was indeed overwhelmed.

You see, I love my little brother, who is not so little any more, very much. We were very close growing up and he was always much more of an “older” brother in the way he acted, he was very protective and when we were both in trouble, he always had my back. We drifted apart when our parents divorced the summer I turned 14. I stayed with mom and he lived with dad, but I’m getting ahead of myself… let’s get back to why my hearing my brother telling me I should share my story moved me to tears.

Well, because my story, my TRUTH, which is also our story, is a hard story to tell, an even harder pill to swallow. Which I suppose is why I have continued to sit in the silence and this unbearable holding pattern, waiting for something, SOMEONE to give me the signal to move on; to move forward, outside the dark and quiet void. So for years I have waited in the void, rehashing old demons, creating and battling new ones; shedding armor only to put on more. All the while, quietly waiting to tell my story, to be given the opportunity to speak my truth.

The summer I was 12, was the summer my story began; or at least my most vivid memories. There was a day, that there had been an incident, and I was on the stairs crying. My brother came in and found me, he was 10 and being a pest and wouldn’t let up until I told him why I had been crying. He didn’t believe nothing and whatever else I must have told him, so I told him the truth… he freaked out, called me a liar and ran to his room. He took a nap and he forgot it all, because he never sad a word. So I decided right then and there to never say another word, if my own brother didn’t believe me, why would anyone?

So that Monday morning, in one quiet gesture, in a loving text, my brother gave me the nod to move forward – forward in the final phase of healing from the trauma I endured so many decades ago. Its like I have finally been given the permission to get up of the stairs in that old farmhouse where it all started. As if I have been sitting there ALL these years and now I am finally FREE! No more softly weeping, unable to move, afraid to do so; because if I did; the walls would come tumbling down around me.

Today, I am good, truly, my wounds are healed. I’ve been thru therapy, twice; and after 20 years of self medicating with alcohol and drugs, and basically marrying my father three different times; I found recovery, including out-patient treatment and started seeing myself differently and moving forward there were much fewer self inflicted wounds. Its been another 20 plus years, living life sober and today I know make better choices and I am living a life I am much prouder of. I still have struggles, that comes with life. But today, I know much better ways to deal with them.

As previous posts have revealed, the last two years proved especially difficult as I experienced more loss and grief than I could have imagined, and I did get caught up in the void, the isolation of that staircase, sitting there, alone and crying and just lost in the sadness. I used to pray on that staircase, and to my naïve and traumatized young self, I simply thought that God either didn’t hear me, or worse… didn’t care. Today, I know better, with FAITH, even in my sadness and sitting on those stairs again, I prayed, asking God to help me through.

So while there can be strength in silence, I am here to say, I have been silent for far too long. And if my not so “little” strong and silent brother can give this tortured writer the gentle and encouraging nod that I have been waiting for… if as I standup and start to walk away, I can hear the quiet rumble and feel the trembling around me, as the walls do come crumbling down. When the dust settles, I turn to see that the stairs are all that remains. Someone still sits there and I take a step back, raise my hand to shield my eyes and I see that it is 12yo me. She lifts her hand to wave and she smiles, and then she walks away, a skip in her step, nothing to fear.

I turn to do the same, maybe not skip (my 58 yo back and knees would not agree) but walk, away from the wreckage of my past, trudging along on a beautiful new path, that is filled with it’s own uncertainties, but today I am more than strong enough to do what needs to be done, including shatter the silence and stand strong.

How We Can Heal in the Silence

/ Laurie / Leave a comment

Hello again, I could start by apologizing for my lengthy absence, and its not that I am not sorry, because I am. I wanted to write and I did do some private journaling, its just that the darkness and loss continued to be so overwhelming; that sharing my voice simply wasn’t possible until now. And then I was finally navigating the numerous losses from December 2023 to May 2024, once again God took home two more angels, and my heart fell back into the ache that far too many people know and understand. That familiar darkness washed over me, inviting me in again, and I obliged.

What happened next was the unexpected fellowship I found amongst 12 veritable strangers. We met in a room at the church, each Wednesday night, for 3 months, 13 weeks if we’re counting specifically. And I do want to count each and every week, because it was on those Wednesday evenings, even on the nights when I couldn’t go… (my final loss came shortly after the Greif Share class began, when my Stepfather passed) that I found a new sort of solace that I had not yet found. Even with therapy and time that had passed preceding walking into that room on the first night.

Amongst The group was the husband and daughter of my dear friend who we all lost over a year ago, it was so wonderful, to share in such an intimate way with them; to be able to let my friend’s daughter know how much her mom loved being a grandmother. We both were new to having grandchildren and loved sharing our newest photos with one another. The couple who just recently lost their son, I only knew their faces because they set in front of me during our church service. The beautiful words he wrote at the end of his life and they so graciously shared with us. The love and grace and heart that was poured into this young man, by them and God, was such a comfort for us all. The two strong widows, women my own mom’s age, newly placed in this “new” role… it was with their quiet grace and the sharing of all the “firsts” that I was able to know where my own mother might be, since I don’t live close. It has been through the unfortunate loss of my stepdad, that my mom and I are closer that we have been in years, maybe even ever. I try to text her daily and call her once a week to talk to her, and that is a big change to where we used to be. A healing for us, as we heal from losing him.

There are the others in the group, and as a whole, every week, there was always something big that was experienced by one of us; some turning point, letting go, moving forward, that we could share and be vulnerable with one another and share where we were in the moment. But it was the ones I mentioned above, that I will forever feel connected to, thankful for and they helped through this part of my healing journey. I am forever grateful for the prayer warriors I know every single one of them are, as I continue to pray for them all, now that are sessions are complete. God created something special with our group, and I will forever hold them all in my heart.

Healing is indeed a process and we must go to Him, in all our uncertainty, all our failures, with all our short-comings and ask for His assistance, His forgiveness. Yet, if you are anything like me and you get caught up in the defects and short-comings; our sins, you may not feel worthy of forgiveness. And if we feel that way, we need to stop, immediately! Because that is the enemy telling his lies and we need to not listen and better yet, we need to tell him to shut up!!

But I get it, I used to live there, in that Valley of Unworthiness; the land of This is My Fault. So I just set there in silence, dealing with my consequences, instead of trying to learn a better way. Instead of asking, “God please help me” I had prayed so many times as a young girl, and He didn’t respond, so I finally gave up. If He didn’t help me then??? Why would He help me now? That’s when I began to learn a lot more about His will and timing.

This morning I read the following two statements about God’s love for us:

“Looking through the eyes of love, He already see us as we will be when His work is done.”

“The removal of our defects/sins (leaving holiness) is God’s will for each of us”

When we learn to understand this, believe this, we can be certain He will guide us, assist us, heal us, in His time, if we are asking and looking to Him for His direction.

What I learned in this extended silence, is that it isn’t empty… it’s full of answers.

Listen for yours, in your own quiet space.

The Silence That Nearly Killed Me

/ Laurie / Leave a comment

Each fall, each late September, early October, as the beautiful golden colors erupt; reds, yellows, oranges, golds – crisp, bright, bold. These colors are instead eclipsed by an overwhelming darkness. An immense and heavy void that weighs me down–pinning me back in time to moments that won’t set me free.

My heart would ache, physically ache, to the point that I literally thought that I might die, at the time… I wanted to. So each fall, for those few short weeks, I would trudge through the void, live in the darkness, at one with the silence. Until, it was silent no more. The fallen leaves would have lost their brilliance, now simply dull and brown. Crunching under foot, as I would walk along, the darkness fading to grey, the skies are themselves once again.

Through the recent completion of grief counseling, and understanding my loss, something I had never addressed; I brought a lot of things to the surface, without even realizing it. In doing so, I left myself open for easier access to old memories and having said memories trigger old feelings.

Within a brief period of time, the same incident happened twice, but it was the second incident that had me traveling back in hyper-speed fashion to an event nearly 27 years ago… My three oldest children were 3, 2 and the youngest just a few months old. There was a knock at the door-

What would happen next is all such a blur, but if I close my eyes I can see it in my mind, watching it replay like a silent movie. I would tell my two older children that we were playing a game, a “game” that consisted of seeing how quickly we could put all our necessary belongings into large hefty trash bags (we had no boxes) and put them outside before we go to Grandma and Papa’s house. We would play this “game” while the Fulton County Police looked on, so I had them go outside and put the baby in the swing and started packing.

I decided my little game excluded anything that belonged to my husband and tossed all his belongings into a spare room as I proceeded along, mumbling and cursing under my breath. I was so angry and embarrassed. One of the officers approached me, trying to say I could not leave the belongings I was throwing into the separate room, our friend who had arrived with him and his partner intervened, I heard him say he would take care of it. I simply looked at the officer and said something about “he didn’t care enough to make sure he paid our bills, I don’t give a shit out his stuff” and he nodded and backed away.

I don’t know how long it took, how quickly it takes one person, a mad (literally crazy and angry) woman to throw clothes and dishes and pictures and the things that within five mins you deem important into trash bags, but I got it done. The officers there, nor my friend, were not allowed to help me. I got all the kids favorite toys into the toy box, which they did carry outside for me. And when I said I was done, they barred the door shut and drove away. My friend loaded up the back of his truck with all our things and took the kids and I to my in-laws, my husband was still at this moment in time, MIA.

Once at my in-laws, we had a very frank conversation, “this is what he does” they said to me. They also told me when I had “had enough” they would help me get home. Home was Nebraska, and I know they were saying this because they would be leaving soon themselves, as they were preparing to move to Florida and my support system would be gone if something like this happened again. I merely smiled at them, stuck in denial and so blindly in love with their son. I told them I wanted to give him another chance. I would confront him about all this, his using, make him get help, but I wasn’t ready to give up on him. They said, OK, but I saw the worry, the disappointment in their eyes.

When my husband came home that night, to his parent’s home we did talk, he was full of regret and remorse, and full of promises to do better… he promised to get clean.

The next few weeks were pure chaos, he was gone either looking for work, working, or “at a meeting” and I really wanted to believe him, but all to often things didn’t stack up and I was just overwhelmed with the kids. His parents were often gone to Florida house hunting and their house was on the market and constantly in “stage” mode. Thank goodness they didn’t judge parents about screen time 30 years ago because my kids watched a lot of movies! It is the only way we could assure we kept grandma and papa’s house clean.

One of the last weekends at the very end, his parents were gone again, he was out working, this time supposedly on the house we would be living in when his folks moved. His new job included a house if he did some work on it before we moved in. So he was working on our house and I thought it would be nice to have a romantic dinner before his folks got back. I put the kids to bed early that night, and I as I sat there waiting for him, our dinner getting cold, my mind wandered back to just a few weeks before.

In all the weeks, even before the evection, since the baby had been born, I had felt so distant from him; this man whom I knew from the depths of my soul was indeed the love of my life, my soul mate, the one person who had seen the most broken pieces of me and didn’t care… who in fact had fixed so many of those broken pieces, but now, now he was breaking me in new places and I didn’t understand why? One evening we set there in our dimly lit living room, “borrowing” electricity from the neighbor’s outside outlet and he lit up his little pipe in front of me as he set there drinking another beer. By this time, he had stopped hiding it from me, and in that moment, all I wanted was to join him. To crack open a beer of my own and take a drag, or two, or three… but then something happened, the spell was broken, it was no longer silent. My youngest child, my sweet baby girl was crying from her bassinet, and I know God intervened, reminding me I had a baby to feed and care for and on that night I didn’t drink or use.

Instead I fed my child and was silently angry, quietly resentful to the man who sat across the room from me, oblivious to our presence. Why did I have to be the responsible one? Why did I have to be the one to do all the right things and he go to do whatever he wanted? Did he even care about what happened to us?

I would wake later that night, just after midnight, my fire nothing but embers, fueled with new anger by my memory/dream. I looked in the driveway, to see it empty, no surprise, and simply went to bed.

The next morning, my sleeping husband would be lying next to me. I would get up, check on the kids and walk the dog. My husband was supposed to bring home some boxes for me to be able to pack up our few belongings, as his parents were moving in less than two weeks. I walked around the car, we had one of those old long panel station wagons. When I got to the end, I saw the rear window rolled all the way down and the back was empty, I sighed, because I knew what was next- some sort of story, a lie.

I went back to the house, woke the kids, fed them breakfast, and then sent them outside to play, putting the baby in the swing and then and went upstairs to wake their father. I kicked the end of the bed and yelled at him asking where were the boxes. When he didn’t respond, I hit his legs and asked louder, where are the boxes, cursing and using his name. He sat up mumbling and rubbing his eyes and said they were in the car. When I said they were not, mentioning I had been out with the dog. He then started to tell me about how many he had gotten and a couple we bigger and he had to put the rear window down so he could get them all to fit, and maybe some of the fell out. By this time I think I threw an extra pillow or something at him because I am so angry at him… why was he lying to me?

He just sat there staring at me, I was crying, I told him I was scared because his parents were leaving and I was worried where we would be living in two weeks and sometimes I even wondered if there really was a house. When I said that, his face changed and his eyes dropped away from mine. When he looked back up there where tears of his own and he was mumbling, but he said that there wasn’t a house, yet… but there might be. But we could rent a hotel room for a few weeks while he figures it out, while he keeps looking.

I LOST IT!!! I asked him if he really expected me to live in a hotel room with three little children all day long for even a week, let alone week to week… until he figured it out???

I told him I needed to check on the kids and suggested he go to a meeting, to talk to someone about his priorities. Before he left the house that morning, he must have said he was sorry at least a dozen times and told me that he loved me and the kids a dozen more. I know, I love you too, I told him, which I did, but the truth was I needed him to leave so I could call his parents – I had finally had enough.

So this extended entry has been cathartic as I uncovered one extremely concealed resentment, one so gracefully disguised for the past quarter century. There is a saying that if you tell a lie long enough (especially to yourself) you will begin to believe it. That is exactly what happened to me with my ex-husband, the father of my oldest three children. He was the love of my life, my soulmate, my best friend. I was so worried about my children having a negative memory in their minds when it came to their absent father, so I created this picture-perfect image. Always, saying “He was a good father, a good husband, a good man, the disease took him away from us.” Over and over and over, when people asked, that was my only response… rote, robotic, and in doing so, I forgot how it really was. I forgot how broken and ugly it was, how angry I was in the end.

The truth is our sweet little family was no longer sweet and life as I knew it had been shattered. That life would/will never be the same and it is time I put those memories away. The man I once loved more than anything, will always have a place in my heart, he gave me my children. But by getting stuck each fall, by living in that void, in that dark silent place; I was keeping myself from the beauty of the true sunlight of the spirit and all the beautiful songs that can be heard when we allow ourselves to be still and listen.