A Letter to Me

This morning as I was walking a specific song rolled though my head.  I don't know who sings it, I think Brad Paisley. The chorus is, "if I could write a letter to me".  Which made me think of a few blog posts I've seen lately where people post things they would say to their 20 or 30 year old self.  Which made me wonder about this very thing.  If I could write a letter to my 30 something self (actually 33), what would I say.  Many of these letters I've read on blogs say things like: live in the moment, don't sweat the small stuff, don't put too much emphasis on how you look, surround yourself with the people you love etc.  And while, I agree with every one of these and in a normal year these words and ideas would seem inspirational and motivating for me.  This year they just don't seem to say enough.  No, this year if I were to write a letter to myself my ideas would be more specific and certainly would include the people I love.  So, I thought I would give it a try today.  Here is the letter to my 33 year old self.

Crystal,
This year you will loose your mother.  It will not be cancer or any other disease that takes her.  You will not have to watch her suffer a slow and painful death but rather she will be taken in a matter of minutes in a car accident.  She will be here today and gone tomorrow.  You will speak to her on the day of her death.  It will be approximately 2 hours before the crash.  She will joke around with you so you will be left with her sense of humor and you will end the conversation with a "Good-bye" and an "I love you."  You will be so thankful for that last conversation and the words spoken.  Simple words with powerful meaning. 

Your husband will weep alongside you for he loved her as much as you did.  But he will hold your hand and be as a strong oak for you to lean on.  You will feel pain like never before and you will be so grateful for his long arms when he wraps them around you  at the cemetery and holds you tight as the two of you cry together.  You could have never expected or predicted it to happen but the love between the two of you will deepen 10 years in a few short days.  Remember that in future trials and hardships.

You will be devastated that your children lost their grandmother but they will take it so well.  You and your husband will take them for a short ride in the pasture and there you will tell them that ShaSha has gone to heaven.  Your boy will tell you that he already knew that and with childlike innocence and faith they will understand.  It will amaze you that they have such complete peace about the fact that their grandmother is now in heaven and you will long to have that same peace.  It will warm your heart and make you smile when weeks and months later your girl says, "I am so glad I have this picture so I can always remember ShaSha."  And when your boy looks at a picture of him and ShaSha and gets a twinkle in his eye and big smile across his face.  He is certainly a boy of few words but his face can tell a novel. 

You will be taken care of by so many.  Sweet friends will bring food, cards and flowers.  People will call and come from out of state to love on you and say goodbye to your mother, and for that you will be thankful.  You will realize just how many people she touched in her 54 years and you will love the stories they share. 

Your wonderful childhood friend Dedra will come without being asked with a car full of groceries and treats.  She will stay and cook and clean and care for your babes.  She will help you pick out a dress to wear and she will help you write the words to be shared at the memorial.  She will stay up late and will awake early.  She will do all of this with a big smile and will bring laughter and warmth to your home.  She will not leave until it is all over and you will never be able to repay her for all she has done. But, that's okay because she will not want one single thing from you because she loved your mother too.  Much like her own. 

Your daddy who has long since been divorced from your mother will come and bring you a dryer because your dryer will go out in the midst of all of this.  He will come and with your brother they will install it and you won't have to ask.  It will just be done.  He will come and love on you like only your daddy can.  He will hug you at the back of the church once the memorial is over and whisper through tears that, "She was a good mother and that it hurts him to see us hurting like this."  And these words will stick with you forever and you will cry every time you think of them because you are a parent too and you can't imagine seeing your children hurting in this way.

You will find that all the things people say are true.  Life is too short.  This will become ever so clear to you.  Hold tight to the ones you love.  Again, very clear.  Spend time making memories together.  Yes, because those memories will be all you're left with.  Live in the moment.  Absolutely, because life can change in just a moment.  It certainly did for us. 




And then, you will write.  You will write like crazy.  You will write because you will find that with each word written you heal a little more.  Sometimes you will find the healing rather tiring and you will want to stop the crying but each time after you write and cry you will feel better.  Lighter.  More able to face the world.  You will be thankful for this outlet because holding each moment inside will make you feel like you will burst and you don't want to burst.  So you will let it out a little at a time. 

The Little Wall that Grew

. . . .otherwise known as our entry wall. . . . .

My Dive into Darkness

I snapped this pic yesterday at my mother and step-father's house.  I think it reflects both the darkness and the light.

Even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

~Psalm 139:12

The last fall we lived in Birmingham  I joined our pastor's Wednesday night bible study.  The class was doing a book study called Treasures of Darkness:  Finding God When Hope is Hidden by Tara Soughers.  I joined the class late and missed the first few chapters of the book.  I completed the study gaining much from the last few chapters and feeling glad that I had joined when I did.  A short time after that came our whirlwind move home to Texas where many things in our house were thrown in boxes and stayed in storage for six months before we found our new home.  This book was one of those items carelessly thrown in a box.  I had honestly forgotten about the book and the study.  You know the rest of the story.  We moved, we lived in an RV, we bought our house, we settled into last year, my mother was killed and here we are four months later. 

Enter our God and His perfect timing.  A month or so back I found this book while cleaning out our garage and getting ready for a garage sale.  We still have a storage building full of stuff that has not yet been unpacked and our garage is just sad.  There. is. stuff. everywhere.  I am not kidding.  On a Thursday night I got the crazy idea to hold a garage sale that very weekend.  I had just had enough of the junk.  As I picked up the book I immediately remembered the study, it's emphasis on treasures in darkness and knew that God had saved this very book for me for this time of darkness in my life.  I love when He does stuff like this.  Little things, you know that show you He's still in control.  My friend Suzanne used to say to me, "He's got this!"  She's so right. 

I began rereading this book.  I had actually never read the first few chapters that I had missed since I joined the study late.  

I wanted to share a small piece from the chapter I read today.

If God is in the darkness, then it may be that our avoidance of darkness is a way of avoiding God, or at least of avoiding a deepening of our relationship with God.  Staying in the light may seem to be safer, but I have never found staying safe to be conducive to growing closer to God.  Darkness, on the other hand, requires me to rely not upon my own resources for safety but upon God.  More aware of my need of God in times of darkness, I am more open to God's drawing me in. 

I am finding that God is not just in my darkness, He is ALL over it!! Certainly, I would have been perfectly happy to avoid this time of darkness.  But rather than let the darkness win I will choose to  embrace (maybe too strong of a word, but I'll go with it) this time because I do desire a deepening of our relationship.  I have always been aware of my need for God.  That awareness has been magnified a 100 times over as a result of this time of grief and loss in my life.  I have tried before to be drawn into God.  I think I have even achieved this drawing in a time or two.  But, I have never felt a stronger pull, a magnetic attraction that I cannot fight (not that I want to) like I am feeling today, and have felt since my mother's accident. 

So, while I am not thankful for this dive into the darkness, for this time in unsafe territory, I am hopeful because I know that when this time is over and I resurface to the light I will be closer to my Father than I was before.  For me friends, there is no greater gift of darkness than that.   



Heart's Desire

May he give you the desire of your heart

and make all your plans succeed.

We will shout for joy when you are

 victorious and will lift up our banners in the

name of our God.

May the LORD grant all your requests.

Psalm 20: 4-5

Feeling Cheated

Forgive me today, as I wallow a bit.  Like a pig  who digs deeply into a pit of mud and soaks up every bit of mucky goodness, I will take the low road and soak in my mucky despair.  I have found the more honestly I describe my feelings the better I feel.  It is as if I was given a bag full of bricks to carry upon my mother's death.  That bag has been heavy and it has made me tired.  Every muscle aches and I long for strength again.  I have found that with each prayer or post I write a brick from that bag is removed and my muscles regain a bit of strength.  So here I go with the intent to lighten my load. 

I have heard people speak of the cheated feeling one is left with after the loss of a loved one.  I do feel cheated.  I do feel that future memories were ripped from under my nose and past memories are almost too painful to enjoy.

The night of the accident as we prepared for bed I felt the first wave of it.  My husband and I were back in that RV we had lived in for six months just a year earlier.   We had not packed a bag or brought any clothes so my step-father had given me a pair of my mother's pj's. When he handed them to me I gladly took them, ready to take off the clothing I had been wearing at the funeral home hours earlier.   My mother and I often shared or swapped clothes but as I pulled the pajama pants on that night it was as if the anger from the situation rose as the pants rose up my legs to my waist.  It struck me that a simple thing like putting on her pajamas, something I had done so many times before felt so trememdously different.  That night I knew it would be the last time I would wear her clothing.  I could just not imagine ever wearing them again without crying. And, I felt cheated because that just didn't seem fair. 

I posted yesterday about how the shock allowed me to move along without crying but I admit that that night I cried.  Hard.  The pain and weight of it all was and still is undescribable.  The focus of the tears that night were for the future we would not get to have and for some reason my children were fresh on my mind.  I cried for the future they would not get to have with their ShaSha.  My mind actually  flashed forward to random days yet to come in my children's lives with everyone they loved there but my mother. 

My mother was such a fun grandma.  She was nurturing and compassionate.  She was a strong teacher. She didn't care if the kids got her house dirty or broke something.  She knew that each day was about the trouble fun she and the kids could get into together and the memories that could be made along the way.  That night I cried because I felt my children were getting cheated out of their amazing grandmother.  I cried because I felt cheated out of the new life we had carved out as mother and daughter.  I cried because I realized that Monday morning was grandparent's day at our son's school and she had planned to be there.  I cried because anytime I needed her to help with the kids she never said no.   I cried because we had lived out of state for so long and she didn't get to help with the kids until our boy was almost 4.  I cried because we had not been given long enough together.  I cried because I knew in the morning I would pick up my phone like I did every morning and would try to call her but she would not answer. 

I cried because I felt cheated.  For me there is no better description.  She was too young to die.  I was too young to loose my mother.  My children were too young to loose their grandmother.  I. felt. cheated.

I also felt angry because I now knew that simple things in life would never be the same.  I could never again belt out the words to one of my favorite hymns, Amazing Grace.  Within a moment my mother was taken and with her went the joy in simple things, like my favorite song.  In a moment life became more painfilled than I ever imagined. 

Like that pig that eventually tires of the mucky goodness I too am ready to climb out of the mud and find the joy.  I have been trying to find the joy.  Our Lord has been good to me and He has held me like no one else can.  The night that I wore my mother's pajamas for the last time I laid down with my husband and he held me.  Hard.  Strong.  Tight.  I did not want him to let go.  I just wanted to fade into him and never come out again.  Four months later I have come to realize that while my dear husband was the earthly vessel, it was my Lord who was holding me so tightly that I could barely breath and I loved it.  I didn't want him to let go and He has not yet.  He holds me as tightly today as he did the night my mother died. 

NYE

A few pictures from this New Year's Eve shared with our Houston cousins.  What joy these kiddos had as they blasted off with lit sparklers and ran until their sparklers fizzled out.  Then they lined up to do it again. 

brothers

our boy with rocket boosters 

the aftermath  : )

The Comfort of Shock

It lasted for longer than I expected.  The shock.  I guess it actually began before I ever even knew what was happening.  I remember getting the call that night that my mother had been involved in an accident but that was all we knew.  The details were sketchy and we truly had no idea just how bad it was.  We scampered for a few minutes wondering what to do.  Go. Stay.  Call someone.  What about the kids.

 I had never heard or seen my step-father cry.  Maybe that was the start of it.  Hearing him crying and sounding so small and confused.  So, we drove the hour drive in almost complete silence.  Not knowing what we were driving to or what we would find when we got there.  I remember us trying not to scare the kids so we had insisted that everyone just sit quietly as we tried to figure things out.  Somewhere along that drive my husband took the call that confirmed that the accident had taken my mother's life.  I remember him looking at me his eyes full of tears shaking his head, no, and then dropping the phone.  That was my sign.  That was the way I learned that I had lost my mother.  My big, strong husband delivered the news.  God knew I couldn't hear it from anyone else.  I needed to hear it from the person who knows me best.  My partner.  My confidant.  My rock.

 I heard him.  But I didn't really hear him.  I remember his reaction and thinking, "why is he crying"?  "I don't believe him."  Truly, I didn't believe anything or anyone.  I had checked-out.  The lights were on but nobody was home.  Nobody that wanted to feel grief or face the reality of what had happened. I kept thinking they had gotten it wrong.  A mistake had been made.  They had mixed her up with someone else or maybe they had actually taken her to the hospital and not the funeral home because she was in bad shape but she was still alive.   But I think that is where the shock becomes such a blessing.  A comfort, really.

 In one of the books I 've been reading on grief it describes the shock-phase as a comforter.  A gift from God until we are ready to feel.  A gift from God until we can feel without totally loosing our mind.  That is exactly what it has been for me.  I didn't feel anything for so long.  I stood outside the funeral home at 10 o'clock the night of her accident while everyone else wept and I got busy making plans.  I called and delivered the news to both of my brothers.  I called to get my brother home from boot camp. I stood in the funeral home knowing that just beyond the office door laid my mother.  But I would never see her again.  I took the rings and earrings that they removed from her body.  I took her purse that was salvaged from the crash site.  I did all of this without shedding a tear.  I could not have done it if I was not being comforted by my great Lord with His gift of survival shock.

Now though comes the hard part of feeling.  Slowly feeling the pain of the grief.  Of course, just as our Lord gives shock to comfort, he also allows the shock to be pulled away slowly.  A bit at a time.  Like a wave returning to the sea.  As this wave returns I have had difficult hours, difficult days, and difficult weeks.  I have felt a bit like I am stuck in the sand, right above where that wave would land and am going nowhere.  However, I have also felt big strides of healing.  The Lord continues to give me the time, people, and places I need to heal.  Ever so slowly, heal.  I am grateful for his time and for his compassionate heart.  And for this place, this blog where I share what I have felt, am feeling and I heal.  Each time I write I heal a little bit more.