The merry month of May...

Grief is a curious thing.

There seems no particular rhyme or reason

to its appearance at any given moment.

What makes it manifest itself and wreak havoc

on your emotions?

It is completely unpredictable.

 

It may predictably show up on special dates.

    Or it may not.

It may predictably show up for special events.

    Or it may not.

It more likely jumps at you from behind a completely ordinary moment.

 

And how it manifests itself is just as big a mystery.

Maybe it will make you cry.

    Or maybe not.

Maybe it will make you want to eat everything in sight.

    Or it might make you unable to swallow a bite.

 Maybe it will make you sleep a lot.

    Or maybe you will not be able to sleep at all.

You could have dreams.

    Or nightmares.

And it could manifest itself in completely unpredictable ways.

 

For example, earlier this week,

our daughter had a "blindside" grief moment

when her daughter, who really doesn't remember her papa,

flew a plane for the first time.

Her daddy should have been there

and our daughter caught herself 

looking around to see where he was.

The intensity of her grief was overwhelming.

 

For me, the month of May is filled with reminders of losses:

    my first mother-in-love died on May first - just over three months after my Al;

        my grandmother passed away on May 14th;

            my first father-in-love on May 16th;

                my son was still-born on May 17th.

And May 25th, the day my beloved was diagnosed with cancer,

    the 26th the day we knew it was terminal in the short term.

There are others, but these are the major days

where the sense of loss builds in intensity culminating in today.

 

And, for me, May means fear.

I am fearful my children will die.

    One of them is traveling out of the country right now...oy vay!

I am fearful my grandchildren will fall ill.

I am fearful my siblings will be diagnosed with a dread disease.

And, since my remarriage,

    I spend a lot of time listening to my husband's heart beat.

I become clingy and possessive, 

    not wanting him out of my sight for even a moment.

It's not much fun.

 

I spend a lot of time in prayer and in God's Word

    during the month of May,

        more than usual.

I beg and plead;

    I promise and bargain;

         and I do a lot of releasing and "not my will but Thine"-ing.

This year has been worse with my Lanny Love.

For no good reason,

    other than grief is, quite simply,

        its own creature with its own ways. 

Strangely, while I still feel the weight of that hard "D-day" in May

    thirteen years later,

        I did not feel sorrow this year.

I miss him, my Al!

I spent a while at the cemetery yesterday 

    where his only earthly presence 

        now lies in anticipation of the coming resurrection.

 But I did not feel sorrow as I sat with him,

    only gratitude for the days we had.

Still, it was a day when my emotions were close to the surface

    and I cried easily.

 

This year, my sorrow was for what has not yet happened.

This year, my sorrow was for the loss of people not yet gone.

I laid in bed next to my beloved Lanny last night

    and wept after he had fallen asleep,

        prayed for his continued good health, sharp mind, and Godly spirit,

and for my own trust in the God who controls all things.

 

This morning I was reading a passage of Scripture in I Samuel

    and was reminded again that, ultimately,

        God is in control! 

Nothing comes to us that has not first passed by Him!

And as I read 1 Thessalonians 4,

    as I often do on these days,

        I was reminded again that 

"...we do not grieve like people who have no hope..."

But we do grieve.

There is a hole left in our earthly lives when someone dies,

    that can never be filled this side of eternity.

That spot is simply empty for the rest of our days.

And it hurts,

    sometimes a whole-big-whopping-lot.

That same chapter in 1 Thessalonians also says

"God Himself has taught you to love one another."

Love is of God, commanded by Him,

    and it survives the grave! (Song of Songs 8)

And where love is present

    and the person is absent,

        there is a hole

            that fills with grief in that person's absence.

 

But it should NOT fill with fear!!!

That is my struggle this year in the merry month of May.

I'll be glad when May is done..........