Where is God?

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.  I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid.  The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning.  I keep on swallowing.  At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed.  There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me.  I find it hard to take in what anyone says.  Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in.  It is so uninteresting.  Yet I want the others to be about me.  I dread the moments when the house is empty.  If only they would talk to one another and not to me.  There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don't really mind so much, not so very much, after all.  Love is not the whole of a man's life.  I was happy before I ever met my wife.  I've plenty of what are called 'resources.'  People get over these things.  Come, I shan't do so badly.  One is ashamed to be making out a good case.  Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this 'commonsense' vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace.  C.S. Lewis, "A Grief Observed."

It is Christmas morning.  I am currently sitting on a plane gazing out at a clear blue sky. I would imagine many are with their families today, sharing meals, opening presents, instilling traditions that will live on for years.   I on the other hand, decided this Christmas morning, to fly.   I am spending time above the clouds.  I am flying to Oregon today.  This evening I get to see my best friend Melissa Joyce.  We decided to spend this Christmas together, probably drinking good wine, lots of it:)    I will be in Oregon for the next week spending some time in the places John and I loved so much.  I get to see friends that embraced me when I needed it the most, those that put their own safety on the line to rescue John, having only known John and I for 6 months.  I am not sure how it will feel.  I feel as if I am visiting a ghost.  A past life that seems to become foggy as time passes.  How long will I be able to remember the details of Oregon with John?  I left Oregon 6 months ago with two loaded cars and John's ashes in my lap.  It was a beautiful day, yet all I remember was darkness.  I wonder if we'll have a love hate relationship, Oregon and I.  Oregon will blow your mind with it's beauty.  It is so lush and green and beautiful.  Living there with John, I'd laugh on my way to work at the scenery I got to see everyday cruising down I5, because it was that ridiculous, like something in a movie.  For months I was convinced we were just on a long vacation and surely this wasn't permanent.  I think John and I sounded like freaks the first time we kayaked the North Fork of the Smith together.  I was so blown away by the scenery I screamed a few times every time we'd paddle around a bend where I was blasted with more water falls, peak mountains and pitcher plants.  This would just make John laugh even harder.  I was a freak!   It felt as if we were in a different world.  To see the crashing waves of the Pacific ocean in the distance as we descended into the gorge of a Class IV white water river was absolutely bizarre to me.   I could not believe we had pulled it off, we finally moved out west and landed in Oregon.  So to see such beauty this week, yet know I can't share it with John anymore, that he only got to experience it for 6 months, that we had only scratched the surface.  It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.  Yet I am going, I have to go, I have to be there and see for myself.  The state motto for Oregon is "Alis volat propriis," which means "she flies with her own wings."  I am going to see if I can fly solo there without John, to see if I still love her rolling green mountains as I once did with John.  Will she embrace me as she did last December?  I hope so.  I know he would want that.

December has been productive I suppose.  I've  taken care of some things that I've been avoiding. I finally took all the finances my husband left to me and started investing it with a financial company.  I've just let everything sit for months which long term is pretty silly.  He left it for me, so as his wife, I feel it's my job to do something responsible with it and plan for my unknown future.  I finally made an appointment at a headstone place and picked out a gravestone for John with his grandmother.  This will be placed at the family cemetery in Narrows, VA next spring beside his great grand parents.   I emptied a full closet and multiple drawers in my house, and boxed up the majority of his clothes with my sister and sent gifts to our families and closest friends.  Each of them will have clothing that belonged to John.  I couldn't bare to give anything to Goodwill.  I gave our beautiful wedding photo to John's grand mother to hang in her house.  It sits above their fire place now where I get to visit it often.  I've taken down all framed photos of us in my house with the exception of one in my bedroom.  The "John Duncan Wilburn Adventure Scholarship," is almost finalized and I sent communication out to our families and friends for donations this Christmas.  So many are starting to donate which makes me proud.  I took John's car and registered it in West Virginia.  It's been sitting in my dad's garage for months.  I've even started driving it again.   I got a West Virginia driver's license and gave away my Oregon ID.  I spread more ashes in some beautiful places on the east coast.  I even got back in my kayak for the first time in months and spent an afternoon paddling in West Virginia.   Fayetteville continues to embrace me.  I started going to yoga, joined a "stitch and bitch" group (yes I am learning to stitch), got back into hip hop zumba, started playing music with some talented ladies, attended multiple poetry readings, bought a bike trainer so I could bike indoors with a group that rides twice a week, attended numerous pot lucks, an art coalition, a housewarming dance party, oh, and I hiked and mountain biked a lot this month, when the daylight allowed me.  My job keeps me on my toes, traveling throughout the Appalachians, helping many team members.    I am productive.  I get things done.  I know how to stay active, stay busy.  I've always been this way.   Yet, no activity, or check list completion seems to be filling this void.  I can exhaust myself yet feel fully alert, fully aware of what is missing.  It is like an on-going hamster wheel in my brain at times, his death spins all day and all night.  How do you fix that?

God.  I admit God and I have been in quite a wrestling match for the last 9 months.   I question him constantly.  I worry constantly.  I beg for John's presence constantly.  I try to will things into action.  Every now and then, I even yell.  I petition for a different outcome, for my previous life, my marriage, my heart..  As if I am a special circumstance and a miracle should happen on my behalf.  Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, so bring back John.  Bring back my husband, I've had enough of this non-sense.  I don't want anymore time to go by, I'd like things to rewind.  

I will be 31 in 4 days.  John and I were born 19 days apart.  John always enjoyed calling me a cougar when I was older than him for those 19 days.  Soon I will be a year older than him, 10 years older than him, 30 years older.  I will age while he is ageless and perfect.  One time in Colorado I had a severe allergic reaction to some mosquito's that was so bad both my eyes completely swelled shut.  John had beer cans smashed up against my face  to help with the swelling.  He told me later that the reason he was so frightened during this episode was because he thought to himself while trying to help me, "wow, this is what Erin is going to look like as an old lady, holy shit!"  Even in a bad moment, that man knew how to make me laugh so hard.  Now you really get to see it happen Muffin, while you remain young, vibrant, and beautiful.  Something about that just doesn't seem fair.

"Did you ever know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left?  You have stripped me even of my past, even of the things we never shared.  I was wrong to say the stump was recovering from the pain of this amputation.  I was deceived because it has so many ways to hurt me that I discover them only one by one."  C.S. Lewis

I have not been present lately the way my husband was.  I seem to be in a fog.  I have been afraid, I have been worried.   He took with him what feels like part of my heart, a leg, an arm, an eye, a lung.  I feel handicap at times. I am fighting for a past that is gone and a future that is impossible.  I continue to get pinned, yet ask for another match.  Where is God?  Where is John?  At times I believe both are being drowned out by my voice.  I spend so much time talking and petitioning that I am not listening.   I talk to God everyday, but I'm starting to realize it's about what I want to say, not what needs to be said or what I need to hear.  It's what I need from him.  I haven't really considered what he needs from me.   No wonder I can't always hear him.  I have these moments where I am so consumed in my thoughts, I feel as if  God is at a distance gazing at me and shaking his head, yet still with a smile and understanding, as if he's waiting for this page to turn. 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

I think God makes it pretty simple, and the more I look back, I see a paved path that has been laid before me the moment John was gone, a path I somehow chose to trust, regardless of the pain.   I believe it is a path that God even showed John when he embraced him.  A path that John is even watching over and OK with.  And really, how did I do that?  I look back and remember how weak I felt, the ache in my chest and the panic that surged throughout my day.  I was a walking zombie.  I felt lifeless.   How did I get up, stand firmly and look his family and friends directly in the eyes as I spoke about him at his own funeral?  How did I go back to work?  How did I manage to take a great job and move?  How did I do anything?   I reflect on that today as I fly above the clouds in awe of what God has done for me and continues to do, yet too many times it goes unnoticed.  Where I am right now is not where I was 9 months ago.  I have grown stronger.  I have laughed and even smiled.  I have danced.  I look back today and know this did  not happened on my own account.  I was carried.  Yet I keep screaming.

 Isn't that all he really wants from us?  To love him and therefore trust him?  I find it easy to do when life is good, when I am happy, when I have great things.  It was easy to thank God everyday for my awesome life in Oregon with John, of course.   Yet when the carpet is ripped out from underneath me, and I must suffer, I must bear my own cross, I fail him.  How do you trust him through pain and suffering?  How do I wake up everyday and give him thanks when John is gone?  How do I bear the pain and the loss, yet somehow see a bigger picture here?  A bigger purpose?  

When I think about Christmas, wasn't that really about seeing and trusting a bigger picture?  God gave his only son to the world, knowing he would suffer incredible pain.  His only son.  Jesus came into this world, taking on a body of flesh and blood, to live among people like you and me.  His most important teaching centered around love and trust.  Loving him and each other, and trusting in a bigger picture, eternal life.  He was mocked, beaten, flogged, and eventually killed at a young age, around 30 years old.  He suffered immense pain, yet he loved and trusted in a much bigger picture.  Isn't that remarkable?  To know something to be so true and right in your heart, that you can bear the pain?  Because of that, I believe I can, in fact, I must bear this pain and still give him genuine thanks for what he has done for me, what he has done for John, not what he has taken from us. 

 And isn't it easy to blame God?  As humans, I think it's only natural to want to place blame somewhere.  Surely this was someones fault.  I've admitted that I raged at God after this happened.  I shook my fist at the sky and cursed his name and my own faith.  Yet he still paved a path just for me, when I didn't deserve it.    As time has passed and as God continues to try and speak to my heart, I am realizing that life is what happens.  We all have choices that we either make or don't make.  Sometimes those choices lead to immense pain and suffering.  I don't believe God orchestrates it, I simply believe he foresees it.  Yet he still receives us, he still cries with us, he still leads us, and he still loves us unconditionally.  Even when we scream. I find that incredible. 

A new year is coming soon, and I've decided to stop worrying.  I've decided to stop petitioning, stop predicting the future, stop asking for the past.  No more screaming.  I'd be a fool if I thought that meant to no more pain, no more grieving.  But to worry and to be afraid as I have been for the last 9 months, I  have to let this go and start trusting in a bigger picture.  I really do believe that John's life continues, just in a much better place, with much bigger purpose.  John is still needed, he is still growing, he is his best self now.  I trust that.  I believe that God is going to do something extraordinary with the life I still have here, because he loves me, and I am his.  I believe I will do extraordinary things because of John Wilburn.  I believe in the power of eternal love.  I believe Christmas is a reminder, regardless of where life has taken you at this moment, to trust in a bigger picture. 

"I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices.  You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy."  John 16:20

 Last Christmas, John and I welcomed my mom, sister and brother to our home in Grants Pass, OR.  My mom was recently separated from my dad during this time after 32 years of marriage.  I remember the moment I saw her get off the plane and walk through the doors into the lobby, I saw sadness in her eyes.  My mother has always been someone I considered to be extremely strong, but losing her marriage broke her.  It broke her spirit.  It went against everything she believed in, and what she thought her life would be.  This was her first Christmas completely outside of the normal Johnson family tradition, and she was spending it with John and I.  On Christmas morning, John turned to me in our bedroom and said, "We need to do something fun with your mom today.  Something to take her mind off of things."  Shortly after presents, John was loading a cooler and hauling everyone into the car.  I could tell he was on a mission to take us somewhere, with a specific focus on my mom.  My mom likes to be in charge, she'd have no problem with me telling all of you that.  She's very much an alpha lady.  But John took over this particular day, told her he would take care of lunch and everything she needed, and shoved her into the car.  He drove us into northern California, and into the Redwood forest.  This was my first time ever seeing these trees since moving to Oregon, and I have to admit, I found them absolutely inspiring.  To look up and not see where a tree truly ends is a unique experience.  We spent the afternoon hiking beside the trees and had a picnic by the Northern California coast.  John didn't mention to my mom that for the picnic, he literally took all the food directly out of the refrigerator still in the baking dishes and threw it all in a large cooler.  A massive turkey was pulled in full form right out of the cooler in a 9x13 baking dish:)  We all dug in with our hands.  This made my mom laugh so hard I think it brought her to tears.  It was typical John, keeping things simple!  That night he poured my mom a glass of wine, sat her in the living room, told her to stay out of the kitchen and cooked everyone the Wilburn traditional Christmas dinner. He even spent that evening playing guitar side by side with her. I believe he made my mom's day, he made her Christmas.  He sure made mine.

 I remember that beautiful memory this Christmas day as I fly above the clouds..  Walking through the redwoods with John and watching my mother's sadness turn to laughter.  He showed all of us on that day that even through suffering and pain, one can still see a bigger picture in the distance.  One can still find joy and peace among the trees.  I believe that is where God is.

Merry Christmas Muffin.  As I gaze out into an endless sky, my heart is full of love and gratitude this Christmas for the lesson you taught me on this day.  I love you always and forever.