As the Fog Clears

"I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him."  Philippians 3:8-9

Something has happened to me in the last week and as much as I would love to tell you that it's something wonderful and amazing and uplifting, it's more so frightening, isolating and down right sad.  I am going to try and write about it because I think for anyone going through an incredible loss, this realization is important.

I think I was actually foolish enough to think I would feel healed after walking through this for an entire year.  As if day 366 would arrive and miraculously I'd be a new Erin.  I survived an entire year without my love.  I was proactive.  I spread his ashes, took a new job, moved back across the country to a new town, made new friends, tried new activities, stayed busy, constantly on the move.  I did all of those things.  I made it through 365 days.  I was a bad ass, a strong woman, wiser.  Yet when I woke up on March 10th, I did not feel new or refreshed, I felt despair.  John is still gone, life still continues here and there is no reward for this hardship.  He is not returning.  You know, I think at times I've actually convinced myself that he was.  Am I crazy?  As if I would go through one year without my husband and if I did that successfully, he would come back and this nightmare would end.  I realize that is simply not the case, but I think at times, his absence has been so much easier to endure and walk with, if I live with that thought process, that this too shall pass and he is returning.

Over the last week, I've come to realize that I am really not a bad ass, or this amazingly strong woman, or maybe even wiser.  What I am is a master of repression.  I am a master of denial, avoidance, distraction.  I know how to survive.  I remember how painful this felt right after John died.  For the first two months I literally had a full body ache from head to toe.  It was terrible.  The pain that came with his death was disabling, and honestly a miserable way to live.  I think within the first 60 days, I decided I could not take it and simply wasn't going to allow it anymore.  So I began to repress, to tuck it away a little at a time.  The real raw pain that came with his absence was scary, to know the body and mind can feel so empty and dull.  I hated it and wanted nothing to do with it.  So I became busy, distracted, I threw myself into anything to avoid the pain.  You know I've only really cried in front of a handful of people?  My mom, my sisters, three best friends, and my Chaplin.  Isn't that a bit odd?  I've refused to let go in front of anyone really.  

I woke up on March 10th and for the first time in months, I felt that raw pain that has been tucked away for a while now and I have to tell you, I've once again turned into that person that felt disabled months and months ago.  I can't tell you how frustrating that is, to think you've done all these amazing things for a year, and that life is supposed to be better, easier.  Yet my realization now is that I haven't really fully grieved, I haven't allowed that raw pain to hang out because it's simply frightening, it impairs me.  Repressing only works for so long, like a splinter that you don't deal with.  Eventually you become more agitated, infected, until you simply can't avoid it anymore.  

John is still gone.  His physical absence is so evident and alarming.  So now what do I do?  I suppose there are another 365 days ahead of me, 3 years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years?  I feel his absence is almost like a tumor growing inside of me that I simply have to learn how to maneuver around.  It won't ever fully go away, it will always be there, living within me.  You know, with that reality, I've come to understand that the old me is no more.  I don't even know her anymore which is sad, but that's the honest truth.  She can't exist with this new reality.  She is not capable.

I traveled to Richmond, VA last week for work and to spend time with our friends.  We cleaned up a creek in honor of John, paddled the James together and enjoyed each other's company.  It was strange.  I felt as if I was visiting a ghost.  A past life, where other lives continue on.  During the creek clean up, we had a moment of silence for John and someone asked who this man was, why we were cleaning up a creek in honor of him.  "He was my husband."  That's all I could muster out.  "Was".  My friends are all mostly married, some now parents, they are all getting older and life is changing.  I feel as if I am watching this from a distance, watching all of them move forward while I am stuck in a fog.  "He was my husband." 

 We had a pot luck over the weekend where all of our friends gathered to spend time together.  I remember taking Henry Hollis (my best friend's 2 year old son) and carrying him into the front yard, just the two of us.  We talked about how to identify an airplane vs a star, and how airplanes blink.  We looked at the stream in front of the house and talked about how it runs underneath the drive way, making it's way to the creek.  I watched Henry take these small things in, I watched his mind explode with excitement, I watched the innocent joy in his eyes.  I thought about John and what a great Dad he would have been, had we had children.  I thought about the things he would have taught them, shown them and the adventures he would have taken them on.  I thought about John as an innocent small boy and how the world must have been so big to him then.  I looked at Henry and prayed for a long life of discovery and adventure.  I prayed that Henry will never be a "was," while I am still here, yet will always be an "is."  

 Life is continuing, so what now?  There is one word that I continue to hear silently in the distance, whispering to me through this dull pain.  "Faith."  That my friends, is all I have left in me.  It is all I can say.  It is my only option, it is the only way to survive this.  Complete and absolute faith in the God that I love so much, who loves me unconditionally, yet I fail him every single day.  There are no more question marks with the absence of John, only periods.  There are no "whys," or "hows," only "is."  Faith in what I cannot see, yet I can certainly feel.  Faith that this burden is not carried by me, but carried by the God that I love.  Faith in John's eternal life, eternal purpose, eternal glory.  Faith in eternal love, and eternal reunion.

I can't really tell you what that will look like this year, but as the fog is continuing to clear, I will try my best to share with you.