Holidailies Day 17: Remembering

I've been thinking about death a lot. That may sound morbid, but it's not something I chose to do necessarily. More like something that's come up. Yesterday the news hit Facebook that a man from my church was killed in a motorcycle accident. I only knew him in passing, but I know his wife and I know countless people who have been touched by him. If I didn't know how awesome he was, I wouldn't be able to miss it as all the remembrances flood Faceook today as people process the news and honor his life.

As much as I grieve for those who grieve over his death, this particular news and even the circumstances of the news trigger something else in me. Of when my older sister and my nephews, ages 13 and almost 10, were killed instantly in a fatal crash. I haven't spoken much of the events of May 5, 2013 since the weeks directly after it. I don't think I could really, without just going to pieces that I wasn't confident that I could pick up. Even now I may fail at it. But since then ANY incident involving automobiles with fatalities goes right to that place where I'm in the midst of my own grief and I can't escape without walking through another little piece of it. Even if I didn't know the person, I know. I know what the family is going through, or at least I have a reasonable idea based on my own experiences and watching my family go through it all.

So the events are inextricably intertwined in my mind. As much as I felt shock and horror as I read the news yesterday, I jumped back instantly to the shock and horror as I got the text message and voicemail to call my father ASAP after I got off of work on that Monday morning. The haze that fills your life as you struggle to comprehend the magnitude of what just happened.

Everything in your life immediately takes on a then and now quality. The reality when things hit like, I'll never get a call from them on a weekend again. I'll never call them on their birthdays again to marvel at how fast they're growing up (at least for the boys. Joy and I would just marvel at the fact that her birthday meant that mine was imminent, and how crazy THAT was). Then I could have the hope, the anticipation of seeing them on the holidays, of getting increasingly bone-crushing hugs from Jesse and sweet hugs and kisses from Justin and sharing smirks and raised eyebrows with Joy as we participated in our shared humor. Now I face a reality in which they'll never be there for the big things, for holidays, for graduations, for weddings, for births. In which their dreams and goals are suddenly never going to be fulfilled. Joy had just finished her CPA certificate and AA in Accounting. She was going to start her own business, again. The boys had their passions and 4H goals and their whole lives ahead of them.

There is no easy way to deal with the grief. I know this. But I can recommend how to not do it, based on my own journey. Isolating yourself is a bad plan. Not just because you need to be able to talk about it and friends are the best outlet, you need to be around people who can remind you what it's like to feel happy and not like you're about to be overtaken by the sheer magnitude of the fallout. Remembering hurts like nothing else, because you're reliving moments that will never be repeated. But not remembering hurts worse. It turns it into a long, drawn out process of getting hit with moments when you can't hold it back anymore and it incapacitates you for longer.

I can't speak to the theology of the situation, not with any clarity anyway. The ins and outs of why these things happen are not clear. I just know that for me the only thing that's saved me from going off the deep end has been the ability to run into God's embrace and fall apart when His arms are there to keep me from scattering. I don't believe for a second that God meant these things to happen, nor that He caused them. I think, in my life, He's given it to me as an opportunity to wake up and take control of my life in a way that Joy always encouraged me to do, even as she dealt with many of the same issues. It took me awhile to be able to move very far in that direction, but I believe I finally am even as I deal with other circumstances standing in my way.

It's going to be a day of processing, I believe. Processing the current circumstances that my whole community is dealing with, processing what that drags up for me. Praying constantly for all involved, especially this man's wife and daughters, and the rest of his family. And declaring the knowledge of God's love in the midst. Especially that.

Blessings.