One week

One week ago today, I sat with my father-in-law while my husband took his last breath.  I haven't spoken about the final moments of my husband's life, and I won't.  The precious and sacred moment when I held the hand and stroked the head of my husband as he greeted his Savior is something that I will keep between Jim and myself.  After Andrew passed, we were escorted out of the operating room so they could perform the organ harvest.  I was dressed in disposable scrubs, much like the kind you would wear if you were going in to watch a c-section.  The mask was suffocating.  I tried to pull it off, but I had knotted the back.  I ended up ripping the mask part off of my face and it dangled off one of the ties while I walked, almost zombie-like into the OR waiting room.  It wasn't until I sat down in a chair in that waiting room that it came.  A wail from my utter soul just pierced through the silence of that room.  I sobbed, I heaved, I wailed.  I have never in my life felt pain, emptiness, and fear like I did in that moment.  It was over.  It was really over.  Andrew was gone.  Andrew was gone, and I was left.  Even now, the memory of that moment makes me teary.  Then again, everything makes me teary these days, it seems.

I have been asked what, for me, is the hardest part right now.  It's between 8:30pm and 6:30am.  My son, Mr. M goes to bed at 8:30pm.  Typically, I would put him to bed, do our little routine, and then Andrew and I would watch TV.  We had a routine.  He would get the show ready that we were watching on Netflix, the pillows, and my blanket.  I'd put Mr. M to bed, come downstairs and I'd lay on his lap while he sat on the chaise and we'd watch TV.  Inevitably, I'd fall asleep sometime during the 2nd episode, and he'd wake me up when it was time to go upstairs to bed.  Now, I find myself climbing in my own bed after Mr. M is down.  It feels wrong to sit in Andrew's spot, and I don't want to lay on the couch by myself; that's just an invitation for a dog to come and lick me to death.  So I sit in my room, surrounded by pictures of our family, and I feel it.  The emptiness.  The loneliness.  The sadness.  If I'm able to fall asleep, it isn't for long.  But when my alarm goes off telling me its time to actually get out of the bed, I just can't get my body to do it.  As long as I'm laying there in bed, I can pretend that this is all a horrific nightmare.  Andrew isn't dead.  He is getting ready for work.  I'm not alone.  I won't have to explain to my son, yet again, that Daddy isn't coming home, that Daddy is in Heaven and we can't visit him.  Getting out of bed is getting back into reality, and I don't much like my reality right now.

Every day that marches forward is harder than the one before.  It becomes more and more real every day.  I opened my mailbox today, and the Death Certificate was in the mail.  I opened the envelope, looked at the paper, and I wailed as loudly and as forcefully as I did a week ago.  I scared my dogs.  Grief is unpredictable, and I really dislike unpredictability.  Grief is a process that can't be rushed, and I dislike things that don't have a distinct end-point.  Grief sucks, and I don't like things that suck.  Days like today, days where I started crying in the middle of JC Penney while I was looking for an outfit to wear to my husband's funeral, they really stink.  I went to the jewelry store to get Andrew's ring resized to my middle finger.  Naturally, they wanted to know why I was resizing HIS ring to MY finger.  I started crying.  They stopped talking and just filled out paperwork.  I walked around the mall in a daze, half wanting to hide in a corner and cry, and half wanting to punch every ornament-shaped decoration handing from the ceiling.  A skeptic or a cynic would look at me right now and say, so...how's that singing thing going for you?  Starting to get mad at God yet?  Finally starting to see how little He must care to leave you like this?  Look, God can handle my emotions.  He may be the only being in the universe capable of actually handling all my emotions.  God is love, and crazy, unconditional love comes with the risk of pain.  My pain at losing my husband, my best friend, is nothing compared to what God feels every day that people (by the thousands) reject him.  Every day I am graced with evidences of God's presence and peace.  Meals left with sweet notes, cards in my mailbox, coworkers crying with me, and hugging me, stories of how my words and my journey has helped someone grow closer to God.  And, yes, I'm still singing.  Tonight, I'm singing about the Reckless Love of God:

"Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh it chases me down, fights 'till I'm found, leaves the ninety-nine.
I couldn't earn it, I don't deserve it, still You give yourself away
Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God!

There's no shadow You won't light up,
Mountain You won't climb up, coming after me
There's no wall You won't kick down,
Lie You won't tear down, coming after me"