Tears, like leaves, fall in autumn
My favorite season is fall. I feel blessed to live in an area of the United States where all four seasons make a distinct appearance each year. Some of those appearances last longer than they should (I'm looking at you, winter), and others seem way too short (spring, you need to step up your game). Each year, I am able to see God's creativity at work in the changing seasons. Fall is my favorite season for a few reasons. One, the temperature is usually a comfortable long-sleeve-and-vest with sandals temperature. Toward the end we move to sweatshirts and closed-toed shoes. But I don't need a winter jacket, yet. This is key. Secondly, I love fall because school begins. I love school supplies. I love the smell of freshly sharpened Ticonderoga pencils (if you know, you know). The excitement of back-to-school outfits, school pictures, Homecoming spirit days...it never gets old. Third, fall initiates the baking season, and I am always a big fan of baking season. And finally, I love fall because it is so colorful. The maple trees turning a stunning, vibrant red. Oak leaves turning brown; other trees, whose names I don't know, turn orange. Fall is just so...pretty.
For the last five years, the arrival of fall signals the start of what I have come to call grief season. Ironically, grief season has become more pronounced and visible as time passes. Initially, it was just me who faced the swell of grief that fall brings. Maybe my kids did, but, really, they didn't have a grasp of time. We celebrate Andrew's birthday in August, so I was the only one who really paid attention to the slow march to November 15th. I really shouldn't be surprised that the kids are now picking up on grief season; our bodies know. Our cells react and our minds drift, and you can't help but feel the change.
Fall signals the start of school, and the start of school brings classroom teachers who don't know our story. S has worked in the school district for 20 years, some of them at the kids' current school (but he isn't there right now). It's rather amusing to walk in to Open House and see the reactions from teachers who knew him back then. It's typically something like, "S! Wow! Wait...when did you get kids?" Then, we explain in cliff notes version how S and I got married in 2022, and I brought the bigs with me, S adopted them, and now we have Honey, our little "blender baby" (because we're a blended family...get it?). Always the polite, Minnesotan teachers, they never ask questions or specifics. That is, until they start to notice that grief season has begun.
Little Miss has been processing Andrew's death for several months. When Andrew first passed away, I remember telling people it hurts so bad knowing that Little Miss won't remember her dad. Mr. M has a bunch of memories and stories. He suffers from remembering his dad. She suffers from not remembering. Little Miss asks me lots of questions, loves hearing stories and seeing pictures, and, yes, many tears have been cried as she processes what it means to not remember Daddy Andrew. She and I found a little locket that belonged to Andrew's mother, and it has his Kindergarten picture inside. She made a necklace out of beads and put the locket on it. She wears it every day. Because we are so open in our family, frequently sharing stories and memories of Daddy Andrew, she is naturally open with her classmates. Knowing that at any time Little Miss can blurt out, "This is my Daddy Andrew. He's dead," I begin the school year with an email to her teacher, letting her know about our family journey.
Mr. M is different. He becomes more quiet. He is more introspective. He asks questions; hard questions, deep questions. The typically goofy, smiling boy is just a bit diminished. Come the start of November, he closes ranks. I begin the school year with an email to his teacher, describing how he handles his grief, and that November is a tough month for us.
This fall has been full of questions. What happened to Daddy Andrew? Why was he in the hospital? How did he die? Why did he die? Did he love us when he died? Why can't I remember him (or remember more)? Some days, the answers are easier than others. Lately, I have had to be more deliberate on how to answer, trying to make an incomprehensible event more understandable to a 7 and 9 year old. Last night, I was asked, yet again, why Daddy Andrew had to die, I was given the grace in that moment to answer, "I don't know. I wish I knew, but I don't know. Someday, I hope God lets me know."
There has not been a single day in the last 1,178 days when Andrew hasn't crossed my mind. I think about him every single day. There are memory triggers everywhere, especially when I look at the precious faces of my big kids. During grief season, I think about him a bit more. I recall events from that fall of 2019. I cry. I get angry. I feel sad. I feel tired. But, I feel. I learned very early on in my grief journey that not allowing myself to feel will only keep me stuck. I try to pass the same message on to my children.
So, once again, it is fall. Once again, I find myself crying a bit more than usual (I still hate crying). Once again, I see the calendar and brace myself for the march to November 15th. I'm still not sure how I feel about having others join me in grief season. But, it doesn't really matter how I feel about it; time and age have given me sojourners.
Five years later, I'm still singing. Today, my heart is singing "Faithfully" by TobyMac.
Levi Lusko September 21, 2024 Grief is hard.
ReplyDeleteWe know we need to go to God but that is hard. It can also be a true statement that in going to the feet of Jesus during seasons of extreme grief that:
‘Worship that feels like hell, can heal like heaven.”
Frustration, loss, anger and grief still come in and go out. We continually need to keep sitting at His feet like Mary of Bethany. She was always sitting at His feet.
My very wise counselor told me after the death of my father and my daughter, that grief is like a pile of laundry. The way to make the pile smaller is to sort it. We sort laundry into whites, darks or colors. Three different bins. So in grief, it is wise to sort into three bins.
A) Identify what you are actually grieving. What has been taken away from you? Not being able to call them? Not being able to see them on a daily basis? Not being able to celebrate significant holidays? Not sharing milestones? It is important to GRIEVE these.
B) Identify what you have not lost. Every memory is still yours. Every lesson you have been taught by them is still yours. Every prayer that they have prayed over you is still in heaven, contained in the great bowls of incense mentioned in Revelation. CELEBRATE these.
C) Identify what you cannot lose. The person that you have become and the influence they have had on those you love is not lost. The truth that we will have eternity in heaven with God and also with all of our loved ones is a great comfort. Live IN this HOPE.
So we can sit.