The Portal: Portal-ity Thoughts

You left us at 24, and today you'd be 32.  It's hard to wrap my head around that.  I guess you'll always be 24 - but down here, I'm watching your friends get older.  Get married.  Have children.  Get divorced, a nd in some cases, keep struggling.   I have some peace knowing your struggle is over.  If you were still fighting the same demons I don't know where that would have left either one of us or the family.  It was the hardest thing I've dealt with, other than your death, and I feel like we have dealt with a lot.  But, to watch your child be controlled by a substance, one that changes who they are, takes over their life, their thoughts, their minute-by-minute - it's the most helpless feeling I've ever had.  I couldn't fix it.  So, in one very small way, it helps . . .helps to know you are safe, in Heaven, with Jesus, and we will see you again.   Thank you for making that decision and for keeping your faith, even though you w...

My mother-in-law once told me her 50's were her favorite.  I should have had a clue when on the morning of my 50th birthday, my previous German Shepherd, Sarge, had the worst case of diarrhea I'd ever seen.  In the house!  With people coming over for a meal.  I'm sure glad we can't see the future.  It's not always bright.  I won't say my fifties have been my least favorite, because of my grandkids, but they have been the hardest and most painful years of my life. Six years later, and we've lost our son John to the opioid epidemic, my Dad and I, along with my mother-in-law all hang out at the cancer center, and it definitely has not been butterflies, unicorns, and rainbows.  I have a standing joke with a friend - I type in "uni" on my phone and this comes up:  🦋🦄🌈.  It reminds me that while life is not all butterflies, unicorns, and rainbows, people prefer it when it is.  We have a natural human instinct to look for the good, to try an...

As the year 3 mark approaches – I find myself in a quiet and melancholy place. Year one was shock and horror, people, appointments with the DA – almost a blur. I learned how to listen to books to put me to sleep – as I couldn’t read, and I am still struggling to finish one book the old fashioned way, although I’ve started many. Brain fog, disbelief, searching, what-ifs. It was a year of people not knowing what to do with us, of mountains of tears and extreme emotions.  Of anger and profound sadness.  A year where food lost its flavor and coffee became all that tasted good.    I avoided people, places, and questions.  It was a year that I couldn’t talk about him without crying, where I dreaded any kind of get together because of the questions that were asked and because of the reality of the lives we were living.  I said no.  I know it hurt people’s feelings, but how could they possibly understand how a wedding or a graduation party ripped our heart...

I lift up my eyes to the mountains where  does my help come from?   My help comes from the  Lord ,  the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121 Yesterday, I wrote an article and submitted it to an online magazine.  In it, I made no reference to my faith – just grief.  I usually always end my writings with a positive faith-filled message.  But I didn’t.  Why?  Because someone commented on a piece I wrote, saying that it was "great up until the religious part."  Friends, without the religious part, the faith part, the actual reason for our hope part – it’s just words, in my opinion. So I wrote a sad piece on grief and what to expect, without sharing my hope. I'm about to correct that now. Because my hope, my faith, my Jesus? They are everything to me. I don’t understand a world where things just accidentally fell into place. Where there is no Creator, no author, no God of the Universe. ...

Instead of a single rose from you this year John, I had to search the internet and find “Cemetary flowers” for your grave. You see, son, the world has gone crazy and a pandemic has hit. I couldn’t go to Hobby Lobby and put together a long lasting bouquet for you, but had to order one online. They are beautiful, for fake flowers, and they remind me of the times you brought me a single rose. Or wrote me a note. I miss you. This is an article I wrote my first Mother’s Day, (2018) but never published. Two years later and a lot of editing down to a “kinder gentler” article, and I submitted it to Still Standing.  Here is an excerpt: {“You know what the day is going to bring. Mom posts will abound. Happy families, tributes and photos of flowers and gifts, and an occasional post about a mom who is a little disappointed in her day.  She had high expectations for what she thought her day should look like, and somehow her children came up short. Try not to comment, or ...

John - JRTC at FT Polk Words and more words.  I can't tell you how many posts I've written lately and haven't published, or I deleted them altogether.   I submitted a couple to grief sites, just because I'm drowning in them. Usually writing helps me process, but life has been unusually dark lately and nothing that's coming off the keyboard feels quite right.   Don't worry, I didn't send in the super sarcastic ones, with titles such as:  Leper, Snarky Grief, and I Wish I Couldn't Imagine, they are still in the draft file. They are TMI and word vomit.  I read one to my husband the other day -  he cautioned me not to share it.  😳There are too many words and at the same time not enough words.  Not enough of the right words.  No words to take the pain of losing John away. I found this picture of him in his iCloud.  Unfortunately, when the police released his phone, it wouldn't work anymore.  I had gone through it previously, ...

Nope, just a stock photo, not John's room. On the day we lost our son, mere hours after, the pastor pulled us aside for a few moments and shared with us that this type of loss can destroy a marriage. I think he may have even given us the divorce statistics.  I don't remember.  I think he prayed with us.  I don't remember.  I do remember thinking, great, devasting loss and a now a huge chance of a failed marriage besides.  I will admit to wondering about the timing, but I thank him for explaining it to us right away - because as the days went on, we definitely saw how grief can wipe clean everything in its path and leave the survivors hanging by a thread.  And while most of that day and the days after are a fog, his words stuck.  It was a kindness. After 16 months, Brian and I still handle the loss very differently. We need to respect each other's journey and have a lot of grace for each other. We aren't typically the couple that argues or...

When you are grieving, you learn to plan your days carefully and schedule down days. At least I do, and I am so thankful that my schedule allows it. I know, after these long 15 months, that I will need a couple recovery days after a fun event, a trip, or even a visit to our daughter's house. Don't misunderstand, we love going, it's the coming home that requires the adjustment. It starts as we prepare to leave, worsens on the drive, and hits home the minute we open the front door.   We needed a couple down days after our vacation as well. As restful as it was, we still had to come home. We purposefully drove to Indiana this year, instead of flying, to catch the plane for our seed trip.  It gave us time to process.   We saw new things, drove down new roads, visited new places, met new faces . . . and it was good. Y ou might remember last years blog, "A Grieving Introvert on a Plane Full of Strangers". Well, this year was filled with more glorious sunshine and...