Four Years

It has been four years since the love of my life left this earth, and my life as I knew it was shattered to pieces.  It has been a long, long journey with a lot of mountains to climb, water to tread, sun shining on my face, beautiful sunsets to watch, and cardinal birds following me. A journey that I took with a lot of resistance.  During the first three years of this journey, I begrudgingly walked, not wanting to accept my circumstances.   I was angry with Mark.  I was furious with God. 

My anger with Mark was really grief rearing its ugly head.  I was angry he left me.  I was angry he left me to figure out how to parent two grieving teenagers (and during a pandemic).  I was angry he left me to run a household on my own, dealing with repairs, maintenance, cooking, finances…you name it. I was angry he was resting in heaven. I envisioned Mark fishing in the beautiful ocean at sunrise while I was drowning here on earth. 

Early on, I had a dream that Mark came downstairs in our house, and he had clothes in his arms, and all of his other clothes were lying on the floor of the family room. I looked at him and asked him where he was going.  He responded, “I am going to Israel for a few months.”  And he left.  No goodbye. No kiss or hug.  He just left.  I looked at the mess he left on the floor and was so angry that I was left to clean up that mess.  The anger with Mark subsided as I moved forward in grief.

However, my anger with God just kept hanging on.  I was so angry at God that Mark died.  I have multiple journal entries of me yelling at God.  How could he allow this to happen? Was this part of his plan? How could he leave Gavin and Maisie fatherless? How could he allow any of his children to experience this excruciating pain? How could he take everything from me? I didn’t understand his plan.  I was angry that he took the person I love the most from me. 

Although I was angry, it did not consume me.  I would describe it as a bad marriage with God- we lived in the same house, and I really didn’t talk to him.  I knew he would always be there when I got home.  I know he was taking care of things for me.  But I only talked to him every once in a while.   When I look back, I can see God was always there for me, just waiting.  Doing for me what I could not do for myself through my amazing community of support.

I had not lost faith in God. I just did not like him very much.   I wrote this in my journal a couple of months after Mark’s death.  “you can feel secure even in the midst of cataclysmic changes through awareness of My continual presence.  The One who never leaves you is the same One who never changes.  I am the same yesterday, today, and forever.  As you release more and more things into My care remember that I never let go of your hand. Herein lies your security, which no one and no circumstance can take from you. “ Dear Jesus by Sarah Young, p. 246

Gratefully,  this last year, my anger with God has been lifted.  I still do not understand God’s plan, and I will probably never will.  And that is ok because God is all-knowing, not me (this is where my ego gets involved, that I need to know everything that is for another blog post.)

He brought me into a place of grief, and I have grown,  evolved, and changed.   I have become closer to him.  Throughout my life, I can see many difficult times that I have walked through, and on the other side, I can see how God used those difficult circumstances to mold me a little more into the person he created me to be.

 However, grief was not just difficult circumstances.  It was a place that I had never been to before and never want to go again.  I was completely beaten down physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I did not recognize the person I saw in the mirror.  I referred to myself in early grief as a  shell of a person because it felt like nothing was there.  It was hard for me to know that there was another side.  That I would feel better.   But by the grace of God, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.  I read a lot of books on grief, journaled, met with other widows, and joined a widow group.  I allowed myself to be in the mess, which was hard for this “recovering” perfectionist.

The biggest blessing over the last year has been becoming part of a widow group – Never Alone Widows.  I have found my people who get it.  I attended a conference last Spring through Never Alone Widows and learned that God loves me there.  I know that seems a little odd.  I must have missed this message in my 12 years of Catholic schooling.  I didn’t see God as a loving God. I saw God sitting up on his throne, puppeteering everyone on earth.  I thought I had to earn his love through performing and being good.  But now I know He is my father and unconditionally loves me as his daughter.  I can just crawl up on his lap and rest.  This gives me so much comfort and peace.

 Slowly accepting God’s love over the last year has relieved a lot of the anger.  And without that looming anger, I am excited to see what my relationship with God can bring.  God is still reshaping me in grief. It is a long journey, but I can see he has reshaped me into someone who can receive his love.

“He hurts for us, his beloved children when we must engage in a new battle with grief and give up another piece of what we wanted our lives to look like.  But he also smiles because he knows we are being reshaped, restored, and reworked into something even more resilient and beautiful.” Lemons on Friday by Mattie Jackson Selecman pg 124