Ok, so it was the riding mower…but that still counts, right? We are expecting rain today, so Mr. FixIt said we’d better get the lawn mowed beforehand or it’ll be out of control by next week. Since he was busy working on trimming the outside wall we just painted, and…since I’M the one that loves the riding mower, I quickly volunteered.

It was partly cloudy so it wasn’t very hot the first half, but then the sun came out full force and I retrieved my “mowing umbrella” to keep the sun off my skin. I used sunscreen and have to be particularly careful of my new scars…one from my surgery last month, and the other from a biopsy taken from my chest last week. Since I had a melanoma removed, I am so careful of my skin.

As I was mowing, my mind wandered around….making lists for our upcoming trip to the beach, all the things that need doing beforehand, reminding myself to KISS (keep it simple, silly!) Suddenly, I saw the date in my mind. April 7th. Mr. Virgo and I got married on April 7th, 2007. This would have been our 14th Anniversary and that is just not relatable. He died just shy of our 6th…he’s been gone well over the short time that I had him.

I didn’t remember with sadness or longing. I remembered with a sense of incredulity. Here I was, sitting on a riding mower, mowing the five acres I share with a new husband I’ve known for literally 52 years…in West Virginia…my home state. It still seems surreal sometimes. Life hands us curveballs that we never see coming. We wake up one morning, our life is in one piece. We go to bed that night and our life is in shards on the floor. There truly is no rhyme or reason.

I watch my dear friends navigating grief…some newly bereaved, some not so much. When they’re at a certain point in their timeline that I recognize, I want to hold them and tell them to just hang on…just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I see them struggle and I remember struggling. I see them scream at God and I screamed at God, too. My prayer is, when they see me on the road ahead of them, they don’t compare where they are to where I am. We greet each new day of grief differently and no two are the same. Yet, there are patterns that emerge over time. 

Time doesn’t heal grief. Grieving heals grief. And “heal” is a slippery word with many meanings attached to it. As I rode the tractor, wind in my hair, I fully realized that God used something so incredibly painful in my life to make me turn to Him for help. He turned that incredible pain into words to help those coming up the path behind me. And, He taught me to appreciate every single moment as it if might be the last…because it might just be. 

A sweet friend from my bible study group lost her 28 year old son, suddenly and totally unexpectedly on Wednesday. She got up Wednesday morning and all was right in her world. She went to bed Wednesday night, her life shattered and lying in shards on the floor. There is no rhyme or reason, but I’ll be reaching my hand back to help her up this awful mountain.

It’s what I do. It’s what God sent me here for.

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“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,”

Philippians 1:3 ESV