Blue Jay out the bedroom window

I tried to call my brother on Thanksgiving and couldn’t reach him. He’s in a new place and the number they gave me that’s supposed to ring into his apartment rings into more than one so whoever gets to it first answers. If it’s a client, they politely tell me his lives next door and hang up. Which is fine, but he hasn’t answered his cell phone either. I sent a note to his staff person and she called me on Friday afternoon to say my brother had lost his cell phone. And, she had just found out the phone doesn’t ring into his apartment only so she’s going to rectify both things next week. She let me video chat with him and that did us both a world of good. But, until I could see and talk to him…I was in a funk.

The waves of grief come so seldom now that when they do, it flat out surprises me. I suddenly felt all the losses so acutely. I am sure reading the memory book of the farm and holding it in my hands started the ball rolling. Then, I got to see my girls on video chat, but…you know…it’s not quite the same. I missed my mom. I thought about Mr. Virgo. I longed for my grandma’s pumpkin pie. I wanted to see my cousins. I just flat out had a pity party.

I let myself feel all the feelings. I let them wash over me with the salty sting of sea water. I’ve finally learned it only makes matters worse to fight it. I’ve also learned…they’re just feelings. They aren’t going to kill me. I can hold joy and pain in the same space. I can feel sorrow and happiness. Presence and loneliness. Energy and fatigue. And life will go on. The sun will set and come up the next morning.

There is so much going on in the world that so easily brings you down. If we focus on the sensational…the news that sells…we’ll soon be totally overwhelmed. Add a grief wave and it can knock your socks off. We were going to put up the tree yesterday and didn’t because the Ohio-Michigan game was on and it was a thriller. So the tree waits for another day. Last night I bent over and felt something pop in my lower back with an accompanying sharp pain that took my breath away. It’s just another thing to remind me I’m not a spring chicken anymore. 

Am I going to go down the dark path? Nope. I’m going to “rub some dirt in it” as my grandma always said. Just get up and move on to the next thing…albeit a little more gingerly today. Life is what we make of it. 

Make it good whenever you can.

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“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”

Isaiah 9:2 ESV