A Year Since the Crash...

 

Exactly one year ago tomorrow....life crashed.

 

How can two perfectly fine adults, one in pain, of course, but holding hands, walking upright into the medical clinic at 1:15 on December 15, 2016, possibly be prepared for the kind of news we were about to hear.  I picked Sam up at work and we went to the doctor's office to hear the results of his CT scan.  We knew it could be serious -- our daughter was recently in remission for lymphoma, and having lived through her chemotherapy treatments, we were prepared to hear that this pain Sam was feeling was something serious.  We were not prepared to hear the words that came tumbling out of the doctor's mouth without emotion:  "You have cancer.  It's pancreatic and it has spread to the lungs, bone," (other places I can't even remember due to my fogging out), and the worst -- "it has collapsed several vertebrae and that's where the pain is coming from.  It's the worst of the worst that I've seen."  We both sat staring at him, not comprehending the words that he so casually spoke to us.  "Go home and get your affairs in order."  I think I asked about getting to the cancer center TODAY or something, and he said he would forward Sam's file and they would contact us.  We walked to the front counter to make another appointment and I felt my world falling away.  Could I even walk out the door?  How can this be possible?  We walked next door to the pharmacy to wait for a prescription for pain.  We sat side by side, not talking, afraid to look at one another.  I glance at Sam and saw him sitting with his head in his hands, a tear rolling down his cheek.

That's how life crashed.

The next 9 months were a blur.  How can any illness wreak such havoc on a body.  It is incomprehensible that so much happened this past year, most all of it heartbreaking sadness.  In fact, I can't remember what happiness feels like.  Most days I walk around in a fog, wondering how everyone is going about life while I'm not.  It's been three months since Sam died and I finally feel as if reality has hit.  My hospice companion is in California for the winter; I wasn't eligible to go to a grief group because my grief is "too fresh." I feel lost most days that no one understands what grief feels like. It's not that I want to feel happiness; I just want relief from the intense loss and pain I feel.  People tell me it's normal, but all I see is the world going about life while I am suffering alone.  Just thinking about the way the diagnosis was given to us and the lack of support I felt at the time and even now, feels wrong.  I'm told the services "just aren't available due to the small population," but why do services depend on population.  Why are people not valued in every community so that those of us in grief and pain receive support.   Maybe it's good that I work and I must get up each day and face life, but most days it feels like too much.  All around me people are moving on with their lives and I'm robotically going to work and driving home, just to do it all the next day again.  The words I hear are:  okay, it's been 3 months, time to move forward.  If only it were so easy.  Some days I feel as if I should pack up and move away, but maybe that isn't right either.  I am left alone to sort out heavy decisions and to consider an unknown future.

"Grief is a journey, often perilous and without clear direction," writes author Molly Fumia. "The experience of grieving cannot be ordered or categorized, hurried or controlled, pushed aside or ignored indefinitely. It is inevitable as breathing, as change, as love. It may be postponed, but it will not be denied."

This week my dear friend lost her husband to ALS.  My son and I have walked with her the past couple of weeks when she needed support and feeling the grief all over again reignited my sense of deep loss.  Good men dying.  Why?  Her strong faith encouraged me, but even those of us who deeply believe in God and have hope are fragile and are mere humans with emotions that hurt and feel pain.

Tonight I acknowledge that grief is a journey...and I am significantly less far along than I had hoped, but Sam was everything to me.  Losing him is like losing ..... everything.  May God give me strength to face the days ahead with courage and wisdom.  May my faith flourish rather than falter.

Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don't. You are in good company... You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope.     

 

---John Piper