4am Grief

Before the actual post starts, I want to explain that putting words on paper is my therapy. It gets the hard thoughts out of my head and onto something I can see. It heals me. I have been told a time or two that these words help others know me better, and sometimes helps them put words to their own thoughts. It is with that in mind that I publish an unplanned therapy session from a couple of nights ago. It was good for me, and I feel so much better today.

For the past few weeks, life has been nonstop for me. I had more than one person comment on how well I was handling it all. My standard joke was that I was running on adrenaline and denial. I knew it would all catch up to me "next week", but I had been successfully pushing back "next week". That is, until 4am. That is when it all crashed in. I woke up hoping it was just my middle aged bladder, but it wasn't. Then, I hoped it was just a crick in my neck I'd been battling, but that wasn't it either. My mind was racing with thoughts of my kitchen being torn up for an unplanned remodel thanks to a leaky faucet, but I knew that wasn't the real issue either. As I sat up crying, having lost control of the one last thread I had, Rocky gently rubbed my back in the same way she rubbed my back when I was a little girl, awake because I was spending the night in a bed other than my own, having a sleepover with my favorite person. It all came flooding out. Too many emotions to name, tripping out of my mouth between sobs. My fears, my worry, and then finally, the real reason I was awake, my grief. It finally found a moment that I couldn't fight. The middle of the night. With my conscious thoughts at rest, the door was now open and it wasn't closing until I named it. It's name is grief and it is hard.
It took me a half hour to cry it out, and another half hour to write it out. I'm sure this hour of sleep I have missed will catch up with me tomorrow, but that's okay. I have safety nets during daylight hours, and it won't be so scary then.
Now, I can drift back to sleep having beaten my grief ninja attack with tears and prayers and my husband's gentle hand making circles on my back.

A Tribute to Rixie the 2nd

When I was thinking over how best to pay tribute to Mamaw, I was reminded of a chance encounter I had in my early twenties that really opened my eyes to who she was.

A woman, who was the mother of a childhood friend of my mother’s, came into the place I worked. After speaking to me, she asked who my family was because I had a familiar look. I told her, and she said that she thought of my grandmother every time she drove past her house because she greatly admired how strong she was and how she had carried on her life after my grandfather died. From that day forward, I knew “strength” as my grandmother’s defining characteristic.

She was literally physically strong. For example, she did her own yard work well past the age that most people stop. There was a section of privet hedge that she frequently did battle with. She overcame a heart defect, colon cancer, and fought her way back to being independent more times than is believable.

Her strength of heart was unmatched. She faced more tragedy and loss than most of us could bear. Even in the face of being widowed so early, she picked up and carried on. I don’t think I ever saw her cry, not because she didn’t, but because she didn’t cry in front of the children. She always wanted to be strong for us.

She was a strong role model. She was not only the picture of a 50’s housewife, but she was also a working mother. She held various jobs over the years, and most probably remember her work in the Andrew Jackson school cafeteria because her rolls were amazing, but the one that made an impression on me was that when Papaw got his real estate license so he could sell houses part time, she got her’s too so that she could support his work and run things while he was at his other job. All of that with three kids to take care, and a hot dinner on the table every night. Then when my parents started dating, she added my dad in as her fourth kid, showing him what it was like to be a loving parent. It changed the course of his life and by extension, my own.

Most importantly, she had strength of faith. Isaiah 40:31 says, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Her unwavering faith and trust in God touched us all in one way or another. When many would have sat down, overwhelmed by the changes life had thrown at them, she relied on God to help her stand knowing that He would see her through whatever came next. It is the reason we can all have peace today. We can trust that she rests with the Lord no longer having to be strong.

I will remember how she took me to the movies and made me bacon and French toast for breakfast. How she always sat at the kids table, and how she could have a full Sunday dinner on the table in the time it took the rest of us to change out of our church clothes. I still haven’t figured that one out. Most of all I will remember her strength and try to live up to the standard she set for being a Rixie.