My muscles ache from weeping. My eyes are drowning. The tears carve little paths of sorrow on my face like raindrops on a misty windowpane - finding the course of least resistance. I groan from within with grief too profound for words. I tremble when I write. It hurts to pray. Long nights turn mourning to morning and back to mourning again. Will this get easier? Will we uncover the course of least resistance? I don’t know.
I am so sick of past-tense. She was. She did. She had. She loved. A prisoner caged in memories good and bad. How can you miss someone so fast? Scarcely gone, but scarily missed. It’s such an odd sensation. Where is death’s sting? I looked it in the eyes. Where is death’s victory? I knelt by it. It’s so effortless to cry out pages of Scripture. It’s far more difficult to sieve out all the nonsense I’ve been taught to get down to the truth. Does death have a sting? Yes, it does. Does it have victory? In a way it does. Am I mad at God? Of course I’m not. At the time, when we were praying for His mercy, I felt more alone, more deserted, than I ever have felt in my life. Looking back, though, He was there all along holding me up – holding us up. He was already turning mourning to morning.
I’m not going to tell “the story.” I don’t want to remember it. I do, but I don’t. The memory is fading. There are parts that I don’t want to forget. There are parts I can’t bear to retain. God is merciful in that respect. He has begun to repair my recollection. Memory is a bizarre thing. It hits me when I least expect it. A sucker-punch to the gut when I pass by a gift-given, a place visited, or something I know would make her laugh. She use to call and I would try for an hour to get off the phone. Now I’d give anything to hear her talk, laugh, cry, sneeze, anything at all. I wish I could see her standing at the window while I watered the tomatoes. I wish I could smell the smoke of her cigarettes as I walk up her driveway. If only I could taste her incredible apple pie, or have one more bite of her spaghetti. Then, perhaps, this mourning would be just another morning.
I know God has a plan. Somehow, this has all played into His design. No detail was left to chance. Layer upon layer I see Him moving. His mighty hand was directing me through the events; I was a hostage to His will. There is no one I would rather be enslaved to than the One who knows what is best for me. But, I must admit, it’s rather confusing. In all that has happened, the Bible says, that it was all for my good. It was all God’s mercy - even the terrible part that I call, “the story”. The story of when one simple morning turned to mourning.
I despise clichés. But I know she’s in a better place. Not because that’s “what you say”, but because I truly believe it. I believe it like I believe the sun will rise tomorrow despite the clouds. In fact, the strength of the sun can burn away the most stubborn of clouds to reveal the clearest of skies. And though the clouds are thick right now, because He is sovereign, I know that the clouds not only have a silver lining, but are silver all the way through. And I know that the power of the Son will burn away all the clouds, and turn this mourning into morning. (Psalm 30:5b)
To Susie: my teacher, my friend, my second mother. You will be missed.
