Joy and Grief (LONG post)

Well, I wanted to share on here a little about my long day yesterday. I wanted you to be able to see the incredibly gorgeous decorations and the wonderful people I spent time with for the annual women's Christmas Brunch put on by the Sunriver Church Women's Ministry. My friend Sonia, who I made the Swallowtail Shawl for, is in charge of planning for it and her engineering skills are certainly being put to good use! :o) It was held at the Hilton and the decorations were white and gold with angels. Very lovely. The lunch was good and the 7 layer dessert with caramel and chocolate was absolutely sinful...I enjoyed every bite and did not even feel a bit guilty. It was a treat! Sonia treats me and our mutual scrapbooking friend Pam to this brunch every year. It is a nice time to get out and do something "normal" with other ladies. The reason I can't show you pictures is that my little Kodak DX 6490 is dying! :o( It is so sad. I have had it for three years and I have easily shot ten times the amount of pictures that a person would normally shoot with this type of camera. It has served me well. I took the pictures of the shawl yesterday morning and they turned out, but the ones I took at the brunch...let's just say that I have had better pictures from a disposable box camera! LOL It's still going to be at least 3 months before I get my new camera. This is going to be like being without my right arm!

At any rate, the lunch was lovely and the speaker/singer was Erica Dean. She has a beautiful voice and two degrees in piano performance. She has a great sense of humor and shared that woven in with her testimony. Then it hit! Have you ever had that happen...when the Holy Spirit touches you in church or listening to someone or something and you weep and you can't stop? That is what happened to me. I am 40 years old and I was bawling like a baby! She was singing a song about being weary and burdened and giving those burdens over to Jesus. (Have you noticed to the right, the tag I have of the little girl with the huge backpack...His yoke is easy and I need constant reminding...that's why it is there!) In that moment I felt all my grief come pouring out. It was as if she had read my mind and was sent there by God to comfort me.

Off and on all day I wept. Grief is like a heavy coat placed on your shoulders, weighing you down. The problem is that you don't pick when it will come. It's just there. It is unlike depression, where you can feel so bleak, yet to some extent choose how you respond to that bleakness or you can do things to work through or take medication. Grief is not like that. Grief hides inside until your seams are bursting and then it flows out. Sometimes you don't even know that you have grief that needs to come out. It has been three months since my friend Laura died. Oh yes! I do rejoice that she no longer has cancer! I rejoice that she is in Heaven! I rejoice that I will see her again one day! How could I not rejoice over those things? But I am sad and my heart is aching for the loss of her presence in my life here and now. Over the last few months I think I have just been in survival mode with my husband's health, addressing my son's grief over his loss of Laura and just getting through the day to day. I talked about it in little bits here and there. I have been emailing Laura's daughter. But, for the most part my grief had been pushed aside. Apparently yesterday, the dam burst and it all came spilling out. I am still crying today. People say crying doesn't help, but I beg to differ. There are times when words can do nothing...and in those times tears wass that pain out of my soul. They physically release the emotional pain. I never realized how intertwined in my daily life Laura was. I saw her usually twice a week...Mondays with the kids and Thursdays for our Precept Bible studies. In between times I could reach her by phone. And in the last year as she did treatments etc, I wrote her and we talked on the phone. She even babysat a couple times so that hubby and I could have a date! WOW! What a concept! LOL In a busy world where I often feel unnoticed and exhausted, she took notice of me, she loved me in so many practical ways and she gave of herself. I hope that some day I can be that to another woman. If you want to know more about Laura I did write a tribute to her in September 2006 and it can be found in the archives.

Why are we so afraid in our culture to talk about grief? I don't know. I'm taking a guess that we are all uncomfortable with our own death and as a society we have not learned how to embrace death as a part of life as some cultures have. For whatever reason, I do think it is unhealthy to stash our grief.

Oddly enough, I am not miserable in my tears. You may read this and think it is weird. It is somewhat embarrassing to write about it. But maybe someone out there needs to read this and have a good cry or release their grief in another way.

I was paging through a scrapbook magazine recently, but can't remember which one. I saw a layout where a person released 57 pink balloons for every year that their friend had lived. I'm guessing she died of breast cancer, hence the pink balloons. It made me smile as I thought how much fun it would be to release purple balloons for Laura. She would have gotten a kick out of that! :o) She would have done that with me. Maybe I need to get her daughter to do this with me!

On the way home I stopped at Berean Christian Store to get an Advent wreath and while I was there I found a refrigerator magnet. It has a purple/pink butterfly with the verse from Proverbs that says a friends loves at all times. Laura and I shared a love of purple and of butterflies and so that is going to be my reminder...my memory marker for a beautiful friend. I am so glad God put her in my life! And I am so thankful for the wonderful influence she has been on my children. After letting out all those tears (do you think you can lose weight this way?! LOL), I feel I can begin to journey onward, as I know Laura would want me to do.

So, at the end of the day, I wiped my tears. I powdered my nose. And I went on to the next party! My church had a fun Christmas party with a white elephant exchange. It was a lot of fun with much laughter and some more fattening goodies! :o) After all the crying and thinking the time was an hour later, I could have easily stayed home...but it was good to go and laugh. I found when Andy died (my stepdad who raised me), that laughter is also key in the grieving process. Well, a white elephant exchange is good for a belly laugh. I don't even know who actually did end up with that spinning photo holder...it was passed around more times than I can count! LOL It was definitely THE gift of the evening!

Today is the first day of Advent and I missed it at church because the girls were sick and I stayed home with them. We decided this is something we want to incorporate into our Christmas tradition so that our kids will know what is important.

Phew! Congratulations if you made it this far! :o)