My Wagon

Ever since Storm died I haul this wagon behind me everywhere I go. No one else can see it, but it's there. It is one of those large, garden style wagons with removable sides and the large, inflatable wheels. Inside of that wagon lives all kinds of heavy, painful things to pull through this life.

Inside of that wagon is my guilt. My guilt is pretty big. My guilt is not irrational. I was there. I participated in Storms suicide. He did this to himself, so I will not carry that guilt, but I contributed. That's the heaviest thing in my wagon. That bogs me down.

There are balls of regrets rolling around in my wagon, all different sizes, making irritating sounds as I trundle along. I regret working extra hours when I should have stayed in bed with Storm. I regret every single argument. I regret every single harsh word. I regret every single second that I chose to do something that wasn't involving him. Regret upon regret upon regret, clanging together, setting my teeth on edge.

There's a big block of grief in there. Whenever it's not sitting on my chest making it hard for me to breathe it acts as the anchor weight in my wagon. It's very heavy. There are days it's so heavy I have a hard time getting out of bed. Sometimes I think it weighs a little less, but then I realize I was just going downhill for a minute, and then I feel the weight of it again as I start back uphill.

There are lots of little golden memories shifting around the bottom. Sometimes they are like bright little lights which jingle merrily, sometimes they are more like tarnished little bells, Still making pretty sounds but losing their luster. Sometimes they're just like old photographs, flat and interesting, but having no real weight. Some of them are ugly little stones that rattle about in an irritating way. They usually have the effect of making me smile, so I leave them there and pick out one of my favorites now and again when I need a little encouragement.

As I tug my little wagon through each day new pains and losses and heartbreaks and memories get piled on top. Sometimes things fall out, but I rarely feel the weight diminish. Most things eventually begin to shrink over time, becoming smaller and less weighty, shrinking to becoming only memories, tinkling around the bottom, bumping up against the more immediate matters.

I've become so accustomed to my little wagon that I sometimes forget it's back there. I get up and I go on with my day and my brain doesn't acknowledge the rattles and boinks and chimes and clangs. My legs don't feel quite so heavy, my burden doesn't feel quite so large. Then something will remind me. A word, a song, the smell of a grilled cheese sandwich, an empty beer can on the sidewalk. Then I will glance behind me and see it again, and I hear it's clamor, and I wonder how I forgot.

We all have baggage. Nobody gets through life without emotional bumps and bruises and scars, and we usually carry some of that with us. When I was very young, it felt like a small purse. I had emotional pains, but they had their place and were carefully organized. Before Storm's suicide it was a modest backpack. It was present, solid, and generally there, but often forgotten. Now it's my wagon rattling down the road, my ever present shadow to follow along with me in this life.

I walk on in the hope that the guilt and pains and sorrows of the past year will begin to shrink and diminish. I hope they will begin to lose weight, and to become memories, and be replaced by lighter, more joyful events like grandbabies milestones and the little victories of life.

One way or the other way will all make it to the end. I just hope I show up there with a backpack and not still dragging my wagon.

Shalom

Year One

I have attempted to write this post several times. Somehow, when I read it back, it never seems to say what is in my heart. Isn't that the point of this after all?

Yesterday, February 13th, was the first anniversary of Storm's suicide. It wasn't a great day.

As I sit here, contemplating this past year, I keep comparing where I am with where I was, and I think I should rejoice; instead I want to cry.

Immediately after Storm's suicide, I had a hard time getting out of bed. It felt too hard. There wasn't any reason. Looking after my husband and working filled my entire world, and I had neither of those things. Yet, the Bible tells me to rejoice in my hardships, and I so badly want to obey The Word.

I began to get out of bed in the morning and stand in the kitchen window and pray, "This is the day that you have made, Yahweh, please help me to rejoice and be glad in it." Every day, I somehow managed to get out of bed and the Father in his glorious wisdom and grace has given me a reason to smile every single day.

Yesterday I cried. I cried for hours. I cried so much my throat hurts, and my head aches, and I'm completely exhausted. Eventually my children and grandchildren filled my world with laughter and sound until there wasn't any more room for tears. Praise Yahweh. The day improved.  Once again, I could rejoice and be glad.

As I sit here this morning my body aches, and yet I am glad for the tears. I'm not sorry that I cried half the day, because my sore throat will heal, and my stuffy head will clear. I don't ever think my broken heart will be unbroken. I think I'm just going to have to learn to live in this brokenhearted state.

I take two things away.

Yahweh is using this horrible experience to mold me into a better person. Amy Grant has a song where she says, "all I ever have to be is what You made me." Whoever I was that fateful night, I am a different person now. I think I am smarter, more compassionate, and less judgey.  I see the work the Father is doing and I realize how much it has changed me. I want to give myself over to it and to Him.  I am content to be alone on this journey of life, as no other man could fill this Storm-shaped hole inside of me, so I won't even seek to do so.  I am content in my solitude.  I will be comfortable to be alone and let Yah do the work he sees fit in me.

The second thing has to do with Storm.  A neighbor once told us that we spoke to one another as if we were in a movie. She said that because we were always saying good things about one another, and to one another. I would feel strange among my friends who complained about their husbands while I was saying how mine had done the dishes, washed the dogs, and we would be barbecuing that night. It seemed that whenever we spoke to one another, or about one another, all that came out was love and joy. Even after eight years we were so much in love that anyone who met us even when we were apart knew within ten minutes that we were married to one another because it was the first thing on one another's lips all the time.

This past year I've been very angry. Mostly, I try to keep that anger to myself. Sometimes, it has leaked out. Sometimes, it has gushed out. Yet as my heart gained distance from that painful event, and my understanding  has grown about depression and suicide, I find that my anger has diminished, and my compassion has grown.

Whatever Storm's reasons for turning a fight into a funeral, the very reason I feel so bitterly betrayed is because we were so incredibly happy together.  As my anger has twisted up inside of me I have found myself more commonly remembering the few unhappy times we had, and I have found myself once again feeling the bitterness and frustration I felt in those moments. I have caught myself speaking only those things that made me unhappy, and that is unfair, and wrong.

This year, I resolve to return to speaking of my husband in complementary ways. I resolve to do that not only in my outward speech but in my inward parts. I resolve to talk about all the ways that he was amazing, and all of the ways that he made my life better, and that he made me a better person.  Most importantly, I intend to speak often of his love for me, because it was so big and because it is a huge part of who I am today.

Storm Treasure was the most unique and amazing human being I've ever known, and my world is diminished without him. I intend to start living my life so that it will reflect my Father's face and be a credit to Him and to the love he gave me in Storm.