Climbing to the light

I am approaching the two year mark from the beginning of this scary and disturbing journey, and I am trying to take stock.  February 13 marks two years since Storm’s suicide.  

The first thing that comes up for me are the differences in my life.  My life is dramatically different than it was with Storm.  When Storm was alive, I spent my time working or I spent my time with Storm.  We had an insatiable need to be with one another, since it was such a joy to fill the missing parts in one another.  We set each other first, in all things, and sought each others company constantly.

I spend my time these days with my daughters, or grandchildren, or studying and learning, or with friends and family.  I have friends, real friends, which is a big shift from where I once was.  I think I value my family even more highly, though I thought I valued them very highly at the beginning of this mess.  

My work life is different.  I don’t go to work at a fast-paced job where I am expected to turn away from my home life at a moment’s notice and give myself over to the religion of my job.  I no longer feel a pressure to conform to the happy, happy, joy, joy atmosphere, and to be positive even when it sucks, even when I am hurting or miserable or totally un-valued as a human.   I’m satisfied at the end of every work day.  I spend my days at work reading the Bible and assisting people trying to serve our mutual Elohim, and I spend my volunteer hours serving the church that I love, and that loves me.  

I live a life full of gratitude.  Great gratitude.  As I look around my world and see the influence of Yah on all the things that I touch, I am even more grateful.  I have my home because I obeyed the promptings he gave me.  I have my family close by because I have tried to employ the gentle spirit he has put inside of me.  I have friends because I obey the promptings he gives me to love others.  Just love them right where they are.  

I think the addition of real friends, people who come to my house, talk to me on the phone, sit across from me at a table, listen to me cry out my anguish and confusion, remind me to walk in His faith, is the most startling thing of all.  I don’t consider myself very likable.  I’m sure this hearkens back to a time when I was a bit of a bitch.  I had hardened myself to the impact that my words had on others, and now when I am with people, I cannot help but to feel the pain that is inside of most of us.   Now I pray every day to be a blessing to my friends, family, and to the people I touch in the world.  More than any other thing I want to be a shining light, so that everyone who looks into my life will say, “She’s a child of Yahweh.”  Not for my glory but for His, so that He will be lifted up for the great works he’s committed in my life. 

I was talking to a friend recently about the experience of grief and pain.  How Yah allows us to be dropped in a pit; to shake up our lives until only the unshakable remains.  In those moments, we stand down at the bottom of the pit, and stare up at the light, we are waiting only for Him to drop the rope so that we might begin to climb out.  We have no distractions, no other desire but to stand in the sunlight.

Until very recently, I got stuck on my way out.  I was hanging there, dangling, uncertain about whether I should continue climbing up, or whether I should just drop back down to the bottom.  The sunlight was tantalizingly close, yet I couldn’t seem to get over that hump.

Now I find myself with a couple of friends who are giving me a hand up.  They are pulling me into the sunlight, helping me to not only see it, but to feel it on my face.  I didn’t expect that, but I am delighted.  I hunger for the brethren of my faith, and the fellowship I had done without for so long.  Both men and women, and I am so grateful to know them all. 

I have opened myself up to love in whole new ways, and I have been so enriched by my experience with it.  There are people that I have met that entirely impress me every time I talk to them.  I come away feeling like I have stepped into the presence of greatness.  When I am with these people, I’m always thinking I am about to learn something new, or hear something I really needed to hear.  The most amazing, healing things come out of their mouths, and I am just in awe of them.  If you are reading this and you have been my friend, thank you for being who you are. 

More than anything else, I feel daily that I am walking in the footsteps of the Father.  He is my friend, and my front and rear guard, and I pray daily that he allows me to bless him that very day.  That is my fondest hope.  That I can bless my father in some way every single day.  Nothing is better than that. 

I have also felt the grief easing these past recent months.  Part of it is the joyous friendships and kind people I have been exposed to.  When I’m with some people, I just don’t feel like crying.  More of it is the father, easing it up in me, showing me the path to healing and to goodness and to taking care of myself.  Of understanding that depriving myself of companionship and friendship will not improve my world in any way.  

I also cry a lot less.  A lot.  These past few months, especially, I have felt the need for tears ease away, and the space filled with a sort of joy I didn’t know existed in the world.  

Things that have improved are my cooking.  I’ve tried to convert to a mostly vegetarian diet for the primary reason that I don’t want to kill anything.  I’ve had to figure out how to feed myself good food.  I am learning how to cook the most amazing things.  I am literally going to be able to keep myself alive through my garden this year.  I no longer stand in the fridge, crying for myself.  I stand in the fridge, just a little excited by what is going to come out of that fridge and what I’m going to make for myself.

I’ve also realized that it’s time to get my s**t together.  My family uses this expression when a loved one needs to figure out their priorities, and start doing things right.  I started paying random debts this past month.  It’s a little toward it every month, but it’s getting paid off and removed my from credit a little at a time.  I have been not very good at adulting.  There is a lot of incomplete projects, clutter, messes and generally incomplete things that I must get moving on.  I love my family very much, but they can’t do everything for me.  I must start moving myself through this world to succeed at anything.  So I’ve started checking the dates on the car tag and making sure the insurance gets paid and walking regularly and eating right.  

A friend pointed out that I shouldn’t really call myself broken anymore.  He rightly stated that a broken item didn’t function anymore, and that generally, I do.  I drive, make decisions, go to work, pay bills, buy food, and all the things that grown ups do.  I love in relationship and have deep, sometimes unhappy feelings, because one cannot have a rich relationship life without both sides of the coin.  I’ve decided that logically he’s right.  I don’t think I’ll be calling myself broken anymore, though I’m sure I will still have broken days. 

Spring is coming after the end of a very cold and very miserable winter.  I look forward to putting my roses in the ground, and loving them where they belong.  I look forward to putting my trees in the ground, and beginning to let them grow.  I want to put my garden together, and dig a new firepit.  I want to watch the tomatoes come out of the ground, and watch the herbs begin, and stand in my backyard and eat the peas in the sunset, like I did in another life with Storm.  I’ll never forget looking up at him in the dappled twilight, and kissing his lips when they tasted like fresh vegetables.  Oh, how I love that man.  

I try not to hang on to the past.  I want to leave it behind, but I have wanted to leave the pain of all of this behind from the beginning.  I have been climbing to the sunshine, and I think it’s coming closer, I think I am almost there.  There are great scars on my inside; ugly things that cost me dearly, and which I’m certain will never fully fade.  May Yah heal me, nevertheless, and let the pain of them subside.

I’ll never forget what Storm did, or what I saw, or how badly it hurt me.  Sometimes I think back to that first horrible week, and I wonder how I survived any of it.  It just kept getting worse, and I was too broken to function.  I am so grateful that the Father immediately dunked me into a world full of love, and has rocked me in his arms ever since.  

I’ve tried not to make a holiday out of Storm’s death date.  I truly have tried.  The problem is, I can’t pretend it won’t hurt at all.  I think I will go visit my wonderful grandbaby, and his parents, and maybe we’ll have a Shabbat together, play some games, watch a movie, and be close to one another. 

I have that Monday off, and I will stay home and try not to cry, though I am sure that I will.  Becca intends to take me to dinner that night, and I will go and try to make the best of it.  Either way, I am prepared for the day to be whatever, and I won’t PLAN on it being a bad day.  I will cast it into the Father’s hands, and trust him to give me grace and favor.

I see that I am naturally being pleasant, trying to see the bright side, and yet still there is a great big hole in my life.  A loss of the things that can never be returned.  A sense of loss and regret that spurs me to be nice to people, and to say the good things that maybe others won't.  There are days without Storm when I still feel so lost.  I have lost my sense of direction, and space, and societal etiquette.   I still feel awkward in a room full of people, because he's not there to be my guide and lead me in the way I should go. I flounder over decisions because making decisions alone feels off balance and unnatural.   Yet, decision make I must, and more and more of them daily.

I used to read a Shel Silverstein book to the girls called, "Missing piece."  That's now me, running around the world, looking for my missing piece.  Unfortunately, I know I will never find it again.   I don't cry as much as I used to, praise you, Yah, but I still get my tears in.  Usually when I am tired and feeling lonely and frustrated.  I intend to go to group this month.  I am sure I need to spit some things out, and maybe I can help somebody. 

I have, most importantly, been moving myself to fulfill my passion of helping others go to Israel.  The feeling of walking hand-in-hand with the Father each moment, of standing in the presence of ancient whispers and ancient memories.  In America, nothing is ancient.  Everywhere we look the world is new.  

In Israel, the entire world around us is full of the ancient, their bones whispering words of the past.  Everywhere you look are words springing out to you from the Bible, place names that seem like abstract stories in a book that seems even the more real for standing there.  Most importantly, seeing Yah’s prophecy come to life right in the streets around makes you feel like a part of history is happening through you, right that moment, and a bigger picture of the world starts to grow inside of you.  

Either way, I find I am turning my heart toward this, which is wonderful for me. It distracts me from my pain and the gaping hole inside of me, and fills me with hope in a way I never thought possible.  

May Yah continue healing me and bringing me closer to him in faith and light.  I long to be healed of the afflictions of my heart and soul.  Shalom.