Another day...

Going to group often gets me thinking about new things. One of the things that I began to think about this week was the gray. The gray of my life.

The ladies that run the suicide survivors group have seen me struggle through this from almost day one. The other night one of them mentioned how I've been through so many transitions and highs and lows, but as I look back at it, while I certainly see why they're saying it to me, it's all just gray; another day without him.

That's what most days are. I will say that not all days are like that. When my grandchildren were here, for instance, my memories are very colorful and exciting, though I admit not all of them are happy. The day we scattered Storm's ashes seems very blue in my memory, as the sky at the ocean was clear and bright.

I remember the struggles. I remember the raging anger. I remember the crying fits, and the frustration, and all of the uncertainty, and yet still, looking back at it now, it just seems gray. Another day without him. I remember the victories. I remember the day I bought my house, and the very first day I woke up here, and the day the paint went on.  I remember my trip to Alaska, and that seems colorful, yet still they were all just days without him.

I don't understand people who can move on quickly after losing their spouse. The Bible says that a man and a woman cleave together and become one. Based on that principle, losing Storm meant losing half of myself. The hole that leaves behind is tremendous. It's a Storm-shaped hole, and any relationship I would try to get into at this time would be me just trying to shove someone else into that hole. It's not about moving on getting over it. It's about accepting the natural pain that Yahweh has given me in the wake of losing half of my life. He made us to cleave together, so he intended for it to hurt when the separation came. I accept that. I understand that he is refining me in the fire. I accept the pain he's given me, and I don't pretend that it doesn't hurt me. Nothing will ever fill this hole, but I have hope that Yahweh will one day see fit to heal it.

I think I will know that I've reached the point of healing when it doesn't hurt quite so much. I think I might know that I've reached a point of healing when I can look back and see more than just another day without him.

On another note, I think I've decided how to memorialize Storm. I thought about it carefully. I'm not a person to do things the way other people do them just because that's the way it's done. Storm would not have appreciated a traditional memorial, such as a headstone or park bench. I thought about getting a park bench that said, "In memory of Storm Treasure. He hated everyone." While the idea makes me laugh, it doesn't seem like the right thing to do.

Sometime probably next year I will need to start the process of putting my 23 rosebushes in the ground. One of those rosebushes is the clone of the rose that provided the inspiration for Storm beginning to call me Rose. I spread his ashes, but I saved a little back for myself. At the time, I couldn't actually tell you why I did that. Now, I know. When I plant that specific rose, I am going to dig a deep hole and I'm going to put his ashes in the bottom. Then I'm going to plant that particular rosebush over the top. I am literally going to let Storm Treasure be a part of his own legacy of love to me.

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.

Beach retreat

Tomorrow is Storm's birthday. He would have been 41. My seventh wedding anniversary was Thursday. I use to take time off every year from the 26th of December until the last possible day I could get off. Storm and I would spend that time together, renewing our relationship, playing and making love and wasting money and time. I called it my "Stormcation," and we both looked forward to it every year.

This week has been a challenge. I know that the Father has blessed me from the very first day that Storm made the choice to leave me alone. His blessings are so obvious and so strong, I walk around this world constantly waiting for the next minor miracle, and constantly looking for the next blessing that Yahweh is going to bring me. I know that my heart is healing, and that my grief is improving, and I see that through His love, Adonai is not only refining me in the fire, he is sending me comfort, healing, and wisdom to survive the effects of this experience.

Strangely enough, even Storm's lack of company at Christmas made me sad. I haven't celebrated Christmas in 15 years, and that's exactly why. Storm didn't celebrate it either, long before he ever met me. He didn't keep any of the pagan days, because of the hypocrisy they represented, and not so much anything to do with religion. We would hole up together, and ignore the entire world.  We were like anti-Christmas refugees huddled together in our tinsel free home waiting for the carols to stop, please STOP. This was the first year in nine years that I sat at home alone.  I suppose I'll get used to it again.

In a few hours, I'm going to get in my car and spend two days at a beach house with only some canine company. I don't know what this is going to accomplish, except to give me an opportunity to cry by myself and to get some fresh air and exercise for both me and Bear.

The mercy here for me is that all of our important days all pretty much happen in the same four-month span. Our real anniversary in November, our civil anniversary in December, his birthday in January, and his death date in February.  That leaves two thirds of the year that I don't have to worry about. Not sure if my sarcasm is obvious enough, but I look forward to the day when I realize that I've gotten through to February and I don't feel like going back to bed that day.

I'm not sure there's a point to this particular blog post. I've had a hard time concentrating my thoughts this week, and have found myself coming under spiritual attack both physically and emotionally. The positive to this is that I have spent a great deal of time in prayer, and I have had no choice but to fall back on to Yahweh and let him do my thinking for me. The negative is that I'm not very successful at life, generally speaking.  The added complication of the spiritual attack and the emotional exhaustion are insuring my failure at life.

On the subject of love: my good friend Jules said something about me finding another someday. Lately, several people have mentioned that. I'm not sure I'm ever going to be interested in a serious non-platonic relationship with any man, ever again. Paul tells us in Scripture that if one is not married, and can control themselves, then they should stay unmarried. I see the benefits of single life, though I often miss married life.

See, the thing is, I don't think I make a very good wife. Looking at the matter objectively, I was married and divorced twice before meeting Storm.  I can't cook, I have virtually no domestic skills of any kind except baking. I tried to be the best possible wife that I could be for Storm.  He asked me once to tell him how I viewed my ideal of the perfect wife. Together, we read Proverbs 31. When I was done reading, he looked at me in all seriousness and said, "My Rose, you are already all of these things." Apparently not because he's dead, and I helped him get there.

All that I ever wanted to be was an amazing wife for Storm.  I wanted his life to be so good, and I wanted to give him everything. I failed.

On the subject of love, I think I'm just fine by myself, thanks. If my God decides to change that, I'll reevaluate. 

I hope this fog of grief and pain lets up next week. I hate the way this feels. I want to recover from this, I want my heart to heal, I want to move forward into a new life instead of being weighted down by the old one. Yeshua said, "let the dead bury the dead." That's what I want to do.

I think what I would like to gain from this weekend is a little bit of closure, and a little more perspective. I want to be healing, and I want to say goodbye. I want to turn my back on this. I want to turn the page on this chapter in my book, and start on something new. I hope Yahweh does a great work in me. I would like to leave my anger and a huge portion of guilt and a whole lot of pain sitting there on that beach. I like to think about it getting washed out with the tide. Maybe I'll build a sandcastle, name it anger guilt pain and grief, and then stand there until the ocean drags it out. Probably, it's going to be entirely too cold for that. It is Oregon, after all. Most likely, I'm going to sit in the window and watch the waves while I drink tea. :-)

Thank you to anybody who actually reads these. May Yahweh bless you, and may we all find shalom.

Brownies and society-an anniversary alone

Tomorrow would have marked nine years that Storm and I had been together. Today, I am missing him.

I found myself at a social gathering on Friday evening. I don't often find myself at social events that are not family-based. I typically feel so awkward and out of place that I simply long for home. This was really no different.  As I was standing there trying to decide if I should go first or last, awkwardly waiting for some social cue, it occurred to me that I wouldn't have felt that way if Storm had been there.

Storm instinctively understood some things about me. He understood that I was not good at society. I stood there and thought about how he would have taken the lead, he would've directed me, he would've asked all the questions, carried the conversation, and he probably would've made my plate. In that moment, I wanted to cry. I had to go to the bathroom, had to take a minute. I really wanted to go home right then, but I stayed and managed to make it through dinner. I think I probably smiled in the right places, and I don't think I made a huge mess out of my food. I didn't break anything, and I probably even said the right things at the right time since I don't remember anyone looking at me like I'm crazy. Nevertheless, I escaped as soon as I could politely get away.

That same sort of memory had me crying over a pan of brownies tonight. I began cutting a chunk out and it was on the corner. Storm used to eat all of the edges of every cake or brownie substance that came through the house. He did this because one time I told him that I preferred the middle pieces, and he decided I should never have to eat a crust again. As soon as something came out of the oven, and was cool enough to handle, he would cut off all the edges and leave me only the middle.  It's been some time since something so silly has inspired a crying fit. I guess I was due.

Tomorrow I will not have time to wallow. I don't take time to wallow, because I don't like wallowing. Aside from that, I have responsibilities and Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.

Immediately after Storm's death, getting out of bed in the morning was the hardest thing. More than once, I went back to bed. I didn't have the luxury of wallowing then, either, so I would get up, and stand at the front window, and pray, "This is the day that you have made, Yahweh. Please help me to rejoice and be glad in it." 

I hope tomorrow is not that kind of day. I hope that I wake up and forget all about November 24th. Since that is not actually likely to happen, I pray that Yah will help me be glad and rejoice in it. 

Shalom.

9 Months

Last night I shared my experience, and listened to the experiences of others at the once monthly suicide survivors support group put on by our local Hospice.  I have been to the group several times before, but have missed meetings lately due to the fact that I’m too busy living life, which is better than crying. 

There were a couple of conversations that stuck to me.  Often things will go with me from the meetings, and I quite often pray over others that I meet there, but rarely do I take anything home that gets the hamster in my brain running on his wheel.  Last night was the exception. I can still feel him in there, squeaking away on that thing.   I think I need to get it out so the freaking hamster will find something else to do.

The first conversation was regarding the cause of suicide.  A quick aside: I know that not all suicides are the same, and that everyone is unique.  I also know that it’s hard to hear something about a loved one that seems less than complimentary to them.  However, I have to deal with this my way, and I will try to be respectful to others dealing with this their way.  This is my way.

I started quite the conversation by saying, “Suicide is caused by mental illness.  Everything else is a contributing factor.” This seemed to help the man I was saying it to, but two people in the room objected.  I’m glad they did.  Not ALL suicides are caused by mental illness, but I would amend it to say ALMOST ALL suicides are caused by mental illness.  I wish I had been able to explain but since one of the people who seemed most reluctant to talk opened up about it, and that was good, I decided to let it go, and let him talk.

If I had been able to explain, I would have said this: “Self-preservation is one of the strongest forces in human behavior, and to override that takes not only a tremendous amount of courage (I may expand on that another time, so please don’t get hung up on it)but it also requires overriding one’s most basic self-preservation instincts.  To override that, one has to NOT be in their right mind. 

“It brings me comfort to think of it that way.  Mental illness isn’t the fault of the person who is suffering from it.  It’s like a cancer.  It makes them ill, and it causes them to act ill, they want to die.  Sometimes they seem to get better.  It goes into remission.  Sometimes, they really are better.  But often, it comes back.  Sometimes, it’s terminal.  In other words, it really wasn’t their fault.  Really.”  

In those harsh, bitter days immediately following Storm’s suicide, my world was filled with questions.  My questions mostly remain unanswered.   This one I do have an answer for now:

               Q: Why?
               A: Because he couldn’t help it.

In the immortal words of Forest Gump; “That’s all I have to say about that.”

The other matter was regarding something I didn’t speak on, but I watched and listened.  There was a mom and her mom there, and they were talking about marking a son’s suicide date every year.  They were talking about the various different ways they were doing it each year.  They seemed so worn out and tired from it. 

I don’t think I’m going to do that.  I don’t think I want to.  

February 13^th is going to suck.  Make no mistake.  I’m probably going to cry, and I’m probably going to eat chocolate, and have a movie marathon, and stay in my jammies all day, use a whole box of tissues.  I might even let the dogs on the couch.  That day is never not going to be what it is.

However, the biggest part of my struggle with all of it has been fighting through the anger and betrayal to be able to just grieve the man I knew.  Storm was an amazing human being.  He was my southern fried Aussie redneck.  In public, he was who he was at home.  He was loud, rude, obnoxiously honest, and way too free with his opinion.  He was angry, and bitter, and not afraid to use that energy to control the environment around him.  He could make himself the center of attention in an instant, and then disappear so thoroughly in a crowd that even I had to search to find him.  He was larger than life, and people were drawn to him for reasons I am sure I will never understand.

Out of the public eye, he was all of those things, but he was also Rose’s Storm, my husband.  He loved me in an unreasonable way.  It was uncompromising and unflinching and bared open for the world to see.  No one who ever met him didn’t know he was married to his Rose within 5 minutes of meeting them, because I never left his mind or his lips.  At home he put me first, always.  He tended to me, to use his words.  He asked if I was hungry, did I need a drink, is something wrong, would you like a hug, Love?  In fact, he spent half of his days some days asking me how to make me happy.  One neighbor said we talked to each other like we were in a movie because we spent so much time speaking our love out loud.

That’s the man I want to remember.  That’s the what I want to commemorate.  Not the last few unfortunate minutes of our life together, but the other eight years of love and kindness and friendship.  I want to mourn HIM, celebrate HIM, miss HIM, and his presence and his person, and not focus in on the last thing he ever did.  

Right now, I’m not sure what I will doing February 13^th.  It’s a still a ways away, and I have some living to do before then.  I tell you what I won’t be doing February 13^th.  I won’t be setting any balloons loose, or releasing Chinese lanterns, or liberating any butterflies. I don’t judge anyone who does so.  I just don’t think that’s how I want to cope.  I hope I’m doing something so amazing and so incredible that I don’t even care that it’s February 13^th.   I don’t intend to turn it into a personal holiday.   

What I’m going to do is celebrate his life.  I’m going to celebrate his birthday, every year, no matter where I am or what I am doing.  Every year.  January 3^rd.  I’m going to buy a bottle of whiskey, and every year on his birthday I’m going to drink a shot to him and toast him with anyone nearby who’s willing to drink with me.  I’m going to try to make it a good day, and try to do things he would have enjoyed, but mostly, I’m going to think about his life, and not his death.

You see, I would like to believe that the heavy importance of February 13^th will start to fade some day.  I don’t want to define the rest of my life by that day.  I never want to forget Storm Treasure.  Hell, like anybody ever could forget Storm Treasure. :D  What I do want is for it to fade.  One year, eventually, I’d like to totally forget it’s February 13^th.  I never want to forget January 3^rd. 

Ultimately, I am most grateful to my father, Yahweh, who pulls me up each day, and helps me to rejoice that each day is his.  He hears this widow’s prayers, and he has put a light on the path to healing.  I am grateful for the level of healing that I have reached in a very short amount of time.  I am grateful that he forces me to look at things honestly and never compromise to soften the truth.  I am also grateful that he is kind to me, and sends me comfort and friends and smiles and chocolate.  Lots of chocolate.  Most importantly, he sends me wisdom, often from the mouths of others.  May we all find shalom.

Today I went to a memorial of a woman that I barely knew.  I listened to the lovely things her friends and family had to say, and I admired a woman that had such a profound effect on those around her.  Though I'm cordial with her husband, I can't say I know him well.   I went because my god told me to be there, and because I wanted to show my support.

It wasn't long after I began going to my little Baptist Hebrew Roots church this year that I heard that the wife of the associate pastor, who I only knew by name, was ill. I think I met her one time.  In fact, I'm certain she wouldn't have known who I was.  She passed away early on Friday morning, leaving a quite obviously large and aching hole in the lives of those who loved and were impacted by her love and her faith.

I can't help thinking how rough this past Shabbat must have been for her husband.  Storm died at 4:16 on a Friday morning.  I had  survived that Friday, full of well-meaning huggers and kind visitors and loving people who, with complete sincerity, spoke to me the platitudes they have learned to say when someone dies.  I had talked to the people who had to be talked to.  I had made the phone calls I had to make.  I had answered the police and the neighbors and the questions and the dogs scared looks and the phone over and over again.  Night finally came that Shabbat, ending that worst day, and for the first time in 23 years I dreaded a Sabbath.

Waking up that day was waking to the second worst day of my life.  A few bright spots were in the day.  My daughter brought us breakfast, and her father-in-law brought Malachi, and he brought sunshine to my heart.  The day improved, and so did my life.  But that first full morning, that first Shabbat sunrise, the whole day looked like a bleak desert of empty time.  It was the first day I remember looking out the window at the sun, too bright and shiny when I hurt so much inside, and saying out loud, "This is the day you have made, Yahweh.  Please help me to rejoice and be glad in it."  He heard my prayer that day, and the many, many mornings I would say it after that.  I realized today that I no longer say that in the morning.  Each day starts with a soft, purring cat, and is full of work and service and joy and great blessings, and there is no time for me to wallow in pain and trauma and grief.  Life is short, and it is for living.

My church is like homecoming for me.  I still mostly try to make myself small, and still mostly feel out of place, like a single gray chick among the yellow ones.  I walked away from church and church fellowship many years ago; I was a gray chick even then.  My belief grew and changed and I developed my dogged determination to learn and obey Torah.  I had searched for congregations, and had given up.  The only reason I went to Cornerstone that day was because the father impressed upon me I needed prayer, and I remembered this church kept a Sabbath meeting.  I went and received the prayer, and then the message, and then the food; all nourishment to my broken soul. I tried to be small and invisible, and the Father mostly let me. I thought I would only go the once.   Somehow, I found myself waking up again and again on Shabbat morning, and making my way to the little church, and trying to be invisible in the pew.  Each week I felt a little better, a little more equipped, and a little more in awe of my god.  Each week I received something that helped me gain insight into the past week, and to get through the next, and it was all nourishment to my soul.  I'm sure the Father saved my heart through this church, and it might have even saved my life.  I have come to love these people, and their beautiful hearts.  

Today, watching these folks who love Torah so much express their love for this woman made me love them even more, and helped me realize once again how very blessed I am to have found them.  I realize how much I love the air in my lungs, and the feel of the cold against my skin, and the sound of a room full of people fellowshipping in His name.  I realized how much I love my soft cat, and my warm bed, and my quiet life, even if it isn't the life I would have chosen.

I am constantly humbled that Yah hears my prayers, and that he sees me at all.  The knowledge that this IS the day that Yah has made, and he wants us to rejoice and be glad in it has driven me from bed morning after morning, and the knowledge that I would be embraced in his love through my fellow servants in him helped me to rejoice in it at least once a week.  Yah has created something in the Torah that is more than just words and laws and rules; it is the framework of his love for us.  It is the embodiment of the caring and kindness he shows toward us every day, and it is the medicine that helps the grieving recover, and the brokenhearted to find healing.  Psalm 119 is all about the glorious blessing of the Torah.  Vs. 50-51 This is my comfort in my affliction, For Your word has given me life.  The proud have utterly scorned me, I did not turn aside from Your Torah.  Also vs. 93 says: Let me never forget Your orders, For by them You have given me life.    My favorite is 165: Great peace have those loving Your Torah, And for them there is no stumbling-block.   By believing in Torah, I knew what I was going to do that first Shabbat; rest.  The same as I have done every one since, and before it.  Resting. Though I dreaded the long day without Storm, I took comfort in knowing what to do that day.  I rested in Torah, in my grief, and in my Father.  I know that, whatever horrible things might happen in life, the rules have already been established at the foundations of creation.  All that I have to do is obey them, and Yah will take care of the hard stuff for me.    

I saw that same faith in the husband tonight.  I saw the grief, the pain, and that familiar feeling of "what am I supposed to do with myself now?"  But I also saw that framework of Torah.  That knowledge that whatever pain and sorrow life may bring, there is such a blessing in knowing that the guidelines for what to do are already in our hearts.  That faith that the Father has set his will into place, has spoken the creation into being, and he has spoken his law into being, and it is very good, and it will comfort and bring peace.

Maybe that is what I was there for; to see a mirror.  To see my own faith in Yahweh's Torah reflected back in the face of another believer who has lost that which they had cleaved to them and now find their love bleeding out.  To see the reflection of myself nine months ago reinforces where I am now in recovery.  Maybe I dunno.  I do try to understand, but I mostly try to obey.

Nobody wants my advice, but if I were to give it to a new widow or widower in faith, I would say this: Yah sees you.  He knows your pain, and he will bless you.  He will lead you out of this time of darkness and into the light, because the darkness has not overcome the light.  Just obey, and keep your faith, and it will be rewarded.  THIS is the day that Yah has made.  Yes, even THIS day; the one where the most important person in your life died, is his.  Try to rejoice and be glad in it.  I would tell them it gets better, and to take care of themselves, because they are the temple of Yah.

May Yahweh bring this family shalom.  May he hold them in their loving arms.  May he help them rejoice in every day.  May he remind me to pray for them daily.

Amen.