Reality.

The reality is that pain will suck the life out of you if you let it. Emotional pain is as draining as physical pain and I currently have both. Since Keith went to heaven, I have cried and I have laughed. I have moved forward and taken many steps backward. I’m crawling my way out now and it hurts. The pain in the pit of my stomach and the free-flowing tears seem endless.

The past week in our home has been a tough one. Our dear Abigail can’t see a picture of her papa without the tears streaming down her face saying, “I want papa to come back alive – I don’t want papa to be dead.” That starts her brother, Ben crying and doing the same – (he even woke up from a nap at preschool hysterical wanting his papa). The kids crying starts their mom crying and soon all 4 of us are crying together and I suppose that is healing in itself. Abby came into my bedroom last week and saw Keith’s picture on my nightstand and just held it and cried so hard. I told her to hold the picture – to kiss the picture because her papa can feel it that way. And when we hug his picture, he is hugging us back. Since then, I have printed the same picture and framed them for each of the kids.

This is hard living. Almost 11 months in hospice and waiting for the day that God would bring Keith home was difficult at best. My response to his death remains the same – I am so grateful that he is no longer suffering and I am even stronger in faith that God holds me also in His hands. But even God can’t take away the heart pain. I can reason with it, and accept it and embrace it even. And when I hold Keith’s photo I too feel comfort. When I pray, I feel comfort. I feel peace with Keith’s passing. So to feel worse today than I did when he died is puzzling to me. Monday will be 3 months that he’s been gone from me physically. 3 months is nothing when I had over twenty years with him. I replay our life together in my mind several times a day. I just miss him. That is all. I miss him.

I honestly didn’t think I’d get to the point I am at now, which is feeling sucker-punched. What is the difference between grief and depression? One gets better in time without medication? I feel like I am not keeping this promise that I made. “I will be okay” is what I told him. That was the day before he started physically dying. The record keeps playing on the end result. We knew for so long that Keith was going to die. We lived it, we breathed it and we slept with the knowledge that he would be going to a wonderful place called heaven. With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 2 Peter 3:8. This verse is what we held onto for many months. It will be tomorrow for him when we are spirits together once again, but 3 months for me has already been a lifetime. None of today’s pain is going to matter when it’s my time to leave this earth.

My good, happy and blessed memories are here and I need to concentrate on them. I will. I will get back to living life fully because I am a glass half-full kind of person, usually. Today the only thing filling that glass is tears. Vacation is two weeks away and I know the sun and laughter will be good for this aching soul.

Today I leave you with some thoughts as they leap across my heart.

Your love is eternal, for it lives within my heart
And though you’ve gone to heaven now, our souls will never part.
Some days the ache seems too much to bear
But if I close my eyes and calm myself, I almost feel you there.
I wake each day with thoughts of you and go to sleep the same
And when I dream at night, I want to hear you call my name.
I miss you more today than yesterday which seems so very odd,
But my love I know you are at peace in heaven with our God.

©TMS