“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”‘ Jeremiah 29:11

Baseball, once an island of competence, now an outlet for grief it seems. I’ve always thought that we pick comfortable, trustworthy spaces to vent our angst because they are safe. The eternal hope is that we will be loved even if we are unhappy. 

I can only pray this is so for Joe. I suspect baseball is a way to work out his feelings of what is fair in the world. His dad’s death could easily be translated into the injustice of life. Some see baseball as a metaphor for life; books have been written on such, here we are living it.

This grief thing is not for the faint hearted though it sure has a way of making me want to faint away. But You, Lord, You offer me hope and a way through.  I am confident You will defy all my expectations with Your mind-boggling beauty as You work in my family through this incredible time of dread.

Anne
Monday: 3/22/21

“I’m going off the rails on a crazy train…”

Ozzy Ozbourne

Walk- up baseball song

I am scattered and unfocused. Can anyone tell? I feel like I am wide open for all the world to see, laid bare, vulnerability leaking from every pore. My heart is somehow more raw than usual. I feel frail and shaky. Magnified sadness relentlessly building up all day.  My sensitivity quotient off the chart.

All conversations pierce me. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just regular conversation. 

“Talking about someone who divorced her husband after 25 years; so much time training him only to trade him in? You must be out of your mind to give up after 25 years”

…unless you are forced to…

“But how lovely it was to spend a bday by themselves; in a bed all to themselves”… lovely because they choose it; only because they can go home to their love

I am so raw, a quivering mess. Some days, I just wonder how this could be my life; missing Philip more than ever.

Anne

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom also He made the universe.”. Hebrew 1:1

And sometimes His Son then speaks through unexpected gifts like the show Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. My friend told me about it. How Zoe hears people’s inner thoughts expressed in Broadway show-like song and dance numbers. 

I, myself, think in song especially now during Phillip’s passing. I created a playlist after his cancer diagnosis full of songs that reminded me of him. And now since his death, I find myself processing most everything through those songs. 

The show, when described, seemed a lovely, even perfect, lighthearted, positive escape from my own reality. How was I to know that instead,  it would be a stepping stone through grief and not around it. 

Zoe, her family and friend, Simon, wrestle with the loss her dad and his. At first I was baffled. Why would anyone suggest to me a show about the untimely death of a dad? But I soon realized I needed this. Zoe and company, address the harsh realties of life with poignancy, candor and tenderness as they mirror some of my own journey.

This has been a perfectly timed balm for the harshness of my own reality.

It is good to see that God is still speaking.

Thank you, Marijo.

Anne
March 11, 2021

It has been a brutal day of erasing Philip from my life, at least that’s what it felt like. I really just began the process of erasing him from our accounts. It’s a hard reality but this farfeneugen paperwork has got to be done whether I feel like it or not.

It went pretty smoothly. Most people sent their condolences and made it easier. The timeshare in Philips’s name, however, pushed me to my dangerous edge. They require court appointed executorship paperwork, next of kin/in the will stuff doesn’t count.

The impenetrability of it was almost more than I could bear as my powerlessness came crashing in on me. “My mantle of Widowhood ought to count for something!” I screamed in my head. “How can you dismiss me so easily?”  I wanted to rant. I wanted to vomit all over the poor doing-her-job gal on the phone but I had enough leftover control to also know it wasn’t her fault even if I wanted it to be. 

I wanted someone to blame as if somehow it would make me feel better, less powerless. In the end and in the nick of time, I recognized that old trick and hung up before any uncertain inflammatory explicitives escaped.

Anne

Grieving is a b*#%!

March 16, 2021

I

And there it is, words for my elusive unknowing of the weekend:

“Do I speak or keep my silence? How do I tell the difference between righteous indignation and a world colored by the irritation of grief?”

Find completeness in Jesus. 

As I re-enter my life, I realize I haven’t been going as faithfully to my dirt field for my daily walks with my penny dogs. It’s clear that my perspective changes when I don’t plug into my power source. 

I still melted down before but then I was finding hope in the struggle as I focused on Jesus. He took the edge off it. Lately, though, I’ve been living under my circumstances instead. 

You know the old joke: 

One friend ask the other how she was doing and she replied, “Okay under the circumstances.” The friend answered back, “What are you doing under there?”

It is good to lament and cry and meltdown; to express all that is in my heart, but it is also good to trust the stability that Jesus gives so that I am not left there.

So, I’ve decided to take a few days off by myself while Barb will keep the home fires burning…

Anne

March 9, 2021

I am cranky and bothered. I can’t wrap my head around issues that melted me down yesterday. Issues that rile up my sense of fairness in the lives of those I love. I feel my discontent rising, expanding, clamouring for a voice…

Do I speak or keep my silence? How do I tell the difference between righteous indignation and a world colored by the irritation of grief?

And Jesus replies:

“LET ME HELP YOU through this day. The challenges you face are far too great for you to handle alone. You are keenly aware of your helplessness in the scheme of events you face. This awareness opens up a choice: to doggedly go it alone or to walk with Me in humble steps of dependence.”

(March 7: Jesus Calling)

And His truth begins to set me free.

Anne
March 7, 2021

When I write and share my story, raw as it sometimes is, my intent is to focus on the process of grief and not on the details of my circumstances. I can see how the details distract and become the story but that is not the intent.

The circumstances of my life are the canvas, if you will, on which to paint a deeper, inner unfolding. They are a means to explore what it means to be the one who survives in the age of Covid and loss.

Please see my heart. I don’t write to condemn myself or others along this path. I write to bring light and authenticity to both the ugliness and  the beauty of the journey.

Anne

March 7, 2021

I was consumed by my fear today. It was the first time I have seen my kid express any negative emotion since his dad’s death. His discouragement penetrated my own weakened defenses and I crumbled. Coming face-to-face with the reality that I am not a dad and never will be, made my world shake and fall.

Much to my dismay and, as is so often the case, instead of feeling the intensity, I covered it up with anger. My words were harsh and unkind and I ask all of you to accept my apology. 

In my misguided cry for help, I did have a champion.  He didn’t give me any of the words I deserved, but instead he simply told me that today would be okay.

It’s exactly what I needed to hear to move past my upending fear and believe; believe in the possibility that today could be okay and my family and me along with it.

Anne

March 6, 2021

I woke up feeling… able. Glorious morning. Got to baseball early, ran the well behaved dogs, was in my seat for first pitch. But it soon became clear what a trembling illusion it all was. I didn’t realize how heavily I’ve been counting on the strength of my sons to carry me through.

When coach blew up at my kid for being called out at home after an almost successful slide, it threatened my able-ness. My kid’s discouragement penetrated my own weakened defenses which only worsened when another player seemed to execute the same unsuccessful slide at home and was congratulated for his effort.

Philip would have told me I was overreacting and maybe I am but what am I to do? My own hold on reality is so tenuous what must it be like for Joe? He has a coach who, at best, is puzzling, in an angry sort of way, and he has no dad to hash it out with…

And, oh yeah, the target on the back of my head is fully activated. Another errant baseball  missed me by just a few feet. I need to get my helmet on…

Anne

March 6, 2021