Truth be told, the past week has been extremely tough for me, for daddy, for Rick . . . especially the past three days or so.  I mean, tough.

Pop has his reasons, which include most recently, Valentine’s Day.  He would always adorn the house with roses galore for mom and shower her with gifts on that special day, as she would him also, and then they’d go out to dinner simply as a token of their ethereal love for each other, but pop didn’t need a calendared day for that . . . mom also liked lilies on Fridays too.  After a particularly tough week while mom worked in the school system, he would surprise her with a bouquet of lilies delivered to the Central Office to celebrate her survival for that particular week.  I loved that about them, about my daddy, because mom was always a “fore-thought” in his mind.  He anticipated her needs and he acted upon them, but even more than that, he also knew what she wanted, what would make her happy and thrive in her world.  Beautiful flowers were good for her soul; he lovingly nourished and nurtured her soul throughout their marriage.  Even in her death, daddy has made sure that her burial plot at Guilford Memorial Park stays beautifully adorned.  Daddy took some breathtaking pictures that he will be sharing soon.  The beauty is so Lillie . . .

All of those memories dad pondered on Sunday . . . all alone.  Of course he went to church, so he was around people . . . but that’s not what I’m talking about. What’s sad is that the day got away from me, with my Black History play rehearsal that day after church and the impending snow – getting last minute items to prepare for it – I didn’t get a chance to talk with him to see how he was feeling.  I should have anticipated his loneliness and should have been there to shower him with gifts of love and adoration, not just in the absence of my mother, but simply because he’s my awesome father.  That day came and went like a vapor.  I can’t get it back, but I do praise God for redeeming that time on yesterday when we did get a chance to spend some time together, to reminisce and cry together.  We had a nice time and I did get to shower him a little bit ~~

For Rick, life’s challenges have been facing him too concerning his wife’s health, opportunities for the kids that are quite costly but awesome for their future, and then possible changes in his ministry.  Several days had gone by since we had a chance to talk, but again, God redeemed the time and allowed us to get caught up with each other yesterday only to find that we, the both of us, have been having the same types of “still/vacant” moments at random times during the day when we’d find ourselves suspended in time, remembering the last time we saw mom alive, and we were together with her at that time, to the dreaded day, just a few days/hours later, when she would be in a vegetative state until she breathed her last.  Hard.

For me, that has been the constant image in my mind.  The image of the shell of my mother in High Point Regional and then Forsyth Medical on October 26-27, breathing with a ventilator.  Daddy and I talked about that too yesterday . . . how she was really gone before the paramedics left the house late that Sunday night, on the 25th.  The ventilator was employed only to appease us, we all knew, yet we held onto the possibility for a miracle as we were all thinking/feeling it was much too soon for her to go home then, now.

That shell . . . her head slumped over on the bed and her mouth slightly gaping, like someone with palsy, and the tubes coming out of her nostrils that were connected to the ventilator giving us hope each time we’d see her chest heave up and down.  Hoping.  Praying.  That’s what I’ve been seeing over and over in my mind’s eye over the past week or so, every time I close my eyes, with each blink.

That’s why I’m a little out of kilter, friends.  Slightly out of balance, seeking the solace I thought I had and have been trying to display day in and day out since she departed this side of glory.  The weights of this past week have been heavier than I think I realized though.  So yesterday, especially yesterday, was a tearful one . . . from sun up to sun down seemingly.  And I missed my own deadline for mom’s Blooming Lillies blog entry for the week because of the conditions of my heart and soul.

The awesome thing is that the sun did rise this morning, and God’s mercies were fresh and new and available to me.  I didn’t start out this morning in tears; instead, I woke up thinking about how to convey to you all that the process of grief is real.  I suppose it’s providential that I taught a course on C. S. Lewis last semester and will be teaching a minimester coming up in a few weeks, and one of the books we study is entitled A Grief Observed.  I am reminded of one of the quotes from this book that simply states:  “The death of a beloved is an amputation.”  What a metaphor . . .

Like Lewis, I’m searching for that peace again that surpasses all human understanding, that essence of mom’s memory that will help to mend the parts that feel like they’ve been cut off  in me and that will nurture the healing process.

Yesterday, I struggled the longest to search for wisdom and truths coming from the annals of mom’s literature and journals to share with you, to help you along your way, to encourage you . . . but I came up empty.  My dear friend, Katrina, early yesterday sent me a simple message of encouragement that said, “. . . in speaking from the heart barriers will be broken for many.”

Another friend shared that my mourning was like a song . . . my soul is still writing out the lyrics . . . the tune is still in progress and that the greatest and most memorable hymns and classics have come out of the writers’ pain.   Perhaps God is impressing upon my spirit, through this experience, what my next book will entail.  I have my own plans for what that might be; God may be directing me another way.  Trust me:  I’d rather stick to His plan . . .

So though my own forecast has undoubtedly been in the throws of winter over the past weeks, and a bit cloudy, sunshine is on the horizon.  I’ll get there, but I wanted you to know that behind my smile, there is still sadness.  Behind the glimmer in my eyes, there are still tears.  The way is slow, but like Lewis intimates further,

“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”

In love and charity,

Giselle