In the Blink of an Eye...

I've been putting off posting about this since it happened, but Zacc Grazier, Amanda's friend whom we took with us to her service passed away on August 8, just 13 days shy of his 21st birthday. He was such a kind, loving, charismatic boy and you couldn't help but like him. Even after Amanda passed away, he would text me or message me on FB to see how we were doing and/or just say how much he missed Amanda. I really appreciated that kindness and care. I've only heard rumors that his death, too, was an overdose. It just made me so sad. What Satan is doing to our kids. The lies they are believing. The way they are destroying themselves. The brokenness that our kids are experiencing.

I am just copying and pasting what I posted earlier on FB:
I went to bed last night with tears in my eyes as I thought about Zacc Grazier's parents. I can only relate what I felt the night before Amanda's service. Laying in bed, finding it hard to take a breath. Wanting to stay awake, thinking maybe, just maybe you can hold off the night from progressing into tomorrow because tomorrow makes it real. So far, everything in you is screaming, fighting againstwhat your head is just barely starting to accept, that your child is dead, and if you can just hold off the night, it doesn't have to be real. Finally, in exhaustion, you fall asleep. Today you are faced with the reality that all of the plans, hopes, and dreams for your child will never come to fruition, and you have to start the arduous task of grieving. Grieving the loss of your child, who you used to be and life as you knew it. Grieving all of your hopes and plans for their future. Grieving for all of the experiences they will never get to have, nor you get to share with them. Grieving because you have no idea how you will ever live another single day without your child and don't want to. I lift his parents up to God, because only God and another grieving parent can ever really know or appreciate the depth of the despair we will carry as we figure out how or why to ever live again.

I struggle every single day. I had a mini meltdown earlier as I was out and saw a little red 4-door Ford Focus and I could just picture Amanda driving it still...she should still be here driving it and driving me crazy. I'm really not doing as well as people seem to think. I guess because I get up everyday and go to work that that's some sort of accomplishment, but it feels like I'm just running away from my grief rather than working through it, and I feel like that will come back in an onslaught one day. I did reach out to Victory Life Church to see if they had counselor a on staff. I know I at least need that. I push everyone away or at least do not let myself get close enough to be vulnerable with them and let them really see what's going on in my heart and mind. I know that my grief makes people uncomfortable...it makes them feel vulnerable in that if it happened to my child, it just might be able to happen to theirs, and we like to construct this fairy tale belief that we have this measure of control over our lives and that of our children. But the reality remains that I need someone to talk to for me. I need to be able to talk about Amanda and how I am hurting. How I don't know what my purpose is and I just feel so lost. I don't know how to let go of someone I never wanted to nor imagined having to let go of. To let go of her, whatever that looks like, feels like a betrayal of the love I have for her. I'm just so sad, but if anyone asks me, "I'm 'fine.'" Why open myself up to people who A. would feel uncomfortable if I really opened up and B. can't really understand anyway. I hope I hear back from the church soon.