This and that

Since ending the Grief Care group (which I was both relieved and disappointed about), I have felt this panic inside of me. I needed something; I needed counseling or to talk about Amanda. I felt that I was bush which gives the false appearance that I'm coping or doing well, but all it felt like was that I was playing ostrich or running as hard, far and fast as I could away from my grief as possible in order not to deal with it and hurt. But I AM hurting, and I also knew that my not dealing with it now would eventually come back to bite me in a big way. We avoid grieving because it's messy. It's painful. It's unpredictable and uncontrollable. Who wants to fling themselves into that?? But I knew I needed to.

I brought home the videos, books and workbooks so I could continue Beyond the Broken Heart on my own. I haven't heard back from Victory Life still but knew I needed to do something for me.  After I'd read and did a little, I went back through my daily GriefShare emails that I receive and resubscribed to them. In doing that, I decided to check and just see what the closest meeting was for me. I noticed that a brand new group was forming the very next day in Sherman. I asked Tim if he would at least go with me to the first one as I know once college starts back he will have a Bible study on Thursday nights. 

Last night we attended our first meeting and it was just what I needed. I felt relieved to be able to express my pain and struggles with people who weren't uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the commonalities of grief. This is different from The Compassionate Friends in that this group is not just for bereaved parents but for anyone who has lost someone. We were the only ones who had lost a child, but I could relate to the thoughts and feelings that others shared and what was said on the video. It was so nice to have that sense of community. I have work to do throughout the week and I know it will be difficult, but I am glad I took that step.

On a completely different note, I sure woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. I had scheduled my install with my company to remotely access my new laptop and put in everything I will need to work from home and suddenly I am just pissed! I'm mad that I have to work from home at the kitchen table with 3 noisy/needy cats, a dog and have to change diapers on Ann all while trying to concentrate on work. I'm mad that I have to make these sacrifices and drag my equipment home and back weekly. I'm mad that I will have to move my laptop all over so it's not on the table and. I'm mad that we even have to live in this dinky house that has no place that I could actually work in a dedicated work spot. I'm PISSED! And yes, I do realize how childish I sound right now and frankly I'd like nothing more than to have a wall-eyed hissy fit complete with foot stomping. I'm sick of these circumstances and I guess if I got to the heart of the matter, I'm pissed that Ann is coming home at all which is necessitating this upsetting of my apple cart. 

So...I have to end on a good note after all of my complaining and that is that Michael started college today. He has three online classes to work himself back into it and texted earlier saying he's already done all of the assignments that he could until the 26th or so. I'm proud of him and taking the initiative on this. Wish I were there to cheer him on, but for now I will have to settle for doing it from afar.

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. 

Melancholy

I've been in the dumps for the last few days.  As the summer is once again coming to a close and with schools starting back up all around us, I feel like there is this constant ticking of the clock. Seasons changing. Amanda's 20th birthday approaching. The holidays just around the corner. Tick, tick, tick...further and further away from when Amanda was here with me. And I know I should think about it as being that much closer to being with Amanda again...

I don't know how we should celebrate her birthday. Maybe I will make her a cake. It's all so depressing. Sometimes it still just seems unreal...my baby, dead. I have never heard back from the lady from New Life House about setting something up where people can donate money in Amanda's memory for December 11. In just a few short days she will have been gone eight months. Most days I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels, doing what I have to do to get through this 24-hour period. Nothing really makes me happy. Now Ann is coming back home from the nursing home on hospice. I really never thought that would happen. I didn't think she would last that long and then I get angry. I guess it's angry at God. I mean WHY prolong the life of someone who will never have quality of life and not heal someone (Amanda) when it was totally within his power to do so? I mean if she was never going to have the life I wanted for her, I mean He's GOD, he could change all of that, too. I guess I am not meant to know these things and I know he has his reasons.  I sure don't get it, though.

It's also been hard being at the Wesley with students getting ready to come back. The further in this grief journey I go, the more I tend to push everyone away. We had our last Grief Care meeting last night. It just was not what I wanted it to be. All we did last night was I fixed dinner for us all and we watched Courageous. Very emotional movie. I want to move forward...I want to feel better..but at the same time, I feel like getting there means I'm that much further from when Amanda was here, and I know that translates into letting her go, and that just feels wrong. How? How do I let my child go? I'm so miserable. I'm so mad. I just want my life back and I can never have it back again. 

Strange occurrences

This morning I woke up hearing Amanda calling me. What makes this unique is it's the 2nd time this has happened, the last time at home, this time at the Wesley. I was sleeping on the couch and hear Amanda. I don't know how to explain how it sounded other than she was right there but far away. "Mama....mama..........mama!"  I woke up and looked around, listened for anything to explain what I heard. Nothing. The only other occurrence I can liken it to is the night my mom passed. I had been sleeping and in the middle of another dream when everything in my dream went black and I heard my mom calling out to me. Then, too, she sounded like she was right there but far away.

A second strange thing happened today. I was at the coffee maker getting coffee when the screen on my phone went on, on my pictures and was the picture of the back of my new shirt that said, "The hardest thing I ever heard was that my child died.  The hardest thing I've ever done is live every day since then."  I love you and miss you, too, Amanda.

Special blessings

This will just be a quick one, but I had something interesting happen earlier and wanted to document it.

This afternoon Tim's youth group and some others from church were serving at Families Feeding Families. We got there entirely too early and I was just standing by the kitchen talking to two of the boys from Caddo. I had gotten a call from Michael a little earlier so when I heard my phone, I assumed it was him again maybe having forgotten to tell me something. I pull it out of my shorts pocket, and instead of it being a phone call, it was a video of Amanda riding in a car with another girl and Amanda was just singing and laughing. For that to have logically happened, I would have had to select my camera icon, go to my videos and find one of Amanda. I just felt really blessed but also choked up. I wanted to be able to get away and just think about my girl, but I didn't have that chance. Maybe, like one friend said, she was telling me hello, she loves me and to remember her that way.

A second blessing is when I got home from there with Tim and there was a package from my friend, Nancy Bullock. She had sent me a card and this sweet memory locket that she personalized with an "A," an owl, a heart that said "daughter" and a music note. All of it represents Amanda so well. It was so beautiful and thoughtful. She had also received today the owl pin I sent to her :-) She sent me a picture on FB to show it on her purse. 

Comforting changes of perspective

I was going to wait until tonight to write this, but I wanted to make sure I got it down before I forgot it or just forgot to do it.

After blogging last night, I was reflecting on some very hard questions that I will have to answer for my new "homework." One is, "Why did my child die?" Now, these questions are, or can be, things that we never know the answers to this side of Heaven, and are oftentimes more asked as prayers. I started thinking about that one question, why did Amanda die?  My practical side knows the why, physically, of what happened to her with the heroin, alcohol, and pneumonia. But that's not the essence of the question I really seek the answer to.  As I was reflecting, I don't know how to explain it other than the voice of God whispering to my heart. He told me that it was because Amanda was so fragile and so broken, and this world was so cruel. It was the most merciful act of love He could do as, if she stayed in this world, it would have continued to chew her up and spit her out; she wouldn't have had the life I wanted for her, He said.

This makes me both comforted and cry. I'm glad that he had that mercy on her, to take her out of this world where she was so broken. This isn't like it's new to me. I knew it wasn't a punishment from God and that he didn't "take her" from us, as in He caused it, but I guess I just needed to hear that from Him right then and was receptive to His message to me. He was merciful. That is who He is - Gracious, Merciful, Loving God.

The second thing I was reflecting on that God spoke to me about is about my Dad.  I've been pretty resentful of the fact that he wouldn't move to NC and that we ended up moving here. In essence, I guess I've blamed him in part for Amanda dying. That's not an easy thing to admit nor to carry around with you, especially when I live with him. It's not been a nice feeling. I was thinking about how he didn't move when we wanted him to. What God told me next was this, "He may not have moved (location) when you wanted him to, but if he hadn't moved when you needed him to, you wouldn't even have had the chance to raise Amanda and be her mom." Whoa! That was a punch in the gut, but much needed. What that means is that when Amanda was born and she was initially going to be adopted, she went home with the adoptive couple. It wasn't truly what I wanted and felt sort of stuck, but after a day and a half, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I needed to get my baby girl back and do whatever it took to raise her and be her mom.  I was talking to my Dad on the phone and told him I couldn't do it; I wanted to get my baby back.  He said, "Let's go get my granddaughter!"  In other words, he MOVED for me; he got in his truck and raced from Palmdale to Canyon Country to get me and then to Santa Monica to the lawyer's office and sat there stoically with me, holding my hand, so I could get my baby girl. Instead of being resentful of him for not moving when I wanted him to, I need to be grateful for him "moving" when I needed him to so I had the honor and privilege of raising Amanda and being her mom.

Thank you, Papa God, for giving me a new perspective on events. Thank you for my Dad. Thank you for letting me be Amanda's mom as long as I live, and then some!

Comfort for those who mourn

Nothing much new to talk about, I guess. Dad is gone on his trip to Reno. Our grief support group is going okay, I guess. I think when we are done with Beyond the Broken Heart in October, Tim and I might just go to Ada once a month to The Compassionate Friends meetings. 

 A few weeks back we took Lori, one of our group members to Orr, OK, so she could finally see her daughter's grave again. It had been several years. We took her to see several of her family members and her best friend as well as out to lunch, and, of course, to the cemetery. It was a great day for her and it was nice to be able to do that for her. We had been wanting to bless her in a certain way, but as we were with her and listening to her, a definite need was stated...not like blatantly, "hey we need this," but Tim and I both felt called to help meet that need, so at the end of the day, that's what we did. She was floored and so thankful. It blessed us just to see her appreciation and knowing we did what God would have wanted us to do.

I started thinking recently about how I have too much time on my hands to think and get sad about Amanda not being here anymore, about things I can't change at all or, for some, just not yet. I have also missed doing transcription. I just randomly emailed my old supervisor at Command Health to see if they had any part-time work available. She was so excited. One thing led to another and now I'm back working for them 20 hrs a week and for the Wesley 20. My office is at the Wesley, just in a different room now than before. As much as I missed doing it, I was absolutely terrified that with my brain being as it has been since Amanda died, I wasn't sure I would be able to cut it anymore. It's been like trying to see through the thickest fog. I literally was trembling my first day and anxious looking over the account specs, etc. I have been more than pleasantly surprised. Sure, I'm not as fast as I was, but I've been out of the game for 10 months, but I've been able to pick it back up with very little difficulty...so far. It's not like I need it for the money, so this will just go towards fun money, Christmas and going home to Carolina to see Michael and others. 

I was looking at a picture of Amanda the other day that is on my desk. She was a sophomore or so and those big blue eyes were so sparkly and full of life. It just struck me as so sad that we only have those pictures, only the past with her to look back on, and will never have any new pictures of her any older than 19. I know we have our future with her...it just seems so far away in the here and now. 

I miss you, baby girl. I'm trying to help others who, for whatever reason, wind up in their own boatful of grief. That's all we can do is try to comfort others as God has comforted us to try and make something beautiful out of something so wrong. I hope I make you proud. Save some hugs for Momma. I love you.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5New International Version (NIV)

Praise to the God of All Comfort

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.