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Saying Goodbye

They said not to blink, so I didn’t.

But still, off she goes.

I am all feelings… because I know something wonderful is over. Yes. Something new is beginning and it is going to be wonderful, too. But still, something beautiful is over and that deserves a moment or two or a million.

I am learning to feel my feelings…and rather than shun the annoying fact that I am human, follow it, allow it, a little.

So what beautiful, wonderful something is actually over? What is so hard to say goodbye to? Let me go way back…

Carrying her and feeling her kick my ribs. I’ll never forget! Pushing her in the cart at the grocery. Snuggling and reading. Her enthusiasm when meeting new people and doing new things. Her dresses and hair bows. Homeschool mornings. Worship time.

Then middle school years. The purple bedroom. The books she wrote, the songs she wrote, sang, and played on the piano. Making friends and even struggling with friends, the hard conversations. Beach vacations. The way she memorized movie lines and made us laugh.

High school ~ I guess this is when I began to start feeling the first stabs of loss. I was sad that so many hard things were happening to her. It was not all bad, but the simple times were over. Health problems and diagnoses a long time coming. Managing appointments and meds. Some hard relationships and discoveries. Also, there were special memories like sharing things with her younger sisters, learning to drive, taking college classes. Watching her start a crochet business. Seeing her pick a college. Dating. Prom. Graduation. One last summer.

Now I am parenting an adult child. And I don’t know how much will change, but I’ve spent a long time trying to get ready for whatever this all means. Tomorrow we take her to college and drop her off, and a new beginning happens for both of us. It’s just sad because my new beginning doesn’t include her as a forefront figure…but it did for more than 18 years. I have new assignments now, and my assignment to her is there but different.

It is brave to love and give to our kids. Praise the Lord for His bravery and strength He supplied in the days that turned somehow to years. We made it! That is something beautiful and wonderful. (And encouraging, because I have three more to raise! Also encouraging because all I did was pray and do my best, and I’m choosing to believe that was enough. Whew, that could be another blog entry…or book.)

It is also brave to let go and move on. I choose to praise Him for His bravery and strength He will give in these days where things are different and maybe even painful. We will make it through the transition! Mommas in the same shoes, I’m talking to the both of us! We will make it through this, too!

I think we just get used to running the race and giving our all; when the scenery changes, when the track changes, we have to be able to move forward into a new scene.

But there are no shoelaces tied up for me just yet.

I didn’t blink then and I’m not going to blink now. I’m here. Tears and all. Fully here because this wonderful beautiful gift deserves nothing less.

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What Grief Feels Like To Me

I was driving last weekend and the Lord led me to this thought:

Grief is not a problem to be fixed, it is a process to be fostered.

I am in that process.

For me, it is a different type of grief than the death of a loved one, it is the grief of change in relationships. While there are details that make it harder than I expected, I was aware I was going to be grieving at this time of my life. My oldest is about to graduate, and I have home schooled her almost all of her life. There are specific things I am really concerned about for her, things that are for the most part out of my hands and in her’s and God’s. We are very close and she is going away to college in the fall. She won’t even be that far, but I know that I am going to lose a piece of myself not only as she goes, but as she grows. She is becoming whoever she is going to be. I am going to eventually have to get to know her again and what I have with her, and who she is, and who we are together, very well might be very different. The precious thing about this is knowing our attachment is so real…otherwise, my heart wouldn’t feel so happy and sad, excited and terrified, at the same time.

It’s important, in grief work, to understand that there is no going back to normal. I know that sounds really sad, and that sadness, that gravity of reality, is hard. But even that is important in the process. Thinking we can go back to normal should never be our goal; in fact, that would be quite insane, right? We would never actually get there, yet keep wondering why. It’s impossible and we have to eventually accept that. Time, hurt, bringing things to the surface, prayer, understanding people’s real feelings and choices (whether we like them or not), and the process of grief transform us, for the good or the bad, but we never actually get to go back. Instead, here’s the hope-filled part: As we allow grief its rightful time in our life, we catch glimpses and ideas and even dreams of what the next phase, the next “normal”, can look like. There is a life beyond this one, even here on earth. Phases and seasons…we can learn to love them.

God made us resilient. He really did. That is in each of us, by the grace of God. There are gifts I have found in grief…Here are a few:

-The gift of allowing myself to feel everything, without guilt or cheering myself up

-The gift of tears

-The gift of sleep (especially important in the early hours of traumatic events)

-The gift of unexpected silliness or laughter, which is never anything to feel guilty about

-The gift of time, how remembering events, words, and sensations becomes gradually less shocking, jarring, and stabbing (Depending on the severity of the trauma or loss, the longer this takes, but it does happen, by God’s grace.)

-The gift of truth to hold onto

-The gift of the closeness and comfort of God, and the knowledge that we don’t have to do anything but let Him be there with us

-The gift of friends, family, and community

-The gift of counseling

-The gift of acceptance

-The gift of faith

-The gift of slowing down

-The gift of just sitting and looking out the window and letting it all pass, as uncomfortable as the stillness might be

-The gift of knowing such a love in the first place

-The gift of knowing perfection was never needed, regrets can dissolve, there is grace

We don’t have to know it all. We don’t have to contain in ten steps how to grieve properly and get back on our feet again. We just don’t get control like we want. But there is good, there is God, in it all.

“Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21