KA-THUNK
A crash echoed from the library. We had just moved into an early 20th century farm home, in a small rural community, along the southern edge of Michigan. Flooded with concern for our new home I wanted to figure out what had made that awful noise. As I entered the front room there it was again.
KA-THUNK
A bird in mid flight flew straight into the window. Without a second thought, I shook my head and walked back to the kitchen to continue my daily routine.
KA-THUNK
A third and final blow fell upon the window. "What strange birds. What could possibly cause them to do that?" By the soft glow of my cell phone I texted a good friend about it. "That's an omen for death."
Generally speaking I'm not a superstitious person. There are certain things I believe in. I believe there is more to our world then what we can physically see, for example. I believe there is a God, Jesus is real, and I'm a Christian. I believe there are spirits and demons and I've seen too much evidence to not believe in the supernatural presence of ghosts. However, Omens are not something I give much merit to.
The past decade of my life has been relatively quiet on the death front. My grandfather passed away expectantly though. His health was failing and we were well aware he did not have much time left. Compared to the first 23 years of my life when I was attending a funeral or mourning for someone I loved every 6 months, one death, one funeral was easy.
There is a verse in 2 Corinthians 1: 3-5 that says
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who
comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those
in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from
God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of
Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
Through those difficult years I clung to this verse. The words reverberated through my soul giving me some sort of purpose for all of the tragedy. Reasons why my heart had to be shredded over and over again by the overbearing pains of death and loss. Eventually, my young mind, in an effort to console myself decided I had to be cursed. That could be the only explanation for what I had endured.
As a young woman my empathy was my defining ability. No matter what someone had gone through I could relate or at least that was how I felt. I had a merit vest of tragedy badges but a combination of fear and trepidation kept me from sharing my experiences. A boy in middle school had once told me "No one cares about what happened to you." I internalized that message. The thought and idea raced through my inner most being. The words haunted me and kept my grief, pain and compassion on the inside. How could I share in someone's sorrow when no one cared about my life?
While attending Olivet Nazarene University my mind eventually broke. I could not go on holding everything inside. The carefully crafted facade I had erected to keep my inner struggle hidden from the outside fractured. The combination of a bad relationship and confrontation of the events of my life forced me to stop and evaluate who I was. Dragged through the deep and dark mires of depression and anxiety I was eventually forced to realize I could not continue my educational journey at Olivet. I had gone through counseling, dug into the sorrow, bitterness, fear and anger. The worst part of the experience was failing. My perfect facade of happiness and success had brought certain expectations for what I was able to achieve. My classmates, my professors, my high school teachers and pastors all "knew" I was destined for greatness. Dropping out of college was a stab through my heart, a diploma for the tragedy of my early years.
As time continued to walk on I grew up, married my college sweetheart, had three beautiful children, held my breath as each grew past the age when my brother had died, moved around, worked well and received commendations at nearly every job. Best of all no one I was close to died. The life of tragedy seemed like a bad movie from my past.
The words from my first therapist reverberated in my head, "Are you sure all of this happened to you?" In my mind I knew and remembered the experiences of my past but in my present, in my happiness, I could not recollect the feelings of overwhelming sorrow. My empathy had fizzled. I was living a good life. We bought our first home, I worked where I have always dreamed I would work, I had nearly completed my first of many degree programs.
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A week after the birds hit the window, my phone lit up with messages from my sister. Her mom was in the hospital with what looked like a heart attack. She would need open heart surgery. Of course I did what any sister would do, I made arraignments to head north and help in whatever way I could.
The doctors assured us she was strong and she would survive the surgery. The surgery was unexpectedly pushed back and I was unable to be there when it happened. Our worst fears were realized. Nana had complications. The surgeon could not close her chest.
We prayed, we cried, we pleaded for God to heal her. I continued texting my sister. She was doing well, She turned a corner. The doctors expected her to make a full recovery. I went into my Monday night class fully confident that she would be fine. After three hours of class I checked my phone, "She's Dead, my mom is dead."
The birds claimed their first victim. I frantically called my sister's phone.
"What do you mean she is dead? How the hell did this happen? She was fine. What did they do?"
I wanted answers. I demanded answers. My heart was broken into millions of tiny pieces. Nana had promised me I would see her next time I came up. She promised we would take the kids to Frankenmuth and she would come see my new home. All of that was gone in an instant.
A horribly familiar suffocating feeling rose through my chest. I knew I was dying. My heart and lungs seized with dread and pain. Tears streamed from my eyes and I struggled to stay on the road.
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"Have you heard about Naomi?" Messenger flashed this simple question from a co-worker.
Naomi was married to one of my closest friends in high school, college and when we first moved back to the area. There kids spent time with my kids. We went to the same church. We played board games and shared in our love of all things geek.
Then Cancer happened. Naomi was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Our group fell apart or maybe just left us behind. No matter how many times I offered to help do something it wasn't needed. There was no way for me to be angry though because she had cancer and what she wanted was more important than any petty feelings from me of being needed. Selfishly, I felt the echoes of those words from my past, "No one cares about you." But this wasn't about me. This was about Naomi and her fight.
We grew further and further apart emotionally and geographically. Naomi, her husband and children moved across the country to be closer to her family. She beat the cancer. I celebrated from my home with her. Eager anticipation of a long life and the beauty of family, a hope for the re-connection of a lost friendship was felt through my soul.
A different type of cancer attacked her body. With a great hunger I grasped at scraps of information I was able to glean from Facebook, mutual acquaintances who were once some of our closest friends, and blog entries posted by Naomi's sister. I prayed and cried and hoped for another cure.
Finally across my news feed was a celebratory video of Naomi announcing the cancer was manageable and no longer progressing. She would change to a different type of chemo. She would live with cancer instead of dying from it.
A couple months later, I had no longer been diligently checking her Facebook or the blog because Naomi was fine but the message sent me on a search. I stumbled across a new blog entry. Naomi's cancer was aggressively attacking her body. She had weeks maybe days to live.
In desperation, I reached out to my friend, her husband. My heart was breaking for him. I simply could not fathom the depths of his pain. The bird has not claimed her yet but he is coming.
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Monday morning my phone flashed with a voicemail from my husband's mom. His father had taken a turn for the worst. The past year and a half he had been in and out of rehabilitation facilities. Something was wrong but no one could put an official label on it. He seemed to have a sudden onset of dementia. One day he knew what was going on and the next day he was confused.
His mind and body were betraying him a little more each day. He could no longer walk, barely move his arms, couldn't eat without getting sick. He wasted away from the once burly man to a former shell of himself. During the last month of the summer we were able to take a day trip out to visit him in Chicago. I kept the kids at his family home because we wanted to remember their grandfather as the vibrant man he had always been not as a husk of the shell of their Grandfather.
We mourned everything he had lost. He was still with us and we didn't know if he had years or months left. In the voicemail, Kyle's mom's voice quavered with urgency to reach out to his brother. He soon passed after my mother-in-law and his sister had said final good-byes.
The final bird had claimed it's victim.
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This
morning as I was going through pictures for Kyle's mom, I was reminded of a
verse. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 says,
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to
be uninformed about those who sleep in death,
so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind,
who have no hope.
The verse reminded me why my sadness is not as deep as in earlier years. As
time gone on, I have come to learn that the end of this life is a natural,
beautiful part of our circle. When we die here we are reborn into the next
phase of our lives. Eternity has begun before death enters the picture. My
heart may not be as numb to the pain as I thought but rather have reached
acceptance of what has happened. Only time will tell in the end how my mourning
will reach fulfillment. Perhaps this is the comfort I have received and am
meant to share.
This blog entry is a departure from the
series I am currently working on because of the nature of what has happened
within the past 24 hours. The blog about the journey to becoming the woman God
has created me to be will continue tomorrow. Thank you for bearing with me
through the pain of this story. Please feel free to share your journey of grief
below in the comments.
All images are not my
own but came from creative common licensing from twitter.
