all that Love could do....

A new fog...another loss... And the word NO.

No. No. No.

Last week didn't happen.

I didn't.

----

There once was the sweetest little guy... who had a rough path in life.

His mom, my mother-in-law told me how much Gwen's baby photos looked like his.

It was so true. I noticed it last week - the thought entered my head while looking through his baby book before I remembered that I knew that - that it had been suggested to me before. I saw his baby pictures and thought of Gwen's.

Marie shared Gwen's middle name. Winship, you and Gwen had some "baby-looks" in common. So too your broken heart. The doctors could fix and repair hers. Yours was a different kind - and I suppose the hurt and ache just became to be all you knew and all you believed you would ever know - and ever be - I think you saw yourself as a problem.

But you weren't.

Winship. You were human. And you were so full of love and care (yet somehow I think you were still raw from your 1st grief...so you had no "stops" and you loved, too much...and when there, it is pain...)

Everything about you was okay to us. We loved you. We love you still, now and always.

How is it that you are gone to us now?

How did we blink long enough for you to leave - to decide to go - how did you slip through our fingers? I guess that is the illusion - that we ever had you in our hands. Hearts hold you and even that is not enough.... all that was inside you - it won and was something we could never touch, even with all the love in the world.

You were consumed by something that no one but you could tackle and that day, maybe the whole month, maybe ever since May, but by that day last week, for some reason - I'm sure the meds, recently adjusted, did not work in your favor, but the scales were tipped. Just as the virus overwhelmed my Gwen before we had a chance to know how to help her - so too you were overwhelmed by a type of virus that attacks the heart and mind - that the soul cannot carry - except to go to God. It was just a moment, but sometimes that is all it takes - or so now I've learned.

You were sick. You had a condition working against you. Just like Gwen. You were in recovery - from loosing your father, your home, your home again, and then, just as you were at last, working through all that from years past, your sister died...in a sudden and tragic manner. Gwens heart was a little thick - it worked against her in the end - as did your situation - you were overwhelmed by grief... losing Marie, your only little sister. The one you grew up with - through all the thick and thin. I know. I watched you. You guys were close.

Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you,
smashes down upon you with unimaginable force,
sweeps you up into its darkness,
where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces,
only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped...
Grief will make a new person out of you,
if it doesn't kill you in the making.

Stephanie Ericsson

Grief can kill. It can.

I write these words and yet I don't believe them for a second. Last week did not happen.
--

I bought a sympathy card...of all things for myself two weeks ago. I hadn't looked in the store at sympathy cards since May and was curious to do so having been now on this end of things. Would any of them really offer something to the grieving... really, I wondered from a critical point of view? I did find something and it spoke to me... now I think I bought it for Winship's Love, who is left here, stunned and alone and experiencing her own pain beyond pain... "He was the Love of my life" she said on Sunday at the service...she is so beautiful she was his light and his Love... and now this?? This for her?

Anyway...this card is for me. It is for her too. It is my mantra I'm trying to believe...and I think the words will resonate with her too...

----
Why?

That's what we ask.
The truth is,
we may never be able
to know for sure why.

But we do know
that there is no single
"should have done"
or "could have done"
or "did" or "didn't do"
that would have
changed that why.

All that love could do
was done.
---

(I liked this card because it spoke so much to what I've been tackling in my head...the idea that Love can do only so much - it is all we have - but it can only do so much. Human love, that is. Our weak human skin - our weak human state - it is what warps and twists our perfect Love the moment it leaves our heart into imperfection - it is love - but tinged with our humanness and things happen... horrible things happen even as we love... And then we are here. And we have to re-aquatint ourselves with the world and our new, and real understanding of love...and human skin, "body clothes" and the limitations - the God-forsaken limitations).
---

I'm back to some of my earlier thoughts...even as I'm truly in a fog... some thoughts do still penetrate....

"Faith. what is that again. I need a dictionary."

One day, maybe when Lil runs a fever as she did again the other day - one day maybe I won't only know that I can do everything and that I will make mistakes and or do everything right (and not see my mistakes) and none of it may matter... a virus, a simple little virus, one day could overwhelm her too... One day maybe when Lil is sick I won't find myself begging God, please, please, please let her stay. One day she may be full of sorrow and find her self falling by accident, to her death. One day, she may find her place in the world never fits, even as Love is screaming at her everywhere, to please stay - she fits with us - we need her and love her and want to walk with her - one day her heart and mind may suffocate her soul so that the only way it can breath again is to go to God (even as we beg and say that is wrong, she is supposed to be here, for now...that she can't choose when to leave). One day, she might. It has happened before. It happend in front of my eyes in five months time.

All that love could do was done.

I have to try to believe that. I will try. But it hurts.... and here in this fog, while raising a sweet and wonderful child, it is hard to navigate. So for now. I'm still. Back out of time - with tasks for Lillian keeping me doing her life - while me - I'm gone. Gone for a while. I can't touch the ground. I don't want the fog to lift. It is quiet. It hides all that I don't yet want to see.... It is warm and safe here in this fog, even though I know, I'm in hell and a new wing just opened up.

I also know, clearly and loudly how not alone here I am - Winship's "Love of his life," his brothers and sisters now twice hit with sibling loss -and his mother a second child; my husband with a third blow, and a harsh one... if you are reading, know, I'm not alone here - this is not just about me.... I wish it were - I want this for no one - and yet there is nothing I can do - it's been handed out, each person given their giant bag of grief upon grief - it is done. It is done. My heart watches it all feeling helpless and taking on more sadness simply by having to watch each in their own grief....
--

All that Love could do.

Was done.

That much I KNOW.

Now to get used to how little Love can do... and yet still know it is all there is... and the only guide through this, especially...

ugh.
---

And this is how it is now.

Again.

And. No.



--

Some tid-bits for here.


"We never fully come to grips with life until we are willing to wrestle with death... And the problem of death is posed most vividly in suicide."

Notes for people helping people who've lost someone this way:
"Survivors don't "get over it." Instead, with support and understanding they can come to reconcile themselves to its reality. Don't be surprised by the intensity of their feelings."

And for now, I think This is Faith (this quote below); for me here with Gwen, Marie and Winship...

I think this is my Faith and all I can have of it, for now...a passage I've loved for years which now, is new to me and everything;

"You are deep in the woods, and you think you are lost; stop, look at the trees, the rocks, rivers -they are not lost. They are here. You are not lost, you are here." (here. it is okay here. and here it is okay to feel numb, to be in a fog, to feel more pain than you can bear and then to stay in the fog for a while - this is what here looks like, this is what Love looks like, here...)"

I can't believe I'm writing to myself here (after re-reading Gwen's blog for a moment). I can't believe this. But here I am. Faith as a way of waiting has been really put on my heart and in my head these days...and I just read that thought now, back on Gwen's blog...apparently it struck me then too, just now, well, it is clearer as I know a little bit what I'm waiting for (Grace, little tiny bits to feed on in this stunned still place)...Yes, freakishly, I know where I am just a little - still, quiet, pained knowing the real pain will hit later- with nothing I can do but wait- wait- and look for beauty and love and truth to tug me along. So then echos the song again..."do we have Faith", as I go and read my own words, this time to myself - and sit and wait... as this new grief will unfold it's own darkness... and in that, reveal it's own light and Grace (even as I say NO -NO I don't want this, not again and NO - NO - he can't be gone, not like this, not now, not this way). But I'm a little more resigned - because I know my powerlessness over Time...over that day...over everything. I laugh at the idea of Faith right now. But I know I'll have to try again... because the Darkness offers noting. It is silent and offers nothing.)

"Do we have faith - in what we believe. The truest test is when we cannot...when we cannot see..."
It's hard to believe that love will prevail

---

(Winship we love you. If you can, from where you are, help us forward. I'm not supposed to be writing about you here. This is all wrong...all wrong....all wrong.)