I am Told

I write and write in order to survive the pain.

I am told that trials are only for a season. I am told that after the storm there is calm. I am told that after the rain there is sunshine. I am told that after the night there is the day. I am told that the darkest night will have the brightest stars. I do not feel the calm or the peace. My soul is still raging. I am terribly angry. I am at a loss. I do not want to go on. Everything seems so futile. I feel dislodged and uprooted. I feel blown by the wind and tossed away on the rocks. I feel lost and have no hope of being found. I feel like I am going through the fiery furnace and am being burned. The pain is unbearable. The despair is even worse. The reality of the permanency of the situation makes me boil with anger. The hopeless feeling that I can do nothing to reverse it destroys my will and my whole being.

 I know that a few people feel for me, but for the most part, I feel alone. I think that people go on with their lives and that my calamity is just mine. I cannot understand how the world can continue to go on in the same manner as if David did not die. I cannot fathom this aspect of life. I yearn for him. I probably have written the same stuff over and over again. I cannot help how I feel. I cannot imagine ever being happy again. I am tormented and tortured. The pain is even greater because of the lack of support at times. I went to school and did my teaching. I felt no enthusiasm or interest in what I was doing. I just wanted to come home to David even though he is not there physically. I must be crazy, but I feel his presence in the house. I feel him with me.

Affliction!! Is it for our good?

I have been going through my diary and located the following excerpt.

Every time that I read about affliction it sounds that it is for our good. It sounds that we need to be tested so that we can grow to be stronger and that our faith will also be strengthened. I don’t mind being tested if the testing were not so final. So what if I become stronger? What if I endure, and out of this suffering come beauty? What if I can survive and be able to help others? Is this worth the loss of my son? I do not think so. I would rather have him than go through the fiery furnace and come out like gold. I would rather be a weak person of no value than to lose David. I do not look at this loss as a test of my faith. I look at it as a horrible thing that happened to me and to David. I look at it as a loss that can never be replaced.

Who am I?

When David died I was full of confusion. This is what I wrote one day in my diary regarding how I felt.

I am in such pain at this moment. I just arrived at school and I am full of anger over the loss. When will I ever get normal again? Is there such a thing? I do not know. I pretend to be normal yet my heart feels alone. There is a guise and a veneer that covers all the pain. I am sick and tired of these horrible feelings that make me want to die. I cannot believe that this is for real. It is like a horrible dream that I want to forget. Yet it is not a dream. It is reality and reality bites. We are given one life and to lose it so drastically and so quickly is not acceptable to me. My life is in ruins. Even though I have moments of brightness here and there, there is more darkness that surrounds me than light. My faith fluctuates from moment to moment. It comes and goes. I want to be drawn closer to God and to accept the unacceptable, but my soul is still in rebellion. It seems that losing David is like losing me. I do not know who I am or what I am doing most of the time. I WANT TO BE KNOWN AS THE WOMAN WHO LOST A SON. This is my new identity.

"You will never be the same happy"

At David’s funeral a psychotherapist said to me: “you will never be the same happy”. These words continue to ring in my ears as he was so accurate in portraying this fact that is associated with losing a child.

The statement indicates that I can be happy again but not as before. As time goes by I am realizing that there are moments of happiness here and there, but they are always co-mingled with deep sorrow and sadness. How can life be the same as before the loss? 

Happiness comes from the word happen. What happened to me is that I lost my son. What I want is to change what happened and make it not happen. Since I cannot change what happened that makes me unhappy. However as I go through life I am experiencing other happenings which make me somewhat happy. The minute I begin to feel a bit happy, the thought that David is not with me to share it takes some of that happiness away. I believe that this is what the therapist meant, and he was right on.