Extension Cords and Aftershocks.

Last weekend I took the time to go through a few boxes I had been putting off emptying and found new places to store the things they held. I busily placed the extra components for electronics, cable wires, twist ties and tools in the new-to-me shelves but paused when I came across several sets of extension cords, coiled and then wrapped and tied with the plug end. 

I gripped one of the bound cords in my hands and held it to my chest. His hands touched these last. His hands wrapped these and tied them and set them aside after a Christmas maybe four or five years ago, the last year he was able to actively make Christmas happen for me and the kids before I stepped in to do my best.

It's been a while since something shook me like that. It felt like what I imagine an aftershock from an earthquake would feel. The room around me slightly swayed and left me feeling a little off-center, dizzy and confused. It's funny that something as simple as an extension cord could put me off balance.

The next day I had a dream. He was back. He had fallen again and had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks to recover. We had moved into our new house and I was busy getting things ready for him to come home. But reality broke in when Kellan walked in my room to wake me up and ask me a question. In my stupor, I yelled at my poor baby "I'm not done sleeping!! Ask me later!!" I almost had him back for a minute there. Almost. And I just wasn't ready to wake up to the reality that he wasn't back and he wasn't coming home.

This week I've found myself trying to figure out what's wrong with me when I'm busy doing dishes or folding laundry and feel like there's something deeply wrong or missing. As soon as I sit still I suddenly feel like bawling for no reason. Or I'll catch myself spinning into an anxiety attack when I thought I had nearly overcome them. My chest hurts, again. I can't breathe, again. And I feel crushed, again.

I used to live in moments like these every second. I was overwhelmed in every moment and could literally focus on nothing else. Now, when these emotional intrusions break into my life, they catch me surprisingly off guard because they're truthfully and thankfully no longer the norm. I've come so far. So very far from the broken woman I was even just less than a year ago.  

In just over a month it will have been two years since we lost Donnie. I miss his voice and hearing him pray and sing and laugh. I miss his mad chef cooking skills and confiding in him about everything and talking with him about nothing. He was my best friend ever. Ever. Ever. 

And even though I may be over the bulk mass onslaught of my slaying grief, I know these aftershocks will come. They may last for a few seconds, or an afternoon or a week or two in waves like they seem to be resurfacing now, but in a way I am thankful for them. In the middle of the busy-ness of my life they remind me to stop and pause to remember, not the end of his life and how it devastated me but who he was and the magnificent memories I have of living life with him.

I loved that man from the depths of my soul. I loved him with all that I was and that kind of love doesn't just disappear. It may sleep until it's revived by something as silly and common as an extension cord or a dream, but it's still there. I don't want to forget him. I don't want to bury his memory and walk away. I want to grab those memories and hold them tight to my chest and remember vividly who he was. He was an amazing man. Talented, brilliant, funny, aggravating and amazing. And he was mine. 

True Love.

Easter Sunday 2014, as I was watching Jesus die on a cross, again, I had a sudden realization that something was wrong with me. As I sat there slightly sunken into my chair with my arms crossed against my chest, totally annoyed with the beautiful yet tragic display of God's sacrifice for me, I wondered briefly what my problem was when the answer suddenly hit me. I was angry at God. 

To be bluntly honest, the words that came into my head with this revelation as Jesus was being nailed to the cross were, "Oh my gosh! I am SO PISSED OFF at you, God!" For the rest of the service I continued shouting this at my Savior, inside my head, over and over again. It was empowering and somewhat euphoric. It was emotion I hadn't felt spiritually in quite some time. And it was anger. At God.

I allowed myself to say it. For the next two or three weeks I walked around repeating those words. Sometimes I would scream them out loud. Sometimes I would whisper them. At times the words were monotone. In moments I wept them. But I had to tell Him, even though He already knew. 

All that time, for the past nearly year and a half (back then) since my husband died, I had no idea I was angry with God. For months I was so numb spiritually. My relationship with God was dormant. I was expressive with my words on paper or via blogging but when it came to trying to talk with God, I could barely get the words out. I would try to pray and nothing would happen. It was like there was a door between us and it just wasn't opening. Until Jesus died on that cross again this year. And then it all came pouring out.  

It was freeing to release it. It felt so amazing to be honest. To be real. To tell God like it was. And to know it wasn't the end of our relationship. He didn't turn away from me. He didn't lock the door. He didn't walk away. He stayed right there, even though I was all up in His face, spewing not so nice words from my lips. He didn't leave me. He didn't forsake me. Instead, He loved me.

In those weeks of expressing and confessing my pointed anger to God, a breaking took place. I reopened the door I had shut. I knocked down the dividing wall I had inadvertently and unknowingly created. My anger which had been explosive, strong, hot, heavy and extreme slowly began to dissipate. When my steam ran out, my anger was replaced with a calming, soothing peace.

I began to pray again and was able to worship more intimately. It started being less about me and what I was feeling and more about Him and how He was moving and what He was saying. I felt more alive than I had in months. I felt there was purpose in my life again beyond just getting through the day at hand and began feeling hopeful for my future again.

And while I still don't have all the answers, I am learning to trust Him again to reveal them in His timing. I admit I still have issues trusting Him. I still battle with unbelief that He will move mountains for me, but I must believe that He will, because He loves me. 

And honestly, even though I'm not angry anymore, I'm still hurt. I miss my husband. I don't like being alone, even if I am getting more used to it. This wasn't the plan. I did not sign up for this. But what I've discovered through this experience of severe, earth shattering loss that I've been through is just how much God loves me. He didn't push me. He stood by patiently until I was ready to talk again. He let me be angry with Him. He understood. He listened. He waited. And He loved me. 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

He Knows My Story

I love Hebrews 11. I used to read it and marvel at how these great people of God could do the things they did, by faith. My favorite example though, is in verse 8:

"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going."

Crazy, right? I would read that and wonder, HOW could he do that? How could he go, not knowing where he was going? It floored me that he had such an assurance and confidence in God, that he would just go, because he was told to go, and didn't even know where he would end up. That place of not knowing and yet trusting, not having the answer and yet acting, amazed me. I just couldn't quite grasp it.

Until one day, years ago, God told me to 'go' without telling me how to get there and I came to know the destination that Abraham arrived at. The surreal land of the unknown, full of unseen riches that I could feel and taste and yet not - quite - see. I was surprised that I found such a deep joy in submission and obedience. Those words sound like a chore, but acting them out was life giving to me.

The last three major moves our family has made grew out of this obedience. He would speak to me in quiet moments and prepare my heart for the future He had for us. He would show me the time period and the outcome but leave all the in between monumental makings of the destination unclear. He would tell me to wait and not speak about it to my husband until He released me to do so, sometimes weeks or even months later. And I would find we were on the same page because God had been speaking to him too.

And every time, every time, He provided. Every time, He opened the doors for us at exactly the right moment. Every time, He reassured us of His purpose in our lives. Every time, He made the way clear and unfolded His plan in such a supernatural chain of events that it was clearly His doing and not our own. And we would sit back, smile, and watch the perfection of His promises being fulfilled. Every time.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because my lease is coming to an end in 46 days. It's time for the kids to have their own rooms. It's past time for me to have a washer and dryer connection. It's time for our next place. So I have been planning our move, gearing up to start packing, preparing my schedule and making time to make it happen. And yet I don't know yet where I'm moving. I'm not sure where my kids will be starting school in just 13 days, or if I'll even have an address by then to register them under. 

I have a lot of questions and very few answers. But I know God has a place for us. I know He has all the little details that are keeping me from sleeping worked out. In those moments that I don't have Donnie to turn to and make decisions with, I am burrowing my head in God's shoulder. And I'm assured by Him of His love for me. He keeps telling me "I've got this". He says to me "I know". I am confident in my submission and obedience to Him. 

And just like this move, this unknown home where we'll be unpacking our things in a little over a month, I know He has a plan for me, too. A hope and a future. Even if I don't know anymore, just what that will be. I know He knows. He knows my desires and He knows my heart. He knows my secrets and He knows my story. Every page. The start, the middle, the road ahead, the pit stops, the bumps, the triumphs, the bruises, the sorrows and the joys. Past. Present. Future. He knows.

And He knows your story too.

And the Crazy Mom of the Year Award Goes to...

FYI: This blog is written in a wholly sincere tone. Please don't read it in a sarcasm filled, defiant, sassy tone. I can see how it might be perceived that way, but it's definitely not written that way. Thanks... :)

Dear Nice Lady at My Kids' School:

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm pretty sure I saw the look of judgement that passed over your face when I dropped my kids off late for their last day of school and they were marked absent for the day since it was past the official tardy cut-off time. I want you to know I get it. I know I'm not mom of the year. I know they've missed more than their fair share of days from school this school year because there were some times I just did not wake up when my alarm went off and I let them stay home to save them and myself the embarrassment of facing school staff in a situation like today's. 

I can understand your raised eyebrow at my hair thrown up in a sloppy attempt at appearing human with my beloved giant hair clip that has saved my life on more than one occasion. I know I'm not the mom who appears at every school function with a batch of homemade cupcakes in  a proper Tupperware poised on my hip. And I realize with a shake of my head that I forgot to run by the store and buy the chips that my son was told to bring for their last day of school spread which I didn't find out about until bedtime 2 nights ago.

I know you're the one who called me twice this year when I didn't show to pick my kids up after school because I slept through my alarm at 3:00 in the afternoon. You know I work nights but I agree it still doesn't make sense that I seem to have selective hearing loss when it comes to my 3 or more alarms I set to get myself up in time to take my kids' to and from school. I don't get it either.

What you might not know is that even though it's one and a half years later, I am still in mourning for the husband that I lost at the far too young age of 42. That although I am doing much better, I still have days that I am unable to function on a normal level because the night before I was struggling to breathe between and during phone calls about passengers' seating misfortunes. That in those moments of sheer terror filled panic I am chanting a mantra of sorts in my head to get myself through each second: "I'm okay. I'm going to be fine. God, please help me. I can do this. Jesus, I need you! Breathe in, breathe out. I'm not dying. Lord, help me. I'm okay. I'm going to be fine."

You may not realize that even though I was able to give away a little time last night and was off work an hour early and went straight to bed because I knew I was exhausted and needed to sleep so I could get the kids up for their last day of school, that when my head hit my pillow, my heart started racing in anxiety yet again and the prickly grasp of panic clawed at my chest and it was all I could do not to scream and wake up my children in the next room at 4:13 in the morning. You don't know that I lied in bed for the next I don't know how long praying, crying, begging God and texting friends 'Are you up yet?' before 5:00 in the morning just so I could hear a human voice and talk myself down from the insanity ledge I found myself dangling from so suddenly.

You and I both have no idea what time I finally cried and prayed myself to sleep. And you don't know the dread and disappoint that filled me when I woke up in a sad sleepy stupor to see it was two hours past the time my children should have been at school for their last day. You didn't see my son crying in the doorway when I told him we were late and he only had an hour or so left with his friends at school if we hurried to get ready and know the reason he was crying is because you failed, again.

You shook your head a little when you asked if I was staying at the school for the awards program and I half laughed to myself and said "No". You don't realize that I've only slept for a few hours and the crazy woman hasn't quite left me yet and sitting through an assembly with other teachers or moms that might look at me the same way you have, terrifies me and my imagination is out of control in one of those thankfully now rare moments of reliving my husband's death and I might end up running out screaming and embarrass my children even further.

Although it has been a whole year and a half since my world turned upside down and you would think I'd be drawing near to the end of my grieving and mourning season, I'm not. I still have these days that overwhelm me and cause me to wonder how I will ever grow beyond the onslaught of emotions that stop me in my tracks and turn me into an inner lunatic that I do my best to push down into a dark little crevice in my heart.  

You see, the truth is there are days that mad woman walks with me everywhere I go. It disturbs me that I can't seem to break away from her. She whispers in my ear when I am laughing with my children. She points at happy couples in ridicule and disgust when she sees them. She pushes against my chest with all her strength until I am gasping for breath and doesn't give me any relief. She rocks herself during songs at church that I led with Donnie and causes me to sometimes clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from loudly wailing in the middle of a worship service. So to take the chance of unleashing her during a school program is for me, absolutely a laughable, 'NO'.

You don't know that this week I've begun two HUGE steps in my recovery. That just last night I met with some people who I am working with to help put on a Night of Worship and that this is one of THE BIGGEST and hardest things I've done to begin to bring myself back to who I am or who I was or who I might be or who I might become or that I'm still iffy about what my future holds and I'm still testing the waters on what God wants for me and trying to learn to trust Him again. 

You don't know that I've had to learn how to worship again when it was second nature to me before. That part of me has been severed and it's like learning how to walk again. That the future I had envisioned was a shared one with dreams that I thought could only be fulfilled with the inclusion of my husband. That I'm terrified of doing this without him because we were such an amazing and powerful team and it's all I have ever known and that leading up to last night's meeting I was such a nervous wreck. Or that sitting there hashing out songs with people I've never worked with felt strange but good and I realized I CAN DO THIS. Or that as I drove home from the rehearsal I realized that I can do this, WITHOUT DONNIE, and that realization hit me with a devastating blow of sadness that I am moving forward without him. WITHOUT HIM. And it feels as if I'm leaving part of him behind instead of him leaving me and that hurts.

You don't know that in just 2 days we are driving back to the area we lived in happily together for five years to the last places I saw him, to go sit in a congregation and look again at a platform without him and hear someone other than him singing and leading worship in that sanctuary where we had experienced such total freedom and liberty as we had never known before. You don't know how nervous I am about seeing people I haven't seen since the few weeks following his funeral. Or that my daughter, who has been so excited about returning there, broke down in my arms the night before last and told me momentarily that she didn't want to go now because daddy won't be there. Or how important it is that we actually return to replace the memories we left with on a sad note, so we can leave on a good note instead, full of fond memories and moments with people we love and who love us.

And you don't understand what it's like to hold your child in your arms not more than a week ago, as waves of grief overwhelm him and he clings to you as tightly as possible pulling back only to stare at you and cry "Mommy!" in desperation and say "It feels like you're not here!" and understand that feeling of void inside of him as the sobs rack his body and he wails and moans and weeps and continues crying "Mommy! ... Mommy!" and you feel helpless as you hold him tighter and closer and repeat over and over "I'm here, mommy's here, I'm right here with you baby, mommy's here.", for hours.

You don't know that after we leave our last home-place together, we'll be driving to Louisiana and the one thing on my mind is through all the fun and enjoyment we will have while we are there, we will also be going to visit his tomb in the quiet sanctuary of the cemetery where his ashes remain. We will somberly stand in front of his tomb reading over his mis-spelled name that they still haven't corrected on the hard marble door that will separate us from him. You don't know how tempted I am to bring a camping chair and just park it and hang out there with him for a while, just to feel close to him again and hear the birds singing while I'm smelling the thick bayou-scented air and watching my kids run their fingertips over his engraved name as I look over all the chalky-white painted tombs.

So I'm not angry with you. Not at all. And maybe I'd judge the same way if our roles were reversed. Maybe I wouldn't understand either how some moms just can't seem to get it together. But the funny part is 'this IS together' for me. I am doing so much better than I was a year ago. I have come so much farther. I am taking huge steps that tend to knock me off balance and push me backwards but the important thing is that I get up and keep pushing myself and keep moving forward, even when it hurts, even when it's painful or becomes tormentive. 

Even when I have to watch my children endure the stages of grief and continue to gently push them forward. Even when people look at me like you looked at me with reasonable disapproval and judgment, I have to keep moving forward. Because even if it doesn't look like it from the outside looking in, we're making progress. So I'll take that Crazy Mom of the Year award or the looks of disapproval like a badge of honor. I've earned it. And I'm proud of it. 

Oh, and I forgot to tell you when I left because I was still wiping the sleep out of my eyes and also being a bit self-obsessive, but I really do hope you have a great summer. ;)

The Voice of Queen Esther

There are times when I hear myself speak that I am caught off guard because the voice that flows from my mouth can sound just like my mother's voice and for a moment it makes me feel as if she were in the room with me. It jars me because at the sound of her voice I am a child or young girl growing into a young woman again, spending time with her and holding her hand. 

I would run my fingers over the fistula in her arm that had allowed her to receive dialysis. Its warmth and the rushing sensation of her blood coursing through her arm would comfort me. Her skin was soft even though it was scarred from needles being forced into her arm hundreds of times. And because the skin on her hands was loose and a little wrinkly, I would smooth them out and wrinkle them again just for fun. 

We went to antique shops and consignment stores together and I would look at the old jewelry and antique purses while she shopped for kitchen items and then I'd show her the treasures I'd found. We drove through the hills and country in the spring, summer and fall to see how the flowers and trees changed over the seasons and sang along with Sandi Patty and Barbra Streisand. We would sit in restaurants for longer than our meal should have lasted because we would lose track of time talking. 

She told me stories about her years growing up and imitated people with hilarious accuracy. She was silly and she laughed with me. She confided in me and told me secrets that had been confided to her by others. She talked calmly to me and help me find reason and resolution to my problems. She made me feel better about my failures and flaws and encouraged me. She listened intently to my words and I knew the things that I said mattered to her. I felt valued and irreplaceable and she always made me feel special. And I was, because I was her little girl, even at 19 or 23 or 30 years old. 

It makes me miss her even more to know that my voice holds shades of her speech within it. But I love the memories that rush over me when my voice slips into hers. I love feeling as if she is still here with me in those moments and I feel the strength of her devotion to me and her love for me as I relive those vivid memory reels in my mind. And I still feel like her little girl, even at 42 years old.

I miss my mommy.

Happy Birthday Dear Donnie...

Dear Donnie, 

It's your birthday. Today you would have been 44 years old. I would have teased you about being only 6 years away from 50. And I would have told you with all sincerity how thankful I am that you were born. For your last 8 birthdays on this earth you and I truly celebrated your life because of your brush with death in 2004 from Necrotizing Fasciitis. Every moment became special and sacred.

I'm so glad I purposed to give you a party for your 40th birthday. I still think over the time I spent preparing for your surprise birthday roast on the bayou with happy smiles and of how much I enjoyed every moment of planning and then seeing it come into fruition. And even though you knew something was up we still got you with the roast and all those awful pictures. I'm so happy we celebrated that day with your family and friends.

Tonight the kids and I will spend the evening celebrating you again. I've been veklempt since Sunday night thinking about this day and the significance it holds. About how Emelia told me just a few months after you left us for heaven that she wanted to celebrate having you as her daddy on your birthdays every year. And the extra hugs the kids have been seeking from me the last few days with moist eyes along with whispered words of "I miss daddy" in my ears have made me weak and nostalgic.

I miss you. I miss your voice and how its deep timbre brought me comfort and warmed me. I miss your laugh and how it would make your eyes disappear and your dimples deepen. I miss the warmth of your hand covering mine and hearing you say 'Thank you honey' for the small things I did for you throughout the day. I miss the silly irreverent videos that you would text me to make me shake my head in laughter or shock and after watching them, I would have to delete them in case the kids came across them in my phone. And of course I miss your mad chef skills, especially when I murder a steak in my awkward attempts at cooking.

But I will celebrate you today. Even though I will be teary and a bit somber in moments, I am happy to have this day to honor you. I will watch old videos with the kids and we will laugh together. Emmi will tell the IHOP sausage story for the thousandth time and giggle over your crazy antics. Kellan will quietly listen and laugh and cry. We will dine at a restaurant you loved and we will wave at you and hope you see us as we gaze into the starry sky before going into our apartment and getting ready for bed. And we will love you, love you, love you always and no matter what. 

Happy birthday honey.

Sharon, the Joyous Giant.

I was stalking the page of a fairly well-known worship leader the other day, reading her posts, watching her videos and I was floored by her joy. She exudes it. It pours out of her eyes, her mouth, her smile and her voice. She's like a big bright ball of sunshine that's so blinding you have to shield yourself from looking directly at her because the rays are just busting out everywhere. 

She is full of wonder and peace and joy and excitement over Jesus' love. She gushes on and on about Him. She is effervescent. And as I read her words and watched as she giggled and laughed and exuded this joy, I wept. 

Great, I thought, another thing to mourn. I have lost my joy. I listen to CDs of fantastic worship and half the time I am numb. I move my lips to sing and the words fall off my lips and feel strange and forced and foreign. I watch other people as they worship and tilt my head to the side in wonder as they so effortlessly offer up their praises and their words to the Father. I marvel at how easy it is for them to push through to that deeper level. 

Because that used to be me. It used to be. And now, I feel like a shell of a human. I'm half the woman I used to be. Half the worshiper. Half the leader.

Remember in The Little Mermaid, when Ursula turned Ariel and King Triton into the shriveled up mer-people and how pitiful and desperate they looked and sounded in that state? That's how I feel. Shrunken, tiny, minuscule and weak. But even though I am in this malnourished state where my growth has been stunted, I am still reaching out for bread and water. I am hungry. I am thirsty. I have been starving and although I am hesitant and mistrusting because I am wounded and broken, I want to be fed, I NEED to be fed and I MUST drink. I want to live again! I'm dying to live again!!

So I am striving. I am diligently pursuing my Father. I am finding His bread of life and I am drinking His living water. I am sipping and nibbling because it is so overwhelming. And I am finding my insatiable hunger and thirst is slowly coming back. I know that soon I will be devouring every morsel and drowning down every drop just to be reaching out for more!

And now, I have a secret to tell you. I've only told a few people this and you might laugh, it's okay, I don't mind. There's something really cool that happens to me when I worship. When I really, really worship with every fiber of my being, when every little part of me focuses in on giving my self completely to God and lavishing my love on Him and accepting His love for me, something happens to me in THAT moment. That moment when I've given Him my all and I am worshiping Him in absolute reckless abandon.

I become a giant. I'm not kidding you. In my spirit, in that moment I am no longer 5'2". I see myself rising taller and taller and taller until I am so tall I am nearly to the ceiling! It is such an amazing feeling, so euphoric, so heady, so rich and I am so, SO tall! I know that sounds funny. It is. It's weird. My spirit man is tall. For always having been a shorty, let me tell you, that feels really, really good. But man, when I worship God with all that is in me, I'm telling you people, I literally become a giant. 

I miss that. I miss my joy. And I miss my worship. And I'm so glad I'm getting it back. One bite, one sip, one song at a time. Oh how I love my Jesus.

Verbal Vomit.

I so did not want to go to our grief counseling this week. We hadn't been to the past two meetings because four weeks ago I was sick with the flu and two weeks ago I received news just before we were getting ready to leave that our former Pastor's father was about to pass away and it hit me and threw me into a basket case-crying, I can't breathe and I sure can't drive and sit in a room full of grieving people and hold my composure overwhelming hot mess mode.

So this Wednesday, after missing a couple of sessions, I felt anti-social and was just not in the mood to sit in that room with the other adults. But the kids wanted to go. It means so much to them to be able to sit in a room full of other kids their age and hear them expressing the same feelings they have about losing their parent and being able to talk about their daddy. They had missed going and looked at me with those pitiful, pleading eyes as they asked me "Mommy, are we going to The Warm Place tonight?" I told them "Yes, we'll go but only because I love you so much."

I have a serious love/hate relationship with our grief counseling. I hate introducing myself every other week and telling everyone who I lost, when I lost him and how I lost him. It pisses me off when half the adults there were already separated or divorced or whatever and so they don't feel the loss as deep as I do or at least that's the way I feel. It makes my heart beat fast before I have to speak and I feel like I can't breathe and like I need to run out of the room screaming. I hate feeling like that.

I put off speaking until I absolutely have to when it's my time to share because I am such a mess. Then I open my mouth and verbally vomit all my feelings. I choke up and pause and everyone is staring at me, listening to the un-edited, non-eloquent words as they pour out of my mouth, revealing my weakness, my anger, my fear, my horror, my loss, my frustration, my annoyance, my bitterness, my desperation, my hopelessness, my angst, my rage, my anxiety and my loneliness.

I stop and I say I'm done and they look at me with understanding and nod their heads and wipe their eyes after crying with me. And I realize this is why I still need to go. As much as I hate it. As much as I detest sitting in that room and hearing everyone's pain and feeling their anguish as we go one by one around the room describing our loss or our feelings, I need to be there. In that room, I feel abnormal and normal at the same time. Awkward and accepted. Angry and forgiven. 

I love going there. I hate going there. I have to keep going there. 

Oh Christmas Tree.

I just took my bedroom Christmas tree down and I can't tell you how good it feels to have it all boxed up. I was excited to put a tree up in my bedroom again. It had been six years since I had put up our bedroom Christmas tree, decked in pearls, off-white poinsettias and a gorgeous variety of blue ornaments. I couldn't wait to enjoy the lights from my desk while I was working at night.

As I opened each ornament box it took me back to seven Christmases ago. Some of the ornaments had never been used and still had their tags on them from the after Christmas sales we had hit that year. With each layer of ornaments I added to the tree my sadness deepened. I finished decorating and stepped back to look at our tree, Donnie's and mine. 

Instead of bringing warmth and fulfillment, it brought me heaviness and weighted pain. The soft glow emanating from the corner of my room was like the ghost of Christmas past staring at me with droopy tear filled eyes. It reminded me of hushed conversations we held after putting the kids to bed, planning out their gifts and stocking surprises. How we would gaze at the lights as we cuddled on the bed or how I gave him his gift early because I just couldn't wait anymore.

I didn't realize the tree would throw me back so far or bring me down so low. That's the funny thing about grief. You just never know what is going to trigger it and in such an instant moment you are left breathless as if you've been sucker punched in the belly or pinned beneath an anvil like Wile E. Coyote.

At our grief recovery meeting this Wednesday, our adult group was given Play-Doh to use as part of our activity. We were asked to make something to show how we feel now that the holidays were over. I made a little Play-Doh man with X's for eyes and his mouth gaping open and with the rest I made a boulder. When it was my turn to share, I dropped my boulder on the man and flattened him. Everyone laughed, including me, but it was true. 

I have felt flattened by this Christmas. My apartment has been in chaos. My laundry needs washing. My floor needs vacuuming. Everything feels and looks like a wreck. Except for my beautiful, perfect Christmas trees. 

So tonight, after I put the kids to bed and took some down time for myself, I looked once again at my bedroom Christmas tree, sighed and started to dismantle it piece by piece: ornaments, poinsettias, pearls and branches. Now it sits in boxes where the tree was standing and to be very honest; I know this doesn't sound like me, being the Christmas lover that I am, but those boxes are just the most beautiful thing I have seen in a few weeks. Well, that is besides my children. 

One tree down, three to go...