Slipping Away

MISSING YOU

No words I write can ever say,

How much I miss you everyday.

As time goes on the loneliness grows,

How I miss you, nobody knows.

I think of you in silence, I often speak your name,

But all I have are memories and a photo in a frame.

No one knows my sorrow. No one sees me weep.

But the love I have for you

Is in my heart to keep.

I've never stopped loving you, I know I never will,

Deep inside my heart, you are with me still.

Heartaches in this world are many,

But mine is worse than any.

My heart still aches as I whisper low,

"I love you and I miss you so."

The things we feel so deeply are often the hardest to say

But I just can't keep quiet anymore, so I'll tell you anyway.

There is a place inside my heart that no one else can fill

I love you so, my precious child

...And I always will.

(Author unknown)

I've really been struggling lately. Writer's block. However in my case, since my writing and my journey have become so closely intertwined with my faith, I guess it stands to reason that there might be a blockage in that area, too. Not a roadblock erected by God, but by me...because I don't want to take another step forward.

In the 19 months Brittany has been absent from my life, countless people have told me that eventually I'll get through it and move on. Move on? To what? No, thank you. So that leaves me with the following choices: stop where I am right now, or...and this is the most troubling and anguishing one of all...move forward. In retrospect, I guess that's what I've been doing all along...until now...until I realized what's been happening. And it scares me. So I stopped moving.

I'm scared, because I feel like Brittany's slipping away from me. She's becoming a memory and memories aren't tangible. Grief is. Pain is. So as long as I hang on to my grief and pain, I can hold on to Brittany. She's more tangible to me that way. Completely misguided logic, I know. But lately, thinking about Brittany has become almost dream like...one of those beautiful dreams that you wish would come true, but know probably won't. I stare at her pictures and think to myself, "There's no way that beautiful little girl belongs to me. It's just too good to be true." So I immerse myself in my pain as a reminder that Brittany was indeed mine...is mine. I let myself go back to her bedside in the ICU for those five days in July 2010. I close my eyes and I can feel her in my arms. I can feel the warmth and softness of her skin. I can hear the magical sound of her beating heart...my heart...the heart that binds us together as one. I let myself remember what it felt like to kiss her face, cradle her in my arms and whisper in her ear. Because as long as I hold on to that...as long as I hold on to my brokenness, then I know she's real, and not just a beautiful dream. Not just a beautiful memory. I'm afraid if I let go of that, I will move forward...away from her...and, quite frankly, the distance I'm already forced to live with is more than I can stomach most days. So what if I don't want to move forward with my life?  What if I choose to stay put? Unfortunately, and as heartbreaking as it is, I think I have to find a way to do just that...continue moving forward, searching for my new normal. 19 months ago I would never have believed I'd be having those thoughts, let alone writing about them. But I have another beautiful child who needs me, too. I have my husband to think about. So why do I feel like I'm abandoning Brittany? I don't want her to be just a beautiful memory that was too good to be true. I don't want to leave her behind. She's my baby...my best friend. And I need her to be tangible.

I was at a bible study the other day and one of the themes we discussed was letting God shine through our 'cracks.' Let Him use our pain and struggles for His triumph and glory. But I'm not cracked. I'm not a clay jar with tiny holes that water leaks through. I'm a pile of unrecognizable rubble. A shell of a person I don't recognize anymore because I imploded and I'm still struggling to breathe through the overwhelming dust and carnage. How can God use that? Is there really power in my brokenness as I learned in bible study? Is God using my tragedy to accomplish some larger purpose? I wish I knew. And I think that's part of the reason for my spiritual roadblock lately. I'm not only scared of leaving Brittany behind, but I'm afraid I'm too blinded and weak with brokenness to hang on to all the promises God made clear in the Bible.

But as weak as I feel sometimes...as afraid as I am that I'm becoming too weak to hang on anymore, I realized this: letting go of God's hand and dropping back into my 'valley of the shadow of death' would be like signing my own death certificate. Cause of death? Suffocation by means of spiritual and emotional asphyxiation. So instead, I'm clinging to the knowledge that no matter how dark my days become, no matter how much I feel like letting go, it is God's hold on my life that matters...not my own weak effort to hold on to His. 

Thank goodness He's both strong and patient.


I love you little girl <3

Blindsided

This picture was taken in mid March, 2010, on the pier near our old home in Panama City Beach, FL. It never dawned on me until the other day just how prophetic this turned out to be. It was the last time we saw Brittany before her accident, and it was the last photo taken with her little brother, Bryson...walking away. Heartbreaking, isn't it? Who knew that less than 4 months later this picture would end up symbolizing the unimaginable?Brittany walking out of my life, my husband's life, and the life of her precious little brother. It brings me both tears and smiles. Tears, because I don't want it to be true. Smiles, because this is how Bryson remembers Brittany...walking beside him...hand in hand. And that's how he's still holding on to her today...

~

Just when I think I've come so far, I open my eyes one morning only to be sucker punched in the gut, having any semblance of progress I've made knocked right out of me. And once again, I can't breathe. Once again, I'm lost and confused. And I didn't realize just how far I'd slipped back into the darkness until I went to visit Brittany a week and a half ago.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning. The temperature was unseasonably warm, the skies were blue and the sun was bright. It was one of those perfect Winter days that makes you beg for an early Spring. Perhaps it would have been like that for me, too...if I hadn't been heading to a place no mother should ever have to go. That wretched word I hate saying...cemetery. I hardly remember my 90 minute drive to Effingham that day. I must have been in a haze. Then again, I suppose after the hundreds upon hundreds of trips I've made there over the past nearly 19 months, my car can find its own way without any guidance from me.

The closer I got to Arborcrest, the more anxious and disoriented I became. Why was I there? It felt wrong and foreign. I didn't belong there. Anywhere but there. I was an intruder...a stranger. It was almost as if I was standing from afar watching this brokenhearted mother kneel beside this beautiful girl. Her precious daughter, with eyes as bright and blue as the afternoon's sky. Who was this woman that sobbed inconsolably as she collapsed by the girl's picture, cradling it in her arms and kissing its beautiful face, repeatedly whispering, "I love you! I miss you!" Why was this scene so familiar to me? And then, I remembered. The pain and sorrow...the emptiness and heartache...the inability to think and breathe. It all came flooding back, consuming me in its wake, suffocating me in its darkness. It was me. Of course it was me. As much as I wish it hadn't been...it was me. 

...and it still is.

I miss you Brittany <3