The last few weeks have been mentally exhausting. Probably the last two months, really, but I have especially noticed it lately. I talked about it at therapy yesterday, and my homework is to try to let go of some of the strings I’m holding onto.
Strings of all the things.
Attached to each string is a whole web of possibilities. Things that might happen. Some strings connect to other strings. Some don’t connect to anything else. They’re tangled, and my brain is overwhelmed, but something in me still wants to hang on.
Most of these strings are things I cannot control. But I can think through the different outcomes, and somehow that feels like doing something.
Not every possibility is going to happen. I know that. But if it does? I’m prepared.
And if something happens that I didn’t think of? That’s when I get for real overwhelmed. I hadn’t planned for that particular outcome.
If I told you some of the strings I’m holding, you might look at me and wonder what was wrong with me. I do it myself. I look at them and know, without a doubt, that I am not in control of any of them.
But that part doesn’t matter to my brain. What matters is trying to be prepared for them all.
I cannot possibly do that. I know that.
My brain likes to think differently.
It’s exhausting. It’s also my normal. This is how I think all the time. I plan for the worst-case scenario so that if it happens, I’m ready.
If it doesn’t—woo hoo.
For instance, Grant’s death. I was planning for that. I was praying it wasn’t going to happen, but I was planning for it if it did.
Something was very different this time.
I wasn’t ready.
I knew it could happen. I knew it probably would. But when it did, I didn’t know what to do.
I hadn’t had time to think through all the scenarios and what they might look like. I definitely didn’t plan on him dying in the ambulance on the way to a different hospital. I surely wasn’t planning on making funeral arrangements within a week of his diagnosis.
My plan was better.
They were going to take a trip. They were going to have family pictures done. They were going to make the best use of the time they were given.
It wasn’t going to be years, but it was going to be months.
Heck, even weeks would have been nice.
They were given days.
Six days from diagnosis to death.
Absolutely nothing my brain had planned for.
I screamed from the moment we saw the ambulance on the side of the road and turned around to get to my sister. I kept repeating that I was told six months, not six days.
Six months…not six days.
He was fine. He was absolutely fine when we left.
It took six minutes to get behind the ambulance, and that was all I could think about the entire time.
I believe God’s plans are not always my plans. I believe He is good, even when I cannot understand what has happened.
But what happens when it doesn’t feel that way in the moment?
This.
This is what happens.
You’re confused and hopeful all at the same time. You walk around wondering if this is real life while knowing it is, trying to figure out what the heck to do now.
You wonder if people are judging you because you smile and laugh. Or because you’re crying over something that took you by surprise.
You wonder if people feel sorry for you and if that’s the only reason they say anything at all.
You wonder when anything will feel normal again.
Then you realize it won’t be the normal it used to be.
This is our new normal.
Living life without Grant shouldn’t have to be our new normal.
It is, though.
No matter how stupid I think it is, it is the reality of our life.
I’ve said this a lot recently about grief. It isn’t only living IN the grief anymore. It’s learning to live WITH it.
For days after his death and funeral, I was living IN it. I didn’t want to move. I wanted it all to go away.
When my brain cleared a little, I found I could stand in it a little better. I could feel the grief and still take a step forward.
It was not because I was finished grieving or it hurt less every day. I was beginning to see that grief was coming with me and there was still a way I could live.
Grief should not pause my life forever.
There wasn’t a deadline for me to unpause and there isn’t one I can give anyone else. There are plenty of moments when I don’t feel like moving at all.
But now, I have been feeling ready to hit play.
The truth is, whether I hit play or not, life keeps moving. Sometimes that feels brutal. I have to make the choice to keep living. I cannot live in my grief and stay there waiting to die myself. I have to find a way to live with it and keep living the best way I can.
What happened to Grant happened, and I cannot change it.
I wish I could.
I’m trying to figure out how to keep living a life I wish he were still here to share.
Psalm 30:11 says, “You turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness…”
I have read that verse so many times. I don’t think I’ve ever understood it quite like this. I do not think I have ever really lived it until now.
I have carried grief before, but I haven’t worn it in this same way. The sackcloth feels different now.
There are moments when I feel like God has loosened that sackcloth and clothed me with gladness. But I keep looking at the sackcloth on the ground, wondering if I should wear it again.
I watch my feet dancing through life and wonder if they should slow down and mourn.
I wonder if I’m somehow not honoring Grant because I’m not lamenting loudly and weeping in the streets.
That is the dance.
I’m dancing between the gladness the Lord has given me and the mourning my heart can still feel. Between the comfort of gladness and the discomfort of sackcloth.
I feel the music to both at once.
The dance is confusing to my heart.
It’s clunky, and I most definitely am stepping on the toes of my partner. Sometimes I want to kick them in the shin really hard.
Then there’s the graceful part. The part where I know what I know and believe it so fully that I can do nothing but sway and be grateful for the Lord’s goodness.
I don’t know when the dance will end. I have a feeling it won’t—not in this life.
I think I’ll keep going back and forth between wanting to shin-kick and leaping gracefully through life.
The counts will change as I dance on. There might be whole stretches of graceful leaps, and then the music will change without warning. I’ll be stumbling around again, trying to find my footing.
That is the dance of grief and joy.
A dance I don’t expect to master, but one I do not dance alone.
We don’t have to be on the same step. Some of us may barely be able to stand right now or surprised to be laughing. There are plenty of times we’re doing both in the same minute.
The dance floor is large, plenty of space for us all.
So, we dance.
Lately, I’ve noticed the notes of joy getting a little louder. The grief hasn’t gone anywhere, but I’m finding that I can carry it with me while dancing joyfully.
Then, all of a sudden, the notes of grief surprise me again. I’m learning that the joy hasn’t necessarily left, the steps are just clunky right now.
I don’t know what the next notes will be. I’m trying to loosen my grip on the strings that insist I should hang on to them tightly.
And I dance.
Until the day I am dancing on the streets of gold with my Savior and Grant.
Hoping he is able to clap on beat in heaven.
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