Sadness

I went to our church's Homecoming this morning despite the little voice in my head telling me that I should skip it.  I should really learn to listen to that voice.

I'd looked forward to hearing the speaker, a returning member of the church staff from when I was a child.  What he talked about though, just brought me to tears.  He shared from his own story about loss and grief and finally coming to a place where you're not praying for healing but for mercy, and all I could see was my uncle in those last terrible days in the ICU.  It was like I was there standing by the bed he was in when they first brought him, watching him shake and fight for breath.

There is nothing worse than having grief swamp you and being trapped in a public place.  I sat there with tears running down my face, unable to do more than raise my handkerchief to my face occasionally.  What I wanted to do was run out, run away, be somewhere private where I could cry until the pain was gone.  Instead, I had to wait, to listen, to hurt until it was finally done. I put bruises on my hands from holding on so tight so I could maintain until the end finally came.   I fled to my car as soon as I could, sat with my head on the wheel as the first wave of it passed, drove home (probably unsafely) with tear-blurred eyes.  I sat in my driveway and cried and cried until I could start to pull it together again.

It wasn't just my uncle.  How many times have I had to come to that point where I try to accept, to pray that hardest of all the prayers, "Thy will be done"?  There was Grandaddy.  Nana.  Granny.  Peepaw.  Uncle Gary.  All of it, every moment of their fading and loss was like a relentless tide sweeping over me again and again.  How many times will I have to find the strength to pray it again?

I went to eat with Mom.  I came home and read.  I took a nap.  Now I'm up again, and I'm trying to get rid of this lingering sadness.  It just won't go.  I don't know how long it will take to disappear.  I wish I had not gone to have all this stirred up.