red balloons

Hello, my friends. I’m trying to stick to at least an every other week schedule to post, so here I am, but to be quite honest, you may not want to hear from me today. I am sitting in a place of anger this week. If you asked me to pinpoint the actual cause, I couldn’t answer you with any one thing. The last few weeks have felt heavy. I’ve cycled back into a place of insomnia that just makes everything feel harder than it is. I’m on the verge of tears at all times. Hello, complete transparency… 

A few weeks ago, I went to the doctor. There isn’t anything specifically wrong, I just had an annual appointment set for a check up, so I went. I had gotten the children off to school successfully that morning, I’d had some really great meetings around some new opportunities that I was excited about, and I was only mildly irritated when I arrived to the office 20 minutes early only to actually be five minutes late for the appointment because I could not find a single parking space within one mile of the building. Just as I was about to call the office and cancel the appointment, a space opened up and I grabbed it. 

When I got to the desk to check in, they handed me the obligatory clipboard and asked me to update my information. No big deal. I sat down on a sofa and pulled out my insurance card so I could start transferring information. The first page was easy. Then I flipped it over to the second page. And there it was. Top of the second page: Emergency Contact Information. Now, I know I had to fill out this same exact information last year. I always use the same friend and I know I have others that have volunteered to be that name for me as well. It’s not that I don’t have anybody to write into those lines. It’s always just the realization once again that I don’t have my person to write down anymore that hurts. 

I filled out the paperwork and was called back to the examination room. It was the first time that I had seen this particular provider, and when I say that as soon as she walked into the room, shook my hand, and said “How are you?” that I completely lost it, it is no exaggeration. She was handing me tissues as I apologized over and over and just told her how very tired I am. She was absolutely wonderful in telling me that it happens all the time while she handed me tissue after tissue. (As a side note- WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN ALL THE TIME? Friends- step up and ask your people “How are you?” more often. With the intention of sitting back and listening to their real answer and not just as a greeting where you only want them to say “I’m fine.” A complete stranger at the doctor’s office shouldn’t be the only one to be asking… maybe she was just trying to make me feel better, but still. Be that person for your people.) It was also really nice to hear her say that I’m not living in normal circumstances and that she wasn’t surprised I was tired- then she stepped in to order all types of bloodwork to ease my mind and make sure this level of tired isn’t a medical issue. (It’s not- I’m just single/solo parenting four kids in the house plus one in college while working a full time job and handling all of life in general.)

Since that time, we celebrated several birthdays in the house, and instead of being excited about that, I’m feeling pretty angry that Todd wasn’t there to celebrate them with us. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy those moments and that they were not lovely, but there was something missing. There always is. 

I am 22 months out from my loss, but I am still dealing with legalities and estate issues. I had a very unproductive meeting with my attorney and am at a point where decisions need to be made regarding the value of continuing to pursue benefits that were due to the estate versus just letting them go because the legal fees are starting to outweigh those benefits. The actions of people that Todd devoted his life to have been less than helpful. While I will not go into all the details, I will say that the actions (or inactions) of a few have caused those of us who loved Todd the most to question the humanity of people in general on more than one occasion. And that feels wrong and unnatural to me, which leads to anger.  

While I was on the phone with some trusted advisors following this meeting, trying to gain some clarity on next steps, one of the boys arranged to have his friend, who lives one neighborhood away, ride his bike to the gas station across the street from our houses, purchase two PRIME sports drinks, and deliver them to our house. All for the low, low price of $25. Now- kudos to the friend for his entrepreneurial spirit, and 100% he deserved to be paid a premium for the delivery service- but I just threw my hands in the air while I tried to explain to my child that as his parent, I am fully capable of going to buy him the drinks, and then we would only have to pay the $4 per bottle. (Now I need to start preparing a “value of the dollar” lesson for all the kiddos. It did lead to a pretty fun text exchange between the other child’s mom and myself that started with “Were you aware that…” so that was worth it- I do love my mom friends!) 

But it all led to me feeling very incapable of dealing with the one issue on top of another issue on top of another issue… 

The very next day, my oldest son had his first very minor incident with his car. I’m super thankful that it was in a parking lot while he was going two miles per hour. I’m super thankful that when he called me, I was surrounded by my best girlfriends and that instead of just his mom showing up to support him when the police arrived, he had a squad of five moms. He was not so thankful for that one, but it was a situation I didn’t want to handle alone and thankfully didn’t have to. The actual physical and financial fallout will land on me, and I know we will get it all taken care of, but my capacity to deal with it feels very small on top of all the other issues on my plate.

Added on top of all of the above, I spent a total of six hours yesterday sitting out in the 40-degree temperatures, heavy rain falling, winds gusting at close to 30 miles per hour, watching the boys play lacrosse (gotta love a turf field). My tiny umbrella was no match for the weather conditions (I did have some cute new rain boots so that was a plus). It was a miserable day. Only to come home after the games, prepared to take a hot bath and drive my youngest to the movies with his friends, to see that one of his friends texted him during his games to let him know that they didn’t actually want him to come along. While he played it off as being “fine,” and said he was pretty tired from playing two intense games of lacrosse, it still hurt this mama’s heart. When they found out about it, his other friends jumped in and reassured him that they had no idea why that message was sent to him, and that they did want him to join, which was sweet- but sometimes you just can’t take words back and you can’t erase how that first message made him feel. 

So with all of the above going on, when I went to sleep at midnight last night and woke up at 2 a.m., unable to fall back to sleep- it’s been a struggle trying to do the work to find the red balloons to try and write anything uplifting today. I’m doing what I can to focus on all those things that are lovely in my life, because I can assure you they are there- I have several very exciting opportunities in front of me and I am on my way to a national conference for widows this week- I could not be more excited to see what God has planned for these three days. 

But I also don’t want to sugar coat where I am in this grief journey. It’s still really, really hard. 

When Todd first died, I immediately jumped into learning about the ever popular “stages of grief.” I knew that there were five identified stages: 1. Denial. 2. Anger. 3. Bargaining. 4. Depression. 5. Acceptance. My initial understanding was that these “stages” were supposed to happen in a linear fashion- once you moved through one stage, you were done with that. THIS IS A MAJOR MISCONCEPTION. 

There is absolutely nothing linear about grief. I experience extended periods of time where I feel that I am solidly within the “acceptance” phase. And then, in one moment, sitting in the lobby of my doctor’s office, I have to once again fill in the “emergency contact information” on the forms. And it sends me into a spiral of depression. Which then leads pretty directly to anger. 

There are now a few extra stages added to the overall grief model, including shock and testing. Shock relates to the initial reaction to a loss. Testing was added to help better explain how you can try to move forward in life but still be brought back to prior “stages” at any time. It doesn’t make it any easier to navigate, but the acknowledgement that it is completely normal to be all over that line of “stages” is comforting. 

So I’m just going to sit over here in the angry corner for a few more minutes, hoping that I can find a way through the depression stage that accompanies it and know that at some point, I will land back in the acceptance stage. 

I’m going to try really hard to make sure my next post is a little more uplifting… but until then, I hope that you can give yourself grace to recognize and feel those moments that are not “lovely” in any way, acknowledge the harder emotions that come in at those times, such as anger and depression, and work toward acceptance. There is zero judgment here- hopefully just a friendly face in the middle of the dark- probably wearing my cute new rain boots.