
Today marks two and a half years since we lost our precious Jimmy. It seems like ten. And, yet, how can that be? Because it ๐๐ฅ๐ฌ๐จ seems like he was just here.
I pushed a cart laden with flowers around the store yesterday. On every aisle, it seemed, people stopped to comment on their beauty.
I found it impossible to say thank you, or to simply agree with their assessment. ๐๐ง๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐๐, I responded with words I couldnโt have conceived of three years ago. โTheyโre for my husbandโs grave.โ
It was a pall casting disclosure, to be sure, for which the hearers were entirely unprepared. Iโm not sure why I needed them to know, ๐ ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐๐ข๐. It was all I could do not to say to these ones so caught up in their shopping reverie, โIf you ๐จ๐ง๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ค๐ง๐๐ฐ how profoundly diminished the world is by the loss of this one extraordinary man, youโd hardly be able to stand it.โ
I needed them to know what the flowers were forโ๐ฐ๐ก๐จ the flowers were for.
I needed them to know this wasnโt about crafting and creativity. This was about commemoration. This was about honor. This was about a gaping abyss carved out by the absence of the ๐จ๐ง๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐จ๐ฒ I ever loved.
So, I visited his grave with the newly acquired flowers and remembered, bubbling over with gratitude that I got to be his girl, spilling over with grief that it ended so quickly.
The grief is obliterative, some days. It is tidal. It is all the disorienting, anguishing things one would expect. It is also, strangely, ๐๐๐๐ฎ๐ญ๐ข๐๐ฎ๐ฅ. It testifies to what preceded it. It highlights the love that came before. It offers unparalleled perspective about what matters and what doesnโt. About what makes the list, and what doesnโt.
I have a chronic illness that robs me of breath. My lungs are scarred, which makes it hard to breathe.
๐๐ก๐๐ญโ๐ฌ how grief feels.
Breathing deeply, which most people do effortlessly, and without thinking, is a struggle for me. Thereโs oxygen for those times, ๐๐ฎ๐ญ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐ ๐ซ๐ข๐๐? Iโve yet to find a lasting remedy.
They say time heals, but it doesnโt. Or, at least, ๐ข๐ญ ๐ก๐๐ฌ๐งโ๐ญ. The only thing time has done, is stretch onโ๐ฆ๐จ๐๐ค๐ข๐ง๐ โan incessant reminder that however much is left for me, it wonโt include my Jimmy Carroll.
Iโve read all my life about how the wind and waves obey, subject, ๐จ๐ง๐ฅ๐ฒ, to the One who first spoke them into being. They respond to His voice, heed His command, and submit completely to His authority.
๐๐ ๐จ๐ง๐ฅ๐ฒ the waves of grief were as easily quelled.
Iโve realized, though, that they never will be, through my strength alone. So, I enlist Godโs help, and ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐๐๐ค ๐ญ๐จ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ง๐ who speaks to the waves.
Sodden and desperate for help, but fresh out of resources, I throw myself upon the mercy of the ๐ฐ๐๐ฏ๐ ๐ฐ๐ก๐ข๐ฌ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐๐ซ, hoping beyond hope, that if He can quiet them, ๐ฆ๐๐ฒ๐๐, ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ฆ๐๐ฒ๐๐, He can do the same for me.
๐๐ญ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ฌ๐ญ long enough for me to catch my breath.
Iโve realized I donโt need a forever rescue. I donโt even ๐ฐ๐๐ง๐ญ one. Grief is a testament to love, after all, and when you ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฏ๐ like we did, and when you ๐ก๐๐ฏ๐ what we did, how could grief ever be anything ๐๐ฎ๐ญ lifelong? Grief, for me, will be a life sentence, and I will serve it ๐ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฒ, grateful for the fairytale that preceded it.
So, when all is said and done, I pray ๐ง๐จ๐ญ for an end to the grief, just a way to live through it without drowning.
โHe maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.โ
๐๐ฌ๐๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐๐๐:๐๐
โGrief came in waves, sometimes big, sometimes small, but even on the calmest days, the grief remained. The tide still came ashore.โ
~ ๐๐๐ซ๐๐ฒ