Blogging Challenge - Day Three

Ok, this blogging every day experiment is NOT as easy as it sounds.  Hey, I never claimed to be a pro; I certainly don't make any money doing this like some bloggers do. I guess the reason I do this is for my mental health. I don't do it because I think I have something profound to say, as I'm sure my 3 or 4 readers would agree with.

People blog for lots of reasons.  I follow a lot of blogs. Many if not most of them deal with political and cultural events of the day, but I also follow a lot of "religious" blogs that deal with spiritual as well as secular topics and are written from a Christian perspective. Some blogs have been started as on-line diaries, and I guess that comes closest to describing my blog, although that does sound quite self-indulgent. Oh well, feel free to check out another blog if you like.

My fun week with the grandsons has been cut short by the death of a favorite Aunt of mine.  We are traveling to SC for the funeral tomorrow. But it is important to be there, for my cousins and other family. With her death, I have only one remaining uncle, and my Mother left of that generation. When they are gone, a lot of family history will go with them. That's the thing about the death of a family member or close friend. You lose a part of your own history when they die, because they knew you as no one else did or does. Their memories of you and growing up or your parents or grandparents die with them and so you lose a little part of your history, not to mention your future - in the case of a child. I think I will spend the time in the car tomorrow remembering all the things we did at my Aunt's when we were growing up.  A treasure trove of memories that will make the journey shorter but more fulfilling.

Thanks for stopping by.

Day Two of Blogging Challenge

Yes, I know this day is almost over and I will barely get this post in under the wire. See yesterday's post for my excuses!

As I mentioned yesterday, I haven't wanted to blog at all since my son died in November. In fact, I haven't wanted to do much of anything. I have a number of good books, some on grief, that I should read; I have a room full of Michael's clothes and personal things that I need to go through and deal with; I have a spiritual life that I have neglected way too much (ditto for my husband and my friends and family).  All I have wanted to do is be a couch potato, a vegetable, and watch reruns of NCIS and CSI that I have seen countless times before.

If it were not for my husband, I might have become a total recluse, shutting myself off from everyone and everything. He, and that little girl I keep every day, are probably the only reasons I haven't done that. Walt and I went through a 13 week class called GriefShare at our Church. It was very good, forcing us to deal with our emotions in relation to the loss of our son, as well as our relationship with each other and with other family and friends. It also emphasized the importance of our relationship with God during this journey of grief that we are on. That should be pretty obvious for a Christian, right? 

If I can, and by that I mean if I have the strength and courage, I will try to deal with the relationship between my faith and the experience of losing one of my two sons in a blog post this week.

Thanks for stopping by.

Life Changes... But It Never Ends

My heart hurts. My heart hurts when I look at pictures of him as a young child or as a teenager. Even in recent pictures as a 30 year old you can see the playful smile that made him instantly likable. Or as his best friend said at the memorial service, "To meet him was to like him; to know him was to love him." That was (and is) our son Michael.  He died last Thursday, November 1, 2012 and my heart hurts.

I remember an old TV commercial that used the catch-phrase, "the heartbreak of psoriasis". Really? I guess if you "suffer" from that condition you hurt, but "heartbreak"? I have known the pain of losing someone close, a high school boyfriend, a favorite high school teacher, my grandmother, my grandfather and my own Daddy. I have known the shock of losing a friend through suicide, or the sudden inexplicable death of the nine year old son of a friend. You don't live to be my age without experiencing the pain and loss of death. That doesn't make it any easier when death comes like a thief in the night again and steals something as precious as a son.

A pastor friend who delivered the eulogy at the memorial service last Monday used the same word to describe death, "thief". He acknowledged our pain and even more importantly, our anger, at losing Michael at such a young age. It was good to be reminded that death is not always a friend and that anger is a normal and appropriate emotion at such times. We know that anger is one of the stages of grief and if I haven't experienced that yet, I undoubtedly will sooner or later. But Gary also used the occasion to remind us and explain to those hundreds of young people who were grieving the loss of a friend, why, as Christians, we can be joyful in the midst of our pain, hopeful in spite of our grief and why we can look forward to a future with Michael, not just re-live our past with him. My prayer for everyone reading this is that you too would know the joy and hope that comes from knowing God and his son Jesus Christ. Sometime you might just find that it is the only thing that can sustain you.