I attend a fantastic church in Colorado. We have a diverse congregation and it exemplifies its name: Colorado Community Church. It is all about reaching out to the community around it, namely Aurora, and I am blessed beyond measure to have found such a haven from the darkness that can be the World.
Today our Pastor, Robert, started a new sermon series entitled "How is Your Soul?" As with nearly every sermon he preaches, I cried. Correct that: I sobbed. I don't know what it is about his sermons, but each week I feel like God is speaking directly through Robert to ME. Today was no different.
I've been struggling, off and on, since November 11, 2016 with my role in my ex-husband's death. Of course in my head I know I am not responsible, but in my heart? Not so sure there. As is always the case with grief, I think I am ok, then BOOM! Something happens and I am RIGHT BACK THERE again, as if it were yesterday. The trigger releases, then the questions and the tears come.
For me, this time, the trigger is selling my house and buying a new one. The house I speak of is not just any house: it is the house I have lived in for 26 years, nearly half my life, for sure ALL of my adult life. John and I raised our 3 children here, we built a family, a marriage, we dreamed of the future. So much of him and me are tied up in this house.
A little over a year ago I married Ric, a man I have known for just as long as I had known John. All three of us grew up in Longmont, Colorado, which is indeed a paradox in and of itself. Nevertheless, I love Ric now, with all my heart, and he has lived with me -- in this house -- for just over 6 years. We have slept in the same bed, the same room, as John and I did. It has been hard for Ric, I know, and I should have worked harder to get out of this house years ago. But life is full of if onlys, right?
Lately I have been looking at my house in much more positive terms than I did before it was sold. Interestingly enough, a wise friend told me I would react the same to memories of John after his death. Which I never expected. In other words, after he died, I would remember the good things, much like now I am remembering the good about the house that has annoyed me for years: the windows that don't close all the way once they're opened, the grass in the front yard that simply will not grow, the weeds in the back yard that do nothing but grow. The list goes on and on.
I do the same with John: I remember how he provided for me, how he took care of the yard, the house, how I never wanted for anything. Except having my heart taken care of.
Or feeling physically safe with him during the last few years of our marriage. Or not ever knowing if I would be called a whore or a lousy wife or lazy or selfish.
I am not one of those people who believe you can "talk" to someone once they have died.
John, I know, is in heaven, hanging out with my brother, Scott and my best friend, Amy.
They are having a great time in the presence of Jesus and have little, if any, care of what goes on down here. After all, there are no tears in Heaven; God has wiped all of them away. Why be there, after all, if there is any pain? But the other day, in a vulnerable, raw moment, I spoke to John, more for my own emotional well-being than for anything else.
I spoke to him, much like someone writes a letter they will never send, simply for the therapeutic qualities of doing so. I told him that I was grateful that he made our house a home, that our yard had been the best in the neighborhood, but that living here had run its course. I thanked him for doing such a great job of taking care of everything. And I told him I was sorry for making such a mess of things, that I hoped he could forgive me for letting the house go down the drain as I had. And I told him it was simply time to let all of it go and that I hoped he'd understand.
Later in the week, I sat on the front porch of this house, talking to an amazing, deep, thoughtful person: my daughter, Allie. She looks like him and acts like him sometimes. I would like to think she got the best qualities of both of us, all rolled up into one. She is beautiful and wise beyond years, an old soul like both of her parents.
On this night I told her about my "conversation" with her father and I told her that perhaps I had made a mistake divorcing her dad. I told her I felt bad, like maybe I could have loved him better. Her response was, "Mom, if love could have saved him...he'd still be here.
There was nothing you could do." Her words were like balm to my aching soul and they created tears that effortlessly rolled down my cheeks. In my head, I know she's right. But my heart? Why does it always come back to the heart?
So, to bring this all full circle, when my beloved Pastor asked the question today, "How is Your Soul?" tears welled up in my eyes and poured down my cheeks. My soul is still feeling the loss, the defeat, the despair that comes with just not feeling like I did enough. My soul is reeling over the loss that not only I feel, but the loss that my kids deal with every.single.day, living without their daddy, the man who loved them so.
That's all bad news. But there's also good news. I know my soul is real and alive and that God longs to bring me past this point, to a point of redemption, where I feel whole and right and good again. This soul anxiously awaits that day...
How Is My Soul?
