pain

Laugh

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This was a great Monday.  Work was great.  The weekend past was great.  Everything is great!

Makes me nervous.  I keep my foot on the track to feel if a train is coming.   I have lived for so long dealing with serious issues, I know no other way.

And anyway, a train is coming.  A loved one has a devastating health diagnosis.  We will have to pull together and help her and each other through the coming days.  But, we, as a family, have one very critical strength.  Humor.  We have a sense of humor and laugh at the silliness of situations that arise from the very horrible things we face.

My mother’s visitation before her funeral sounded like a loud party.  We laughed and talked as if she was sitting with us.  She taught us to do that, as did her Mother.  Laugh.  Make a joke about something.  Crying and wailing get you only a headache and puffy eyes.

Yes.  Each of us cries privately and in small groups.  But, you won’t find us all together moping and weeping.  I remember us laughing at how pleased Mother would have been to know the size 12 dress fit that we bought to bury her in after she passed.  My aunt and cousin shared how they got too tickled and laughing when my aunt couldn’t get my very ill cousin off the floor after she fell in the middle of the night.  I can just see them wallowing like drunks and laughing trying to get her on her feet and back in her bed at the hospital.  Humor.  Why cry when you can laugh?

Laugh in the face of danger.  Laugh at the silly little things.  Laugh to keep the heart from bursting with pain.  Laughter.  His medicine.  He promised a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.  May we be blessed with laughter all the days to come.

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 P.S.  He poked his head out the door while I was sitting on the porch.  You are supposed to be orchiding, not watching videos…….acting like the boss of me….who does he think he is!  He is the boss of me.  Thank goodness.  I need someone to take hold of my wild self and keep me in line.  He needs me to make him laugh at all the silly little things that come out of my mouth.  I am very good at making him laugh and shake his head many times just by laughing at myself.  Good medicine for each other.

Risk

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Last evening, a phone call with devastating news nearly took me down.  Without discussing private family business, let me say, we will get through this together.

The journey will be difficult and tragic.  The outcome will not be joyful.  But, we will get through it together.

We have weathered severe circumstances before and come out the other side damaged but afloat.  We will do so again.

He called me several times today.  My Monday morning at the 9-5 was spent battling a weak computer and a new payroll system.  Tears of frustration and tears of panicked grief from the news of the phone call last night alternated for a few hours.  Finally, I got my feet under me.  A large part of my recovery was because he called.  He called again.  And again, he called.

I realized the reason later as I sat in my car for my lunch break, breathing in fresh air and feeling the sun on my skin.  So many times over our many years together, he has seen me crater.  He has seen me fall apart at the seams.  He has seen me implode.

Sometimes the process is slow and not so noticeable. But, in recent years, he has figured out how to handle me.  He has figured out what to do and what to say to keep me from going under with the weight of grief.  Goodness knows we have had our share.  During one call he simple told me that I can’t stop what is happening.  There is no purpose in letting myself fall.  I said I have to feel the pain.  He said yes, but I don’t have to get lost in it.  Not in those exact words.  But that was the message.

Such is the risk of love.  When the heart is allowed to love another and that other is in peril, the heart breaks.  But, the mind and the spirit does not have to break along with it.  A peaceful mind and a brave spirit will pull the broken heart up and lay it in the Light of the Son for His Healing.  Time is a joker.  Only Love truly heals.

May we have Mercy and Grace in the days to come.

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