In my last post I described the beauty of our little hometown church on Christmas Eve.  The red of the Poinsettias, the green of the pine, and the glow of the candle light.  Last year I cried through most of the service, this year I managed to hold it together; thoughts on what Larry might be experiencing in heaven.  What celebrations must there be to remember the night that God became flesh and dwelt among us, becoming vulnerable for us?  How petty and insignificant must our attempts appear to honor the birth of Christ.  What is Christmas?  Who or What do we get our definition from?

I found the Spirit of Christmas for a few brief moments on Christmas Eve.  Not in the carols, even though I love to sing.  Not in the sermon, (sorry Andy) even though the thought-provoking look at the nativity through Revelation was captivating.  Dragons on Christmas Eve is definitely a new one. It wasn’t in the entrance of the lit Christ candle, I’m not even sure I noticed it being carried in. It wasn’t even in the traditional candlelight singing of Silent Night, although I felt the Spirit of Christmas all through that beautiful hymn…. felt the Spirit, didn’t sing much of the song.  I found the Spirit of Christmas shortly after Pastor Andy talked about how the flame for the candles was going to be passed.  I’d “heard” this every year for most of my life, but somehow I had never really heard it.

The flame that lit my little candle and every other candle, held by every other person in that sanctuary, was lit from the same source.  The Christ candle.  That may not seem like much, but to me that meant everything.  I could see the Christ candle just 8 or so feet in front me, with its flame burning brightly.  This year I looked at the larger candle coming down the aisle with the same anticipation I used to have on Christmas morning, what wondrous gift was coming my way?  Excitement with a syncopated heartbeat.  As soon as my candle was lit, I found it very difficult to look away.  My sole focus was on the flame; mine and its source.  All I could l see was my candle and the Christ candle… and the fact that my flame came from Christ’s flame was a connection that was amazing to me, almost overwhelming.  I prayed the hymn would go on forever.  When the service was over I heard candles being “puffed” out all around me, confused as to how they could do that so easily.  My candle stayed lit until it became awkward for me to not blow it out, and when I did blow it out the whole church seemed to me to be a bit darker, even though the lights were back on.

For the first time in my life I held the true meaning of Christmas in my heart for those all too short moments.  I can still feel them when I stop to think about it, but it’s not the same.  When I held the light, the flame of Christ’s spirit, in my hand; when I had the flame that had been directly lit from His flame, I held the true meaning of Christ’s birth; for those moments I could feel Emmanuel – God with us – alive in my heart.  I could feel Emmanuel inside my spirit, inside my soul.  That is what Christmas is really all about, not giving pretty gifts or helping Santa save the day.  Emmanuel Christmas is what you will not find on the 25 Days of Christmas Movies.  But if everyone could feel what I felt on Christmas Eve, there would be a hunger to know Christ better, rather than the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the world would be one step closer to being the world God created it to be.

John 1

The Word Became Flesh

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome^[a] it.

Don’t you just love Christmas trees?  They have the magical ability to change even the drabbest of environments into a beautiful, enchanted wonderland of twinkling possibilities.  I can never make up my mind if I like the multicolored or the white lights the best, or maybe all one color, like red or purple (purple does stand for royalty you know).   And then there is the decision to twinkle or not to twinkle. Although now, with all of these modern techno gadgets you can twinkle fast, or gradually fade in and out, twinkle in time with the carols even.  Too fancy for me.  I have enough problems with just twinkle or not.

Then there is the garland, ribbons, ornaments…. our tree is quite tall now, 9′.  We have 10′ ceilings so our 9′ tree looks pretty good.  It’s pre-lit so my dilemma of colors or white / twinkle or not has been taken out of my hands.  The 9′ tree has white lights that do not twinkle.  In fact it has so many of them that one of my favorite Christmas pastimes has also been taken away from me.  It is impossible to sit in the dark and watch the lights on the Christmas tree…. this tree lights up the whole house, probably the whole neighborhood and quite possibly the whole Northeast side of town.  Did I mention that it’s a very bright tree?  The ornaments on it aren’t fashionable or organized.  They are an eclectic mix of homemade school craft projects, dollar store finds, and vacation souvenirs.  We always bring home a Christmas ornament from every place we travel to add to our mix.  Our tree sports unlikely neighbors such as popsicle nativity scenes and a pink sparkly flamingo .  The flamingo may not be scriptural, but she does remind us of time well spent together and brings back hugs and smiles as she is hung on a tree along with, “do you remember…?”

I remember the tree my family had when we were growing up.  It to was artificial.  Dad would set it up a few weeks before Christmas and my little brother, Jay and I would help him.  The first thing we would do is sort all of the limbs out by the color of the tip.  Then Jay and I would take turns handing dad the limbs according to the tip color he needed next.  Dad would put all of the lights on… strictly colored and always twinkling.  Then the ornaments would go on.  No garland, no ribbon, no tinsel.  Just the lights and the ornaments.  Jay and I could put our ornaments on and any others that wouldn’t break, but only dad could put on the glass ornaments.  We knew better than to touch them.

One year though, my parents left us home… alone.  We must have been like 11 and 9 or something.  My youngest brother, Kipp, wasn’t born yet, so we couldn’t have been any older than that.  We used to accomplish some pretty amazing feats when we were left home alone, Jay and I did!!  One time we created the worlds largest house of cards.  It took up the whole living room floor.  We used up every deck of mom and dad’s bridge cards in the house and just to make it really pretty, we mixed them all up too.  We left it up when we went to bed so that mom and dad could see it when they got home, cause it was totally awesome!  We also left the TV on, cause we couldn’t get to it to shut it off without destroying our beautiful house of cards.  Jay and I found out the next morning that mom and dad weren’t quite as impressed with our beautiful house of cards as we were.  It took a really long time to get those decks of cards all sorted out again too.

On this particular night, Jay and I decided that this year we were going to surprise mom and dad by putting the tree up all by ourselves!  They were gone at some Christmas-y function and we thought the tree should be up by now, so we decided to go ahead and just do it.   We knew the routine by now.  Get the stand out, put the tree-pole in the stand, sort out the limbs by color, put the limbs in the pole by color, next is the lights and finally the ornaments.  By this age we felt fully qualified to handle the glass ornaments.  These glass ornaments weren’t just the boxed glass ornaments that you can buy at Wal-Mart or Target, these were the hand blown glass ornaments that had been dad’s grandmother’s and they were very special to him.  Something that we didn’t quite grasp at 11 & 9.

The tree was up, decorated and looking pretty good.  Jay and I were very pleased with ourselves…  Until…  The tree did a slow swan dive onto the TV and then onto the floor.  This was an AFV worthy dive, lights popping and ornaments crashing… dad’s ornaments.  We had managed to destroy every one of dad’s ornaments, the ones we weren’t supposed to touch.  We also broke a glass swan vase that mom had sitting on top of the TV.  Ironic huh?  I don’t remember if we forgot to tighten the bolts on the stand, or if we used the wrong stand altogether and it just couldn’t support the weight.  Either way we took on something that was not ours to take on and this time we got into a bit more trouble than we did with the house of cards.  Some things you just can’t fix with a few hours of sorting it out.  Dad did forgive us and Santa still came that year.

Out of all the Christmases growing up, that is the tree I remember the most.  I think about it every year as we decorate our Christmas tree.

The senses are very powerful.  Isn’t it amazing how a smell or a taste can take you instantly to a moment in time millions of light years removed from the moment your body is located in?  I have some constant triggers.  Chicken livers take me instantly to my Grandma Long’s kitchen on a cold winter’s night.  The kitchen is snug and warm, with six gathered around her gray Formica and chrome table with red vinyl and chrome chairs.  The mingled aromas from the fried chicken, mashed potatoes (a bit lumpy for texture, thank you), chicken gravy with bits of crunchy chicken coating in it, corn (frozen from the past summer, of course), and dinner rolls gathered in the center of the table are rich.  Ice cold whole milk in my tiny, flowered jelly glass.  My personal favorite was the one with daffodils on it.  Life was good and full and safe here in my grandmother’s kitchen.  My parent’s and my grandparent’s would never let anything happen to me, they all loved me.  My tummy was full, my heart was full, and Lawrence Welk would be on TV soon!

My grandmother died just before Christmas 1973 and subsequently just before my tenth birthday.  I have many memories of her, but none as wonderful as ice-cold milk and chicken livers, and that warm cozy kitchen.

My parents loved to listen to the Bing Crosby Christmas album when I was little.  Those songs can instantly take me back to Christmas’s from my Childhood.  My mother actually expected us to take a nap on Christmas Eve…. as if!  Who could even think of a nap during the afternoon of the biggest night of the whole year?!!  I mean really!  So my brother Jay and I would lay on opposite ends of the greatest couch on earth, the Big Green Couch.  This couch was amazing.  We could lay on opposite ends and our feet didn’t touch, for years our feet didn’t touch, it was ginormous!  Jay and I would lay on the couch, whisper about what was in the presents under the tree and giggle.  In later years we already knew what was in the presents under the tree because we became really good at unwrapping and rewrapping them when our parents left us home by ourselves…. I’m not sure if that put us on the naughty list or not, but it probably should have.

Christmas Eve was at Grandma Reiners’ house.  Big family, not so big house.  My mom has one sister, my aunt had nine children. Homemade chicken and noodles was the meal of tradition, or oyster stew, but the chicken and noodles is still the favorite.  My Grandma Reiners died in 1993 and what I find particularly amazing, is that it takes nearly the entire family to make the same amount of noodles that my grandma could make.  Plus she made pies and I have no idea how many cookies and breads, she fattened up the entire neighborhood.  Everyone knew they could get fed at Grammy’s house.  It was a loud, sometimes rowdy gathering, occasionally Santa would show up.  But that house, that grew smaller every year, was filled with a love that grew larger as the house grew smaller.

Christmas Morning was at Grandma  & Grandpa Long’s house.  We would bundle up first thing in the morning, as soon as we had seen what Santa had left under the tree and in our stockings (Does anyone else remember an orange in the toe of the stocking?).  Breakfast was warm pecan sticky rolls, coffee for the grownups (the smell again), more milk for me, and frosted flakes for Jay.  I remember sitting at grandma’s walnut dining room table with the white linen table-cloth on it.  There was another guest there today, besides the six of us, Aunt Viola, my grandpa’s daughter.  Christmas Morning was so much quieter.  Jay and I were the only children there.  The smell of a fresh Christmas tree will take me back to Christmas Morning, so will the big, old-fashioned tree lights.  There were certain things we could always count on at grandma & grandpa’s: the turtle filled with bubble bath powder that could later be turned into a bank, and “presents on the tree” in the form of cash envelopes with a dollar bill in them.  We thought we were rich!  Somewhere I still have the elephant that I got for my first Christmas from Aunt Viola.

Life was simpler back then.  Santa Claus is coming to town actually worked with us, for a few years anyway.  We looked forward to Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and the other specials on TV…  Now they are on every night for two months.  And presents are either gifts cards, or broken or discarded before Summer gets here.

What are some of your Christmas memories?

Platitudes… I want to hear your platitudes.  You know those really awful things that well-meaning people say when they don’t know what to say.  The words that never should have left their mouth.  As someone who has just lost a loved one, these platitudes don’t help at all.  At best they cause us to look at the person as if they have 3 heads and each one is speaking a different foreign language.  Most of the time however, the platitudes cut deep and yet we feel obligated to respond with a smile, pretending that we’ve just received the answer to all of our pain.

Some of my favorite platitudes, and by favorite I mean NOT, are:

“God needed him more than you did.”  Oh please!  God does NOT need him more than I do.  God does not NEED anyone!  He is GOD!  Duh!  Does God need him to raise His son?  I don’t think so… Jesus is already grown up.  I need him much more than God does.  This one is definitely on the “Leave it Unsaid” List.

“I know just how your feeling.”  This one is tricky.  Some people may have an idea of the level of your pain, but no one can know just how your feeling, not really.  Everyone’s pain is unique and to have someone tell you they know your exact pain can be hurtful, especially if that person hasn’t experienced the same type of loss that you’re going through.  This one is relegated to the “Needs to Be Modified or Moderated” List, at best.

This is my all time favorite, and by favorite I mean I absolutely HATE it:

“Oh, you’re so lucky, Jesus is your husband now.”  OK, there are just so many wrong aspects of this to a widow, especially a new widow.  I love Jesus with all my heart, but He’s not there to hold me at night when I’m lonely or frightened.  He doesn’t get me laughing when I’m punchy and then pretend to try to help me, knowing all the while that he’s making it worse and soon I’ll be hyperventilating.  Jesus doesn’t fart under the covers and then joke about it.  Jesus can’t physically hold my hand.  Jesus is wonderful and amazing, but telling a widow that she’s lucky, or even mentioning that Jesus is her husband now isn’t helpful.  It’s hurtful.  A widow doesn’t want Jesus as her husband, all she wants is her own husband back.   This one goes on the “Leave It Unsaid” List, at the top, in bold capital letters.

Okay, so those are my top three platitudes.  Now I want to know what yours are!  Any kind of platitudes, not just for grief.

I know that I’m guilty of saying things that have put my too small foot directly into my too large mouth.  One benefit of the grief I’m journeying through is that I’m more aware of what I say to others that are hurting.  If I’ve said anything to you that I should have left unsaid, please list that in the comments as well…. go for it!  😀

During my first year of widowhood, I’ve made lots of choices, as all newly widowed men and women do.  Some are absolutely necessary, some are frivolous.  Some are unknown and frightening, some are merely curious. All are a stepping stone into the realm of independence.

The first choices are made in a complete state of shock, those made at the funeral home.  Even if you’ve known that the death was imminent, the shock of suddenly being alone has hit like a rogue wave on a rocky shore and leaves you gasping for air.  The choices made here have a permanence that carries far past the day, but the decisions can barely be recalled later.  I remember being in the funeral home while the decisions were made,  but my recollections of the encounter are only of my personal thoughts of panic and need for escape.  I cannot at all remember the choices made for the funeral beyond one… cremation.

Then come the necessary choices, such as house repairs.  For me and many widows these choices come with a high level of frustration attached to them.  These were not our choices to make in the past, our husbands made them with us if not for us.  We know little or nothing about them, even less about who to hire to fix them or if we’re getting over-charged because we know little or nothing about them.  These are the situations were we HATE being the needy widow.  Especially if we have no immediate male family members nearby to help us out.  We do Not want to ask for help, but we would be thrilled to death (no pun intended) if someone would offer to help.  Home maintenance 101 should be a mandatory class for every widow, but quite frankly, I can’t reach most places in my house without a really tall ladder, have I mentioned that I’m vertically challenged?  I’m also quite intimidated by all power tools, except for glue guns.  They plug-in so I’m assuming they fall under the category of power tools.

The final category of choices that newly widowed persons find themselves making, especially in that first year are the, “Because I Can” choices.  These are the angry or spiteful choices we make in some subconscious attempt to get even with our spouse for deserting us.  They can range from trivial and silly to expensive or just plain dangerous.  One of my first BIC choices was to cut my hair.  I know this sounds very childish and it was, but Larry didn’t like short hair on women or long hair on men.  I think it hearkened back to his days at the Naval Academy, not sure.  Whatever the reason was, my hair was always longish and after he died I had it cut, just because I could.  And each time I went back to have my roots colored (my hair is chemically dependent, I have NO idea what my natural color is anymore but I’m suspecting there’s a liberal amount of gray) I would have a bit more cut off.  Now short hair on me isn’t a good look.  My heritage is primarily Swedish, with a bit of German and Irish thrown in for good temper, eh huh.  This means that my hair has the basic consistency of spider webs – no body whatsoever.  All of the body went south to my hips.  My hair just kind of lays there.  So with really short hair, my head takes on the general appearance of a Q-tip.  Great if you are a Q-tip, not so great if you’re a woman.  I had one brave and loving friend – thank you Maggie – who had the courage to tell me one evening after Bible School last July that perhaps I’d gone too short with that last hair cut, because it really didn’t look very good.  She was sooo right.  I’m growing it out again now.  Funny thing with hair, it takes longer to grow than it does to cut.

Another BIC decision was to spend too much time on the couch wallowing in my grief.  Time spent on the computer (See To Shop Or Not To Shop), reading, watching movies, or just staring at the walls.  Whatever I was or wasn’t doing, I was sitting and sitting and sitting.  I discovered the harvest of this activity the other night when I put on my favorite flannel jammies for the first time this winter.  The top fits great, better than ever.  The bottoms….  That body that I mentioned above… yeah, well it has been fruitful and multiplied.  I have harvested a big butt  and there isn’t any spandex in flannel!  I squeezed my behind into those bottoms and thought, “Dang, these things got tight!  They must have shrunk in storage or something”  Umm Hmmmm.  No, I just broadened my horizon on my reclining love seat.  So I went back to wearing Larry’s flannel jammies, they’re still too big so they make me feel better… 🙂

There are other BIC choices that I’ve made in the last year, some big, some little.  But all were made with the same attitude.  “You’re not here to tell me no, so I can do this if I want to!”  Some were okay to make, some were not okay to make.  One in particular should have been made years ago, my health has been improved immensely by it.  Am I really getting back at Larry for dying and leaving me alone when I make these decisions?  Of course not.  If the choices are bad the only one who suffers is me, if they are really bad I could hurt my family too.  That would be horrible.  If the choices are good, Larry does not benefit from them.  He’s already in the most wonderful place imaginable, in Heaven with Jesus.

Why do I make choices with these silly childish attitudes attached?  Because I’m human, I’m broken and somewhere inside there is a little girl who wants to get even with someone for destroying her “happily ever after”

I was shopping yesterday with my bestest of best buds, Eunice, known to best to others as Dawn.  Our main purpose was companionship, we’re both grieving this year.  Dawn’s momma went home to be with Jesus in September.  When our grief is shared we can find the joy and the laughter in the memories we have of our loved ones.  And laugh we did.  We were positively goofy.  Eunice and I went in search of Christmas.

Christmas is hard to find when you’re grieving.  The energy or even the desire to decorate your own house is a monumental task.  I know personally, if it weren’t for my youngest son I wouldn’t bother with it at all, but he is still young enough that Christmas trimmings are very important.  Shopping is a burden, wrapping even worse.  Day to day living is still a chore, let alone the added mountain to scale of Christmas.  What is Christmas anyway?

I find myself asking this question more now that Larry is gone than at any other time in my life.  What is Christmas?  What is Christmas supposed to look like?  What is it supposed to feel like?  According to most of the TV movies, you can’t have Christmas without Santa Claus.  There is some tragic event that is ruining Christmas and something even more dramatic that makes it possible for Santa to swoop in and save Christmas at the last-minute.  I love Santa Claus and whenever I’m asked I will most assuredly tell you that the spirit of Santa Claus is alive and well.  I do not believe, however, that Christmas cannot take place without Santa Claus.  I think I was fairly young when I had that bubble popped.  I had 9 cousins that lived just a block away, half of them older.  Christmas still came without Santa.

I’m pretty sure that Christmas isn’t about the Black Friday Sales.  Saving money and being a good steward is a great thing, but I don’t think that it’s mentioned in the Bible under Top 10 Reasons to Celebrate Christmas. I haven’t gone out shopping on Black Friday in years, probably 18 or more.  I’d rather be home, all snug and warm, shopping from my computer or my favorite QVC.

So if Christmas isn’t about Santa Claus and it isn’t about shopping, then what is it about.  If it’s not about shopping then it’s not about gifts.  Don’t think it’s about the lights.  I hope not at any rate.  I’m rebelling this year.  I have a lighted Holiday Hippo in my front yard, courtesy my bestest bud.  She bought it for me to be sure that the most annoying of all Christmas songs  ever written would be forever stuck in my head each time I left and returned from my home.  “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas…. only a hippopotamus will do.”  Yup, she loves me.  I also have strings of pink flamingo lights hanging from my porch.  These non-traditional lights are my way of begging for global warming this winter.  I’m protesting cold weather.

OK, so no Santa, no shopping or gifts, no lights… is it the songs?  There are so many wonderful Christmas songs.  Songs that touch your heart and make you cry, songs that bring a smile to your face and laughter to your life.  But still no, as wonderful as Christmas songs can be, I don’t believe that is what Christmas is about either.  Like the others, they can enhance the experience of Christmas, but that is not what Christmas is.  What IS Christmas… what is it supposed to be?

I believe that I found Christmas twice this past weekend.  The first one was at a shopping center in Lansing.  A homeless woman with disabilities was begging.  I had some money in my pocket so I rolled my window down and gave it to her.  Noah asked me why the other cars weren’t stopping to give her money also and why I had.  I was able to have a discussion with him about why we are supposed to help each other…. helping the least of these.  And how the woman might not have even been a homeless woman, she might have been an angel sent by God at Christmas time to check on the condition of our hearts.  Are we really helping the least of these, or are we only concerned with ourselves… entertaining angels unaware.  That moment felt more like Christmas to me than any other so far this year.

The second moment of Christmas came yesterday when I was shopping with my bestest bud.  There is a young mother with 3 children who is in need of everything to set up house.  We went shopping for her and her children.  That shopping trip was fun.  In those moments of playing Santa Claus, Santa Claus was important to Christmas.  Imagining the lights in the children’s eyes as they opened the gifts, and in the young mother’s eyes as her burdens became a little bit lighter and her faith in her heavenly Father’s care of her grew a little bit more… those lights of Christmas became very important to Christmas.

Christmas doesn’t feel the same.  It feels hollow.  It feels lonely.  But for two moments on two different days I found Christmas, not in Santa or shopping or gifts or lights or songs, but in giving.  I found Christmas in giving of myself to someone else.  Someone whom I did not know.  Someone who did not know me.  I found Christmas simply by giving without expecting anything in return… and it felt wonderful!  What a wonderful world this would be if we would all do this every day.

Yesterday was very strange.  My son’s class of 4th, 5th, & 6th graders (all 10 of them this year) held their annual Thanksgiving Widow’s luncheon.  There were 30+ widows and widowers in attendance.  Each student hosted a table and that student was in charge of caring for the needs of the guests at his/her table.  It was so sweet to watch these energetic children, in their Sunday dress clothes, carefully delivering cups of coffee, plates of turkey with all the fixings and finally dessert.  After dessert was served it was time for Bingo.  The prizes ranged from home-made pies and breads to farm fresh eggs, hand crocheted lap blankets and cross book marks to hand sewn pillows.  What a wonderful day.

Normally I would be in the kitchen with an apron on, helping in whatever way I could.  Today however, I was a guest.  My W2Y compadres  weren’t there with me, they had to work.  But I know that, had they been there they would have felt the same thing that I was feeling.  Where do I fit in?  My son was so happy that he could invite me to the luncheon.  I was so not happy to be sitting there with a room full of senior citizens as the lone 40-something widow.   For the most part I’ve gotten over feeling like there’s a neon sign flashing over my head “W*I*D*O*W”, but today the sign was back.  Just to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten that I’m a W*I*D*O*W, I got a call for Larry from a hospital later when I got home about an overdue bill.  The sarcastic side of me really wanted to say, “I’m sorry, you guys failed… you’re not getting paid!” Not the answer my Heavenly Father would approve of.  Another answer I wanted to give them was, “Get in line, I’ve got medical bills of Larry’s that are older than yours that I’m still working on”.  Better, but still not the answer God would want me to give them.  I told them something to the effect of, “I will be paying it.  I’m working on his other medical bills, the ones that are older, as best I can”.  Joy Joy Joy.  All I want for Christmas is no more medical bills.  I’d ask for no more bills, but that’s probably a bit too much to ask for.  :-}

So where do we fit in?  The W2Y Club… Widows 2 Young?  We don’t fit in with the elderly widows, our challenges are different.  Single mothers raising kids who are grieving the loss of their fathers, for one.  I can’t even wrap my mind around the word “widow” and apply it to myself.  Amy, Bonnie, Robin & Sarah – fellow members of the club –  know what I mean.  That word feels like a burden, a lead weight that we have to carry with us.  It weighs us down like a jacket and boots made of wet sand, dead weight that we must drag with us as we maneuver this obstacle course called grief.   I hate titles, and W*I*D*O*W has to be one of the worst.  “Hello, I’m a widow.  I was once loved, but the man who I loved and who loved me back is dead now, and I am all alone.  Yes, I’m alone and pathetic.  Nobody loves anymore.  The day will come when I will wake up on Christmas morning all alone and hope that one of my children invited me to come for dinner. ”  Oh goody! Yes I’m very good at feeling sorry for myself.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow.  What am I thankful for?

1.  That I survived the first year without being institutionalized!

2. That my Heavenly Father loves me so much He lets me rant and rave at Him and He still picks up the pieces and puts me back together.

3.  That Jesus Christ loves me so much He gave up his life for me, and rose again so that I can be clean and acceptable for eternal life in heaven.  And even though there is no marriage in heaven, I will still be reunited with Larry in God’s eternal family as brother and sister in Christ.

4.  That I’m privileged to be the mother of 4 amazingly incredible sons who blow me away every day.  They are growing in to men that keep me saying, “Wow God, did you see that?”  Very humbling to see your babies grow up to be real men of Godly integrity, in spite of all the mistakes you’ve made.

5. The support of family and friends.  You know who you are!!

6. My house is paid off and so is my car.

7.  14 1/2 YEARS OF NEARLY PERFECT MARRIED LIFE WITH A PERFECT HUSBAND – LARRY BRANDON!!!!

Intense grief will, at times, require some sort of self “medication”.  Not real medication in the sense of prescription drugs, but something that will numb the pain.  Something that the brain can turn to where the pain isn’t present.  For some this is alcohol.  For others this might be gambling.  For most though, there are other “sedatives”, more socially acceptable, but potentially just as destructive.

My painkillers took on two forms, both involving my computer.  The first form was Facebook games, such as Farmville, Yoville, Frontierville, pet society… anything where I could create nice, tidy little worlds where every thing was in its place.  I was dedicated to harvesting my crops on time and making sure that my farms were the best ones.  I had the best houses, the best decorations, the best equipment.  Everything in my Facebook game worlds was Perfect!  Exactly the opposite of my life, where I had fallen off my wall and was still waiting for the Kings horses and men to come put me back together.  Still waiting on that one.

My second form of computerized self-medication was internet shopping.  My husband had left me with a pretty good life insurance policy and I was already pretty good at shopping.  We used to have a running joke that the numbers we had memorized showed our priorities.  Larry had his Driver License number memorized.  I had my credit card number memorized.  Shopping problem?…. yup.  Shopping problem and grief, … not a good mix.  So you take a grieving internet shopaholic, who has nowhere to go during the day and feels the need to fill the void in her life…  Did I mention QVC yet?

Ok, so as the empty boxes started to pile up, and I ran out of places to put all of this new “stuff” that was supposed to fill the empty places in my heart, my stress level went up as well.  My house was becoming a pit of chaos.  The more chaotic the mess became the more I retreated into the Farmville type games.

I tried to tell myself that the games were harmless, that I wasn’t hurting anyone.  I’m not sure when God pointed out to me that I was hurting someone, two someones.  I was hurting myself and I was hurting Noah.  I was drowning my sorrow and numbing my pain in addictive stimuli that were as damaging as alcohol and gambling, just more socially acceptable.  I didn’t want to stop playing the games when Noah came home.  Noah needed me, but I had nothing left to be needed with.  All I could do was lose myself in the make-believe world of neat and tidy.  I couldn’t face the messy reality of a new life that I had not chosen.

I had no idea what to do with myself outside of my old life.  For 14 1/2 years I had been Larry’s wife.  That was the center of my world, my focus.  We worked together, parented together, worshiped together, and for the last year my world had been completely consumed with caring for Larry, searching for a possible cure for his brain cancer.  Suddenly the center of my life was gone, torn from my side.   And so I planted myself on the couch and ran away to tidy little cartoon worlds inside my computer.  And shopped.  And shopped.  Ad nauseum.

It’s Christmas  now.  Our second Christmas without Larry.  I’m happy to report that Farmville has been taken over by Noah, when he feels like it.  Crops don’t always get harvested, or planted.  I don’t care, because I don’t play anymore.  I don’t play any of the “ville” games.  The shopping has been severely curtailed!!  Not totally cured.  I have however closed the credit card account that I had memorized.  (thank you Dave Ramsey).

Christmas will be leaner this year, but it’s not about the gifts.  It’s not about who isn’t here.  It is about Who he is with.  The One who guided me out of the numbing sedatives of online shopping and Facebook games.  The One who is daily guiding me back toward the peace that carried Larry and I through the valley of his cancer.  Peace that can carry me through the valley of grief.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  Not through Visa who charges me, or Facebook games that just consume my time.  Christ is my refuge and my strength.

© Copyright 2010 Shelley A Brandon

suggested reading:     A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis