Who are you, grief?

Written approximately five months after Olivia's death. 

I am loud, obnoxious, and overpowering. 

I am larger than life. 

I will leave you bound to your bed for days and always in tears. 

I steal your joy and drown out the love. 

I take away your identity and leave you unrecognizable.

I poke at your nerves and ride the last one out.

I take your comfort.

I make your relationships difficult and awkward. 

I make you question everything you knew about life and love and sadness. 

I scream at you all the time.

I am unpredictable and messy.

I make you scoff at the idea of love or that anyone really cares. 

I magnify your fears and bombard your thoughts with all the worst case scenarios. 

I'm like a new tattoo--I will never go away. 

I overtake who you are so there is no more self, just this new outer layer, empty inside.

I make you silent so conversations are nonexistent. 

I am hard pressed to learn new things or that there is a light. 

I need the spotlight. I want to steal the show. 

I made a new you. 

I am normal and no stranger.  I will affect everyone at some point. No one will escape not knowing my name. 

I am testing who you are, your beliefs, and everything.

* * *

But maybe I get comfortable. 

Maybe I become secondary. 

Maybe I will sit back and let joy grow around you and become a gentle reminder of love instead of pain. 

I might be the worst you've ever felt and make it the hardest it's ever been to live, but maybe I'll become the greatest reminder of life. 

Maybe I'll bring flowers after the storm. 

end

Maybe grief is a new part of who I am but it doesn't have to be a bad part. Maybe grief can be gentle and be the reminder of love.  Maybe one day she won't hurt me so badly or be so loud. Maybe she'll share the new me with joy as it comes. 

How do I glorify God in my grief?

I will praise you, anyway. You are the savior and giver of everlasting life.  Though my every ounce of being screams pain in her absence, You've given her a gift of greatness. She gets to feel all the love and live in the light. How can I be sad for her? It is just myself I pity. 

And still I thank the Lord for my other children. They're still here and deserving of a present mother-not consumed with grief. Let the gentle grief be shown to them through me--and the ugly if they need it.  Let me be who they need me to be. 

Gratitude:  I am grateful for my kids and God's unfailing love. 

To publish or not to publish?

Two days ago (August 18) was the one year anniversary of my beautiful daughter, Olivia (f16), going to Heaven. I've been debating whether or not to publish my journal online from the past year, or at least the grief parts.  Grief bleeds into every aspect of life, though, so it's not without the drama of my "normal" life.  I can't really separate that; a normal life and a grief life.  Now it is just before death and after death.  But would it help anyone to read my "journey" through the year? 

Truth is hard.  Truth hurts.  But truth sets you free, right? "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32 KJV.  I try not to be a liar.  But maybe by omission I am one. I keep things inside because I don't want to hurt anyone around me.  And why should I let my emotions bleed all over someone else?  Feelings change and they certainly aren't facts.  Writing them is my way of releasing the negativity and intensity of the feelings that weigh me down.  We just never know how words will be received.  You can't trample all over someone else's truth and right to feel their own emotions, fact or not. Can you be authentic though, if you censor yourself? 

For most of the year, I've been numb and asleep.  Crying and shaking my fists at God. Stillness.  So much stillness.  There isn't an ounce left of hurry in me. Everything is slow and intentional.  But everything is also overanalyzed and questioned.  Where there is good, there is also bad.  Everything all in the same package.  Rest became isolation. Slowness became lazy.  Nourishment became gluttony.  Like the flip of a switch.  The light versus the dark.  Oh how it changes perspective. I want the light to be on, always.  I now try to ask of everything, "Will this please God?"  It tilts the scales back to goodness.  

My days are filled with lament, like those of the Psalms.  I cry out to God and ask, "Why Lord?" and finish with his praise.  He is the reason I get to see her, again.  He is a good Father, and He knows my pain.  "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18 NIV  Without God, I dare say I'd have made it through this year.  When I was on the floor in pieces, I have no doubt He was holding me in His hands.  I know He can handle my anger and my lamenting.  I also don't believe He intends for me to hurt.   

But the world has made the suffering real.  Every day still feels wrong.  I am still missing a huge part of myself. There will forever be a hole in my heart. There is a burning pit in my stomach that hasn't gone away in the past year.  I still sob often and at unexpected moments.  The gut punches keep coming as I realize "she's gone" again and again.  Every day is an internal war of relying on my God and wondering how I can put my trust in the one who allowed so much hurt to fall on me.  Every day is lonely. Every day I am an outsider looking in to a world I just don't fit in, anymore. Every day is a journey for joy that leaves me empty handed. 

I hope one day I'll be able to live and love like my Livvy did. 

Dear Olivia

    Hello my sweet, precious child.  In two days, I'll have made it through all the seasons without you.  Honestly, I'm nearly speechless. How can it have been a year already? I sit here and I wonder what it is I want to say to you.  What would you want to know? Surely you'd want to hear happy news and about all the joy that has filled our lives.  But I'm hard pressed to find any of that in the past year.  It's been a blur of minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months. I can't count it all as sorrow, though. 

    Hattie and James are both another year older. James has his license now and Hattie is a teenager! I think you'd be proud of both of them and how they've handled you being gone. James has been a real rock. Very practical and black and white about it, really. You've gone to Heaven now and you're living the best life there with Jesus.  So, we should be happy.  I wish it were so simple for me. Hattie lets me cry on her shoulder and squeeze and hold her tight when I've lost it all and can't contain my sobs any longer.  Yes, you would really be proud of them. 

    My wedding day came and went in a blur. We left it planned. I was told again and again, "It's what Olivia would have wanted." But you weren't there.

    I've forgiven the boyfriend.  I guess I should have started with that.  You'd probably want to know that first.  I wish I knew what was going on in that car.  What led to such stupidity? Why'd you break the rules? Of course I was angry with you, too. The most. But I've let this go.  It doesn't matter, really.  Now you're gone, anyway, and nothing can bring you back.  So, anger truly is pointless. 

    They held a beautiful candle light vigil for you.  I went, but it was hard.  You'd  be proud of my progress for going to the school at all. Your funeral was pretty, too.  All of my cousins and aunts jumped right in to help.  They made it beautiful for you. I wrote a eulogy.  I read it at the funeral.  Somehow I kept it together. 

    I think your dad is taking it really hard.  He's back in Michigan, now, with grandma. I know he misses you, too. 

    We started a scholarship in your name.  The Olivia Novakowski Grace and Grit Scholarship. Hopefully this year we'll be able to award it to the first recipient for what would have been your senior year.  We're planning a color run 5k.  I think you'd be excited about that. 

    Some of your friends have reached out to me, to say how special you were. I knew that already, of course.  But it sure is great to hear from others about you.  It's so rare now that anyone speaks your name except for the immediate family. 

    Your aunt Kathy really was devastated.  I mean, we all were.  But she misses you in ways I can't begin to describe. 

    I'm jumping all over the place.  Welcome to my brain on grief. I've devoured several books about grief and the loss of a child.  Went to a support group called GriefShare.  It was mostly older men and women who lost their spouses, though.  I felt really out of place. I went to a bereaved parents retreat at the While We're Waiting ministry in Arkansas.  It was an interesting weekend.  I think I should have gone by myself, though.  But there were other parents who lost their kids, some more than one.  I can only begin to imagine the pain they carry, since I know what losing just one is like. 

    I rest a lot.  Okay, I sleep a lot. I don't want anyone but your brother and sister around me most of the time.  I appreciate my time with Kathy and your other aunts when I can get it.  I do visit granny every weekend.  We say we just don't know how much time she's got left now that she's 93.  And oh, how in the depths of my heart I am jealous to know that she will most likely be reunited with you before I will. She certainly misses you and I bet that will be a fantastic hug when you see her.  

    Momo and Pawpaw were there for me right away.  They're always just a phone call away.  And sometimes I take them up on it and I yell and scream about the unfairness of it all.  It goes without saying they miss you, too. We all miss you.  

    I guess this probably isn't the letter you'd like to get, if I could really send it.  But it's my truth. I'm shattered by your death.  I try to cling to my faith, but my trust in God really took a hit.  How can I now trust the one that let you die?  I get it, everything for the greater good, but do you know how much that hurts to hear? How can anything about your death be good? But I know you left a mark on so many people and I bet you led some to Jesus.  You sure lived out that purpose.  Your faith was beautiful.  I'm trying to trust God, and I'm sure that it's Him that's holding me together through all of this.  

    Man, what was that even like?  Being in the presence of God? Seeing Jesus for the first time and hugging him.  The love you must feel! 

    I don't want you sad.  I don't say any of these things to bring you down.  I'm just not okay. Everyone says that one day I will be.  And I know that's true, at least in the very end when I get to Heaven to see you, again.  But I imagine I'll learn to carry this grief.  Maybe I will become better instead of bitter. Oh, I doubt you even have time to worry over Earthly things.  I'm sure the time there is so much different.  Maybe it's only been an instant since you got there, or maybe it's been years. Either way, I can't wait to hear all about it from you one day. 

    I'm going to keep showing up down here, somehow.  Loving Hattie and James as hard as I can. Maybe I'll be a better mother for them than the version y'all got before you left.  I can only hope.  

    I wanted to honor you somehow on your Heaven day.  No one wants to say celebrate the day you died, but really, I bet that was one marvelous celebration walking into Heaven.  I know that was the best day of your life; the worst day of mine.  It's going to be tough, I know that. I won't be alone.  We will remember you and talk about you.  I hope there are laughs and smiles, and not just tears. 

    I guess that's enough from this side of Heaven.  Maybe next year will be a letter filled with more joyous things.  Until then, I love you Livvy Lou. I miss you. 

Mom