Aaron was born on a Monday night, and that following Saturday morning we held his memorial, and then burial, services. As I entered my church sanctuary, where the memorial service was being held, I saw everything through the black tunnel vision that had now taken over me and had become my new normal. I don’t remember too many details of the service, but I do remember sobbing, and hugging lots of friends and family. We received lots of well-meaning gifts and books, a mountain of cards, and enough flowers for me to start my own floral shop if I wanted to.
I would be lying to you if I said that I wasn’t mad at God. Of course I was. I was furious plus about every other emotion one could think of. And not only was I mad at God, I was mad at nearly everyone around me. I distanced myself from some ladies who were pregnant at the same time as I was because just thinking about how they were able to keep their babies and I wouldn’t just about did me in. It took a lot of counseling for me to be able to move on and start healing from that pain. Healing hurts, and I didn’t like the constant pain that it brought (still don’t). Thankfully, I can look down that bumpy, curvy, pot-hole filled road that I’ve been on for the last (almost) two-and-a-half years and can see the progress that I’ve made.
Now, there’s something that you should know about me before we go any further, and it’s that I’m the reigning Queen of “But What If … “ scenarios. If something bad were to happen, I could instantly come up with eight totally absurd “what if” stories to go along with it. I’m sure you can imagine all of the “but what if … “ stories that I made up for myself to justify why Aaron had passed away. “What if I drank too much coffee?”, “What if I slept on my right side of my stomach too much?”, “What if I didn’t cook my scrambled eggs all the way that one morning?” All of the thoughts were just stuck inside my mind with no way out.
Grief makes you feel stagnant, like standing still in a swamp. Everything around you is murky and stays in the same place; it’s all rotten and it all stinks. If you can get from point A to point B, you’re doing pretty good.
And yet, even in the dismal marsh-like state of mind that I continued to dwell in, I was able to reason through one foundational thing: I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, in my head and in my heart, that God did not kill my son. I’ve studied the Bible for years, and know that what it says is true, and I will believe it until the day I die. 1 John says that “God is love”. Love doesn’t kill. God, who IS wholly and purely love, didn’t take my son away from me because He’s punishing me for something that I did. God’s character just isn’t like that. I did have to wrestle with that for a while, though. Several months after Aaron’s death, actually.
I can distinctly remember one night while I was lying in my bed, feeling utterly overwhelmed with emotions. Nothing made sense, I was still trying to figure out my new reality from my unspeakable nightmares. With blood pressure nearing the point of skyrocketing, I stomped out of our bedroom to the kitchen, grabbed oven some mitts, and started punching our sofa until both of my hands were throbbing and I was on the ground sobbing. It definitely wasn’t the prettiest moment of my life.
It needs to be said that punching my sofa that night helped me release emotions that were just sitting there and doing me no good. It was like I was a pressure cooker needing to release all of my steam. After that night, I felt like I had turned a corner, and, thankfully, it was a good one. My emotions after that were not as intense or full of rage. I was starting to deal with life a little more now, even if it was without my baby boy in my arms.
(To be continued … )