Look Up . . .

Having someone that you love, die, creates a wave of emotions that you can sometimes find difficult to control. There is a helplessness that comes from loss, and sometimes because of that helplessness, our emotions take over where calm is unable to prevail. Pain is an individual thing, and just as no two snowflakes are the same; no two people will ever feel exactly the same way when it comes to letting go of someone that they love. Sadly, in the midst of great loss, anger can become a guiding force in our sorrow. I have seen families break apart in the aftermath of a loved one’s death, especially when hurting disguises itself as misdirected anger.

 Proverbs 15:1 states, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” 

The context of that bible verse became very real for me after my mom died, and exactly thirty-eight days after her death, I found myself overwhelmed with both guilt and anger. Guilt over the division that occurred among me and some of my siblings, and anger over the impact I felt that it was having on my mom’s ability to rest peacefully in her death. It had been her dying wish that her children remain close, and yet misdirected anger at me, had torn us apart. Although that anger seemed very real, my heart was telling me that it was a distraction from our pain. I instinctively knew that my siblings were feeling the residual affects of not having the same type of relationship with our mom that I’d had.

The close relationship that I’d had with my mom was a natural occurrence because of the time we spent together. It’s the same type of situation when wanting to have a close relationship with God; it requires time. As the saying goes, “Time spent with God is never wasted.” That is how I felt about my mom; time with her was valuable to me. It wasn’t that my siblings didn’t want to spend time with our mom or that they never did spend time with her because they did (in both cases). For my mom and I, it was both quality and quantity of time that brought us as close together as we were.

My mom was more to me than someone who’d given me life; she honestly was my best friend. A plaque I’d purchased after her death, summed my relationship up with her perfectly. “My mom was my mother when I was small and became my friend when I grew tall.” And so it was in her dying that I lost both my mom and best friend. It was that bond that led to my mom entrusting me with her funeral arrangements, and her wishes beyond that. She knew that I’d honor them, and I did. Unfortunately, my loyalty to my mom caused a riff between me and some of my siblings. Things that seem so trivial now, in the moment that they were happening, seemed impossible to navigate.

It was just days before my mom dying, when she said to me, “We’re one heart, half belongs to me, half belongs to you. When I cry, you cry, when I laugh, you laugh.” She was right, we truly were one heart. We used to joke about finishing one another’s sentences, so I felt certain that my continued suffering, thirty-eight days after her death, was causing her great pain.  

And so it was, after yet another fitful sleep, worrying about my mom’s peace, that I found myself depressed and not wanting to rise from my bed.  I wanted nothing to do with getting up and facing the world, so I lay there feeling sorry for myself. Shutting the world out from existence, pulling the  covers up over my head, and ignoring a little voice within that was willing me to “get up.” 

“Get up, get up, get up,” the silent voice continued nagging at me, much like an annoying sibling mimicking a poll parrot. With great irritation, I threw back the warmth of my covers, and swung my legs over the side of my bed, pushing my sluggish body into gear.  Despite how badly I felt, I was going to keep on living, if only to spite some of my siblings.  The anger I found myself feeling toward them became like a swift kick in my butt, as I made my way to the bathroom.  “You’ll never get the better of me,” I found myself thinking, as I stepped into the shower. 

I had anticipated that taking a shower would make me feel better, but if anything, I felt worse. I then found myself hoping that my normal daily walk (my now two hour late morning walk), would stir some life into me.  It was amazing how heavy of a load my pain had become. It was keeping me, a creature of habit, from my normal routine.

“Better late than never,” I reasoned with myself as I stepped outside, breathing in the coolness of that December morning. I was hoping that it would awaken something inside me, but it didn’t, and so I walked sluggishly with my head down, tears falling, as I continued mourning the loss of my mom. Memories of the fight I’d had with my siblings just the day before, lingered at the surface. I was certain that I hated them, but somewhere during the night, I started feeling remorseful for the fight we’d had. 

“I’m sorry Mom,” I found myself pleading to the heavens for her to understand why her children were fighting, and I cried as I walked onward, and the more I cried, the more sorrow I felt. 

“We’re one heart,” I could hear mom saying to me, “when I cry, you cry” and there I was crying. 

“I’m sorry that my tears are causing you pain” . . .

I felt defeated by my inability to stop crying, by my inability to drop to my knees in prayer and ask God to make everything okay.   

I wanted mom to have peace, I needed her to have peace. She deserved it.  I wanted it just as much for myself, but I didn’t know how to get that peace.  If only I believed in prayer. If only I believed that God could hear me. If only . . .

I suddenly grew tired of wondering what God could and couldn’t do as I walked sluggishly in my coveralls and heavy, winter boots, feeling completely alone and far from peace. 

“Mom,” I cried, “please let me know that you’re at peace.”  As the words left my mouth, I remembered similar words I’d spoken in the few days just before her death. I’d asked for her to send me a rainbow as a sign that she was okay.  “That’s enough of that,” she said bringing laughter to both of us, our joined heart telling me that she was going to heaven to rest, not work. But there was no laughter as I walked that morning and no peace, there was only the sound of my own voice. 

“I’m sorry Mom your kids are fighting,” I was crying so hard, I could barely see two steps in front of me.

“I’m sorry Mom,” I leaned my head forward, my eyes were closed as I tried drowning out the thoughts going through my head.  

“Ahhhhh,” I screamed, as I willed myself to continue walking, and with my head still down in sorrow I started my second lap around my yard, continuing to ignore my surroundings of trees and sky.  I felt no desire or need to look anywhere else, but down at the dead winter grass. 

“I need to know that you’re okay Mom.  Pleeeeease,” I begged. There was only silence.

“Please God . . . help me,” I surprised myself saying, wiping my runny nose with the back of my glove.

“Look up,” I heard a voice say to me. A voice much like the one I’d heard earlier that morning, the voice that had willed me out of bed, but unlike the earlier voice that I’d tried so desperately to ignore, this voice instantly grabbed my attention. It immediately silenced my tears and my sobs.  The voice wasn’t demanding or pleading, it wasn’t in my head or even in my heart, it was just the feeling of a voice telling me to “look up” and so I did, but only I didn’t look straight up, as anyone would probably do, instinctively, I knew to look up and to my right.    

I felt my knees buckle as I stumbled forward, before catching myself from falling.  The tears that had suddenly stopped, began flowing again, but they were no longer tears of sorrow, but rather tears of joy, as I felt my chest heaving, allowing my fears and doubts to be released, and as instantly as the blink of an eye, a feeling of complete happiness and peace washed over me from head to toe.  It was a feeling unlike anything I’d ever experienced.  It honestly felt as if I was being cleansed internally from head to toe, all the weight of the world, being drained from me and in its place, an incredible feeling of peace.  It was the first time I truly felt the presence of God. I’d always known that He existed, but it was the first time that I felt Him surrounding me in both His love and His understanding.

As I stood staring upward, I wasn’t sure that I was actually seeing what I was seeing.  After all, it was mid-December in Ohio, it was cold outside, not a raindrop to be found, and yet there it was, peeking through the clouds, a big, beautiful rainbow. 

“Everything is okay, I’m happy and I’m at peace”, I felt my mom saying. 

I walked until the rainbow faded from the sky and then I made my way back indoors. I found myself smiling, knowing that without a doubt, my mom was at peace, and in that moment my anger faded and I forgave my siblings, and then I thanked God for willing me to stop focusing on the dead, winter grass, but to instead look up and see a rainbow in the unlikeliest of places, a mid-December sky in Ohio.  

Trials will come, but God will never forsake us even when it feels like the rest of the world has.  Sometimes it’s as simple as looking up to realize that. 

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.  Psalm 121:1-2

Through prayer and trust in God, the relationships with my siblings were restored and now my siblings and I can talk about those times when our pain had been disguised as anger. It was a learning curve for all of us, and in the end, the love we’d always had for one another, had brought us back together. After all, time spent on love, is time well spent . . .

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a