A window to my heart

What is it about death that is so hard to grasp?  Why is it so hard to come to terms with it?  Why is Amy’s death so hard for me to find peace with?  What exactly about Amy is hard to deal with losing?  Why?  Those are just some of the questions I have found myself wodnering about this last week.  I don’t have the answers to them.

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So tomorrow is All Saint’s Day which means it is a day to remember those who has passed since the last All Saint’s Day.   I know three. 

First is Amy, my dear friend and former teacher.  I miss her so much.  Amy meant the world to me.  She changed my life and if it were not for her, I would not be where I am today, in either my professional life or my own personal life.  She has not only saved me but, lifted me up when I needed it most.  I feel so blessed to have had the 10 years I did with her. 

Second is Lil, my second grandma.  And while I had not seen her in years before her death, she was still very important to me.

Third , is Makenzie.  The daughter of my former pastor who was killed in a car accident in Houston.  She was only 18.  I did not know Makenzie that well, but, I do remember her as a small kid in church. 

Obviously the one that affected me the most is Amy.  Amy is the one that my blogs are written about.  Amy is the first person who was very close to me to pass away.  And it has opened up many emotions that I did not even know existed, and it has brought everything I believe in, into questions.  It has been a painful, enlightening  and hard journey.  And I still don’t know where it will take me.  All I know is that I need to trust in God, and believe that he will get me through it.

Really, what is it?  I don’t know yet.  I don’t know what this is going to pan out like.  I don’t know where I will be in another year.  I do find it almost ironic that the blog.com subtitle is WHat is your story, since Amy truely believed that everyone had a story to share and that we should all share that story. 

It was 10 months ago today that a new chapter was created in my story.  It was the chapter titled Grief and all the crap that comes with it.  And it has been a long, painful journey through all that crap.  I can not honestly put into words how deeply the hurt still is from her death.  It is still raw, it is still open, and it still hurts more than I can explain.  I miss her, I just want to see her again.

“The mind has a dumb sense of vast loss – that is all.  It will take mind and memory

months and possibly years to gather the details and thus learn and know the whole extent of the loss.”

–Mark Twain

“When tears come, I breathe deeply and rest. I know I am swimming in a hallowed stream where many have gone before. I am not alone, crazy, or having a

 nervous breakdown . . . My heart is at work. My soul is awake.”

Sorrow you can hold, however desolating, if nobody speaks to you.  If they speak, you break down.  ~ Bede Jarrett

I have been computerless for the last two weeks, and in that time there was an anniversary that brought tears.  It was the anniversary of what would become the second to last time I would see Amy.  October 19, 2008, the bowling for Amy benefit for her family.  That would be the first time Amy said “I love you.” to me.   And in that moment I was so overjoyed I did not say it back.  I felt it, but, I did not say it.  And oh how I regret that.  Now I know Amy knew I loved her, I know this, because I had said it on her caringbridge page, but, I wish I had spoken the words. 

And yesterday when I bought the new computer and was setting it up.  I realized something, there is no “Mrs. Taylor” folder with pictures, and then again when I got online, my favorites folder did not have the icon for her non existent caringbridge page or the page for the pictures from the last benefit.   And while I am far enough in my grief journey to not make them so they can be in the folder, it still hurts and was another reminder that she is gone. 

Grief can’t be shared. Everyone carries it alone, his
own burden, his own way.
– Anne Morrow Lindbergh