Page 72

For those of you who are unaware of the circumstances in my life since my last post, let me just throw this out there... my mom died. She died on August 19th at approximately 8:15... I say "approximately" because I don't really know exactly when her physical body died and her spiritual body headed for heaven. I'm not sure if it when I watched her take her last breath, when I saw her lips begin to whiten, when the heart monitor line actually went straight, or when the doctor looked at all of us, nodded, and quietly mouthed the words "she's gone."

All of this happened so quickly, and yet took so long at the same time. I really don't even feel the need to go into how all of the events transpired that left me sleeping on the hospital floor for 3 days, repeatedly kissing and smelling her loving hand each time I left the room just in case she died while I was gone, and eventually sitting exhausted at her left side as I watched her earthly life fade away. It took only 4 days... 4 days from the Sunday afternoon that the doctor told us there was really nothing more that he could do... 4 days for the anti-rejection medicine that was supposed to save her to kill her... 4 days to say good-bye to a body that I loved so very much, a voice that I heard every day, and eyes that I was drawn to from the day I was born.

And so... this now leaves me, three weeks later, looking through a book titled Good Grief, by Granger E. Westberg. (if you haven't read my sister's blog post - How are you? - now would be a good time to do that) And this book gives real words to the unreal feelings that I have every single day. So, today, I am on page 72...

"When we have something precious taken from us, we inevitably go through a stage when we are very critical of everything and everyone ... We spare no one in our systematic scrutiny of the event, attempting to understand exactly why this thing happened... If we talk to the minister and are encouraged to admit what we really think, one day we may say, 'Why did God do this to me?' or 'How can He be a God of love if He treats people like this?' With Thomas Carlyle we cynically say, 'God sits in His heaven and does nothing.' While we are in this mood, we look at everyone with a jaundiced eye."