Where did all the well wishers go?????
Loneliness sets in when the well wishers leave and stop calling. It happens you know. After awhile, people stop asking and visiting and inviting you over when you are grieving. I am not sure if it is more when you lose a child or not. I think it happens with a wife or husband too. But the well wishers carry on, almost without you . I am not sure why? Even your closest friends and family seem to drop off the radar and find a way to avoid you, like you died too.
Maybe because there is a change in the relationship, or they think you should be on with your life and you and it are too depressing, or maybe they are faced with the reality that it could happen to them and don’t want to even think that for a minute tragedy could strike, so they form an aversion, or maybe we are all get caught up in the stuff of life and forget that those we are in relationship with are suffering and we need to reach out, or maybe its awkward and they feel ineffective in helping. You almost have to forgive them ahead of time and carry on alone. I feel so shocked and disturbed by this and I try not to think about it because it hurts too much.
Then, like seasons changing new relationships form. I Spent another night at the home of the mom who lost her son this July, and invited me , a total stranger into her home to weather Hurricane Irene. Three other mothers came who had also lost children and together we shared and laughed and and understood each other’s pain .
It wasn’t planned. Sadly, it was quite spontaneous. I just happened to be in the neighborhood and then there were four. it wasn’t hard to find four women who had recently lost children and just happened to be friends or friends of friends and needed some social interaction and a break from their grieving to feel like for a few hours life was almost normal and they weren’t waiting for a friend or someone to call on them.
I spent another peaceful night there overlooking the barn and the woods and the beautiful view.
I then came home and began to do yard work. I started to reminisce about the times my son and I were out there raking. He of course felt forced against his will to do that chore and I was determined he would do it or else. But we were together and underneath it all we liked being together.
My 17 year old neighbor, came over and offered to help. It was so comforting to have him by my side, the way my son was during fall as we gathered up the many bags of leaves and did some fall clean up, minus the complaining and nagging between mother and son that comes up. We got so much done.
We had Chinese on the porch and talked, like a mother and son, but friends, no defenses up , no obstacles in the way, we just shared thoughts and ideas and read each other’s fortune cookies, and like we’ve done for the past six weeks or so, went to church together.
He wants a basketball scholarship and he loves playing. He loves church too. He gets embarrassed when he cries at church but I am excited knowing God is drawing him near.
He is sweet and polite and kind and gentle. I pray the Lord will bless him and give him a scholarship. I think God has his hand on him and his desire to know God is almost extraordinary for a 17 year old boy.
I am realizing more than ever we are always alone. People come and go. Love is not always love when it counts where it counts, but simply a word used to express endearment with a smile. Love must be practiced so that it moves one to action, to help, to show compassion, to encourage, to acceptance, to gratitude for the little things, love must grow into something more than a salutation.
Things can change in an instant , so love must always be in front of you with whoever is in front of you, beside you and around you. Love must be on your mind, in your heart, on your lips, in your gut, operational and ready to move in your hands and feet. Charged with love at all times, ready to love others and then remain alone again , well in prayer or in faith resting in God’s love, during your alone time, you can add so much meaning and direction to your new life even without the child you loved, as long as love has an opportunity to reveal itself, life will move and change and loneliness will leave as you accept your aloneness as a place to rest in God. That is how I am trying to get through this. I love my son through the love I can show to other people. I just wish God would reveal a glimpse of heaven and show me my boy is happy. I wish I could dream of him.
It was a beautiful fall day and much too short.
