The other day I sent out a post on accident. I was trying to share it with my family and oops, it went to the world. But was locked. (It turns out I am not as technologically savvy as I thought. Oops)
It is tempting in blogging and social media to bare all for the sake of followers and likes and comments and popularity. It is tempting to prostitute ones life for the sake of fame. I have seen it and I have seen people flock to the idols in droves. It is very tempting to try to be that myself. However, for the sake of my family, for the sake of my own soul, I do my best not to do that.
It is true I am painfully honest. But I am honest about me. You have not heard much about my kids in awhile or even my marriage, because those stories are not mine alone to tell. Perhaps someday we will share them, but we are not ready yet. The kids are too young to understand the implications. My husband has in own story that he is living and we haven’t yet arrived to a place where it will be printed by pen on paper. Or, in this case, on your computer screen.
Thursday was the anniversary of my dad’s heart attack. A moment in time that seemed to stop time for me. I wrote much about my experience, but even my experience is connected to his. It is not for the entire world to know unless he desires you all to know it. And he is much more a face to face guy. I love him for that.
I do want to share with you a bit at the end of that post. I want to share with you what healing from an event like that has looked like for me. Because our bodies remember hard things. They remember loss. They remember fears. They remember accidents and moves and tears. We all need to heal from these things. We all need to heal on the anniversaries and through them.
So here is what I want to share with you. I hope it brings you healing as I heal, too.
They say that trauma carries anniversaries.
What is there to grieve when the result is life? I am tempted to shake off my feelings, to brush them aside, but the day of my dad’s heart attack had a significant impact on my life. For awhile I thought I may be losing my dad. There is a grief in the trauma, pain to be processed, even when the reality is the best possible outcome.
I experienced the same thing during the birth of my son. When I was 38 weeks pregnant, we went into the hospital for an external version – a procedure to turn his breech body around – but within the hour I lay on the OR table for an emergency c-section. The outcome was a healthy baby. But I felt I had gone through a battle as my body recovered from deep cuts in my abdomen and uncertainty in my heart.
We can be quick to brush off the complicated “bad” feelings as irrational and unnecessary given the good that exists now. However, that merely buries the pain causing greater problems. Greater anxiety. Greater pain. Perhaps depression. Perhaps fear. Perhaps PTSD. We must allow ourselves to grieve these events in order to heal from them.
It helps me to remember what happened and to reframe the events. The fear I felt was normal. The angst was normal. I can look back at the memories and remind myself, tell my past self, he is going to be ok. A year later he is healthy, celebrated another birthday, is being taken care of, and is taking care of himself.
I can hold that scared self, the little girl who rose that day from within the woman, worried about her daddy, and I can comfort myself. I can take her by the hand and walk her through her fears and sadness to the other side. This looks like allowing the tears to fall, praying prayers of gratitude and asking the hard questions. This looks like writing down the events of the day and finally taking the time to process it. This looks like taking care of myself with walks, showers, good books, and delicious foods. I think I might bake today. Yes, that sounds healing.
It looks like holding my dad’s hand and holding onto Jesus’s hand, knowing that Jesus is holding my dad’s other hand. In him, we are made whole. In him we are healed and receive eternal life, abundant life, that begins today.
It looks like journaling the things I am grateful for that have happened this past year. The celebrations. The potlucks. The boat rides and birthdays and texts and marco polos.
It looks like laughing at his dad jokes, watching home videos, remembering silly memories and looking forward to more.
It looks like being still.
Thank you for holding space for me, dear reader. Thank you all who prayed for our family a year ago. Thank you for your disbelief alongside mine. Thank you for grieving and rejoicing in where we are today. You, my community, have brought us through so much. We are rich in your blessings.
I pray that today, whatever grief you carry, whatever trauma, whatever sadness or fear you have, I pray that you have the freedom to feel it and seek healing from it. Healing is a journey. A holy one. It takes courage, but we never go it alone. I have found that when I am suffering and grieving, God is faithful in his promise to comfort me.* He will be there for you, too. I believe it with my whole self.
So I thank God. Yes. Thank you, God.
*Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. – Matthew 5:4
*Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. – 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
This post is shockingly related to the Five Minute Friday prompt: Anniversary. I wrote the first half in five minutes, the rest took a lot longer. 😉 Thanks for reading, friends.
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