Is it because I missed my church fix this morning - my message of encouragement and hope - and the faces of so many people with so many interesting journeys. Is it because I missed finding myself checking up on all of "Roger's" people on Sunday mornings - the little aging, precious people we have known for years. He always had his eye on them, just in case they had an emergency need. (Of course, they are in more trouble than they could imagine should they have an emergency on my watch!)
Was I choked up with tears after the ballet meeting because I know that this was Roger's thing. It was his thing to take Emily to dance each week. It was his thing to see her in her little recital outfit and be so proud as she danced her little 2 minutes on stage. He loved those 2 minutes...and the 2 minutes of the other girls he met at the studio. (Even though he did not enjoy sitting in a cramped theatre seat for two hours on a Sunday afternoon- but he humored us!) Was I so choked up because I know how hard it is going to be for Emily to dance, and not have him there. It really just is not the same, no matter how you try to play it out in your mind.
Was I choked up because it is me and Kellen this week, and he is making it, and he his happy enough, but he is still never as happy as he was with Roger - or with Karin. Some people just can not be replaced.
Was I tearing up - and choking them back - when I walked past his portal on the sidewalk but so wanted to see him there. It just brings back memories of him being on his way home - home to me.
I have no idea why today is so much harder than others have been. Maybe it is because I have not been busy. Maybe busy is the way to avoid thinking about it. Maybe busy is what covers up the loss and its pain. And here, I have been thinking that I have been doing 'pretty well' and holding it all together and making it through just fine.
In reality, perhaps I have just stayed "busy."
And though I do not like the consequences of crying - the stuffy nose, the puffy eyes - I am coming to learn that tears are healing in many ways. And it is ok to cry, though I don't really like to do it in public. Perhaps I needed this day of quiet and nothingness to just process the happenings of the last three months. Perhaps the quiet was just too much for me.
God tells us that life is a vapor. We are here today and gone tomorrow. Only He knows the number of our days in the same way that he knows the number of the stars in the sky, the grains of sand, and the hairs on our head. And He tells us that it is good to BE STILL. It is something I have never, ever been good at doing.
Today I was still. Today the tears flowed. But the healing comes through it all.
At the end of it all, I feel more confident that if I do as Roger did, and live each day in the present, always ready to go home, then it really is the best thing of all.
Roger's Lesson: I know that he would remind me of what he always believed and that even though he was ready to come home to 335, he was always prepared to go HOME, when God called his name.
And I have to remember how blessed we are that it was without illness, and without pain, and without a sense that he was not ready to meet his Maker. He was ready, even though we were not.
But it still does not stop the tears.
I guess it never will.
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