Please pass the grace

On my first day back at work after my sister Shanna died a co-worker told me that the pain I felt would never, ever go away. She said it had been ten years since her father died and she still hurt just as bad today as she did on the day he died. At the time I really thought that was a terrible thing to say. I remember standing in my classroom after our conversation and praying that she was wrong.

She wasn't.

The initial shock is gone. The initial feeling of anger and denial is gone. The initial fog of confusion and loss is gone. The pain however is still there. I don't think it will ever go away. Losing someone close to you changes you...or it has changed me. It's like something deep inside me has shifted and I will never feel 'normal' again. Oh I have learned to go about my day as if nothing is wrong. I have learned to smile when people say things that should make me happy and laugh when they say things that are funny. And I do feel happiness sometimes...it's just that I feel sadness at the same time. Whatever emotion that tries to fill my heart has to fight for room next to the sadness there. My sadness is a stingy thing, it really doesn't want to let any other emotions in.

The sadness brings with it a weight. The weight is right on my heart, a very real feeling of pressure inside my chest that does not ever ease up. It is there when I eat. It is there when I teach. It is there when I watch T.V. or read a book. It's there when I lay down to sleep at night and it's there when I wake each morning. It's just there all the time. It's a heavy thing, this weight. It is so heavy that the burden of carrying it around hour after hour plum tuckers me out. By the end of a long day of teaching and acting like nothing is wrong I am exhausted. I come home and I just want to lay down and let myself cry. Of course I can't. My girls are so sensitive and Dave just wants everything to be normal. They depend on me for so much...for everything really. It is my job to keep things going around here and falling apart just isn't on the schedule.

It seems like there should be something I can do or say to make this better. I wish I could figure out what it is. I don't wish that for myself. I wish it for my mom and dad...for John and Tre...for everyone that feels this terrible sadness that won't let go. Somehow knowing they feel this way too hurts way more than feeling this way myself. I just want everything to go back to the way it was before.

I want Shanna back.

It always comes down to that thought. I want her back. Each time I think that I mentally slap myself and remind myself that I am being selfish. She suffered long enough. She is whole and healthy now. I really am thankful for that.

I am convinced that she isn't sad and missing us. I think that our time on Earth is but a blink in the span of time that is eternity. To her it will seem like mere moments from the time she arrives to the time when we join her and we will all be together again the way a family should be. Unfortunately to me each hour seems like a day...each week like a month...the past month has definately felt like a year...an awful, awful year. All I know to do is to pray for grace.

Grace to make it through each day without breaking down. Grace to be the mother, wife, daughter, aunt, sister and sister-in-law that I need to be. Grace to be the teacher my students need me to be. Grace to live my life serving God and making Him proud to call me His child.

Grace...all I need is a little grace.