Slaps and stings

Our counselor's "exposure therapy" theory has been tested quite a bit lately -- sometimes in little ways, like discovering a photograph in a drawer, and sometimes in blatant ways, like an email from someone we haven't heard from in months, kind of like unexpectedly running into a friend at the shore. Sometimes the hand of memory reaches out and slaps you on the cheek, leaving behind a sting; other times that hand is balled in a fist, landing in your stomach, leaving you gasping.

Ever since we saw our friend at the shore, I've been having a difficult time "forgetting." Once a week or so I have a dream -- of the church, of our old house/parsonage/rectory, of a face or two (good and bad), and I wake up with a crunchy feeling in my stomach. I wrote a short time ago that I have been missing my belongings, items and furniture and things that represent me and what I love, my tastes and my passions. I grieve their absence because they, in part, represent my life ... a life that is now scattered around in unrecognizable pieces. I grieve.

I think the days gearing up to Aidan's first day of school also served as a catalyst to these feelings of grief, of reliving it all over again -- the joy he felt at starting his first school last year, the Christmas-like reaction each morning when I dropped him off, shouting as he burst into the classroom, "I'm here, Mrs. T--! I'm here!" I don't want to feel this again, but I can't help it bubbling back up to the surface.

The last two days have hit me hard. With these other thoughts and memories serving as my back-up band, I was faced with a string of therapy-fodder jolts. Last night, as I was getting Aidan's school bag ready, I was looking for a photograph of my boy to place under his name on the classroom bulletin board. The first picture I found (and ended up using) was taken of him on a playground in PA during his first class outing. That fun day flooded back to me ... ouch -- sting. I then found about 8 packs of developed film in a bag that I had not yet placed in their respective photo albums (that is SO unlike me), and I thought that I would easily find a great picture of Aidan for his classroom. When I opened the bag and started perusing the photo packets, I instantly knew why I haven't sorted them and put them in albums. While I ooooh'd and aaaah'd over a 10-month old baby Grace and her adoring big brother, I simultaneously felt the slap-sting of painful memories (or in this case, a punch-gasp): the final pictures of our cute little family in the home/parsonage of our second church, where both kids were born ... familiar loving faces of folks we don't see anymore ... and then, what's worse, photo after photo taken in the home of our third and last home/parsonage, a home that was a pit but lovingly restored by church volunteers, a home in which I put so much time and effort decorating, a home that had become my dream house of sorts. I saw my furniture, my rugs, my decorative things all placed in their perfect spots, dream-like -- the same items for which I am now grieving the loss. I could barely look at my beautiful, smiling children because the backdrop was killing me. I had to put the pictures away, back in the plastic bag, and I wondered to myself if or when I would ever be able to look at those pictures without that dreadful sensation ...

That was yesterday. And today, I first received an announcement and photograph in the mail, informing us of the birth of a baby who was born to a woman I had grown to cherish those short final months in PA, a woman who most likely would have become a great friend had we had the opportunity to develop the budding friendship. She was pregnant when we left, and now her beautiful baby is here ... and I am not a part of that. Slap - sting - ouch. Then, oddly (ironically?) Don received three emails from other church friends ... three, in one day. Interestingly, they had been thinking about him, wondering how he was doing, but afraid of making a move lest it bring up bad memories. Sad, isn't it? That fear of fostering or pursing a friendship because of the pain it could cause? Not in the friendship itself, but in the common denominator, the "thing" that unfortunately links us -- and it -- all together. I'm not blaming them at all; I tear up at their concern for us and their thoughtfulness. It's beyond sad. I read those emails and I could feel the tears stinging the backs of my eyelids, the big drops clinging to my lashes yet refusing to drop, the lump in my throat swelling to an uncomfortable size, the sad pain of grief in my chest thudding unbidden. These were our friends ... what do I do with that? One person wrote, "You are missed but never forgotten." What do I do with that???!!!

I realized that I am not good at this healing thing. I don't know how to do it. I don't even know how to write about it properly, for it really isn't something you "do" with any kind of foreknowledge. What is healing, really? Is it shutting yourself off from your former life, from people you knew and loved, from photographs that will never let you forget where you lived or what happened in that place, hoping that if enough months pass without mentioning "that place" or "those people," that you will somehow close your eyes and shut your ears and suddenly jump that hurdle and land on the other side, healed and restored? If so, then it's clearly not working for me. Or is healing something more mystical, something inexplicable, something more subtle, praying that each slap in the face from that invisible memory-hand will be less and less painful, that months from now -- or at this rate, probably years -- I will be able to look at those pictures of my toddling baby girl and my hurting boy and see that backdrop and, suddenly and breathtakingly, realize that the sharp pain isn't there any more, and I'll wonder just how and when that happened ...

Friends, keep writing. Don't be afraid. It's just hard ... so very, very hard right now. But what would make it worse is to know that all of that wrong would continue to flourish, like a giant snowball of ugliness. I'm not sure why these jolts have been occurring lately, with such frequency. But they have made me realize that these last 7 months here -- while finally feeling safe and secure -- have been a strange period, of holding my breath, crouched in a strange no-man's land, not sure how to move forward yet clearly knowing I cannot go back, and feeling every sting and gasp of it all. Is this healing? I wonder if you ever do know ...