I have to apologize for my inconsistency this past couple of weeks again. We were away on vacation as a family. When we returned home, Carlos and I were blessed with a mini staycation for the two of us- this was much needed after six months of beautiful time with our Kyroo tethered to me. I believed that I would have the opportunity to write upon our return home, but we were so present that we squeezed every moment from this space. Presence in the moments God has for us is the most sacred of gifts. Please hear my heart as one who knows how very short life is…. I’m sorry that there wasn’t content. We were right where God wanted us to be.
It was during our vacation time that God laid this blog on my heart. I told Carlos while we were in the middle of a 15,000-step hike that God had the topic of “Home” on my heart. His response was “Don’t you already have a blog called “Home”?” Why yes, apparently, I do…
Feel free to return back if you’d like to reread it. In it, I challenge all of us with a question “Where is home to you?” and make it plain that the griefs of this world push us into the arms of Jesus. Presence with Him on this earth helps us to glimpse our home in heaven where we will one day get to reside eternally, because He IS home. Until then, we will continue to carry around the weight of grief and the pain of this fallen world.
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The first time I went away for a weekend post-tragedy (a mere 3 ½ months later). I learned how awesome it was to shed the weight of grief. The amount that we carry is indescribable, but at that time it was pretty nigh impossible. As grievers we know that the pain doesn’t grow less despite the world’s idea that “time heals all wounds”. And so, my struggle can be equated to a metaphor of a couch potato trying to lift the load that was intended for a body builder. It was impossible. It’s good Jesus wants to help me carry it or I would’ve been crushed- I still would be crushed without Him.
It was so nice to feel free! I remember that I ran into the ocean like a teenager with teenagers. Of course I was the one who instigated this! The adults on the shore had to call us out so that our muscles didn’t seize up. Apparently, it’s a bit dangerous to enter the Atlantic Ocean in Maryland at the end of May when the water has not yet warmed to late spring and summer temps.
When the weekend was over, I remember literally shaking at the prospect of returning “home”. But home wasn’t home anymore. My house was gone, my memories erased, my mom wasn’t there, my dad wasn’t there and my kids weren’t there. “Home” moved itself to heaven the day. This is both a beautiful and tragic realization! I knew that I’d have to bear the weight of my load again and that thought shook me to my core.
I knew I had to return. I knew I wanted to return to Carlos, I knew that as much as our motto was “what’s the worst that could happen?” God still had something for us here, and I knew that Jesus would carry it all with me, but none of that knowledge made it suck any less. It was all so hard and hurtful. I learned in those moments that it is not worth it to take off the weight. For me, trying to return and readjust to the load of grief was harder and more impossible than had I just worn it the whole time.
Short note. Grievers do differ here. Some people find that it really helps them to escape the memories for a little while, especially during grief dates, holidays, and invisible dates. I don’t know why it varies (a question for God one day), but I know that many consider it helpful to do something completely different from what they did pre-loss. I have very little perspective on this because my greatest joy has been to merge the past with the present. Carlos and I often grieve the past by including its traditions alongside today’s. We like to honor our KGRs while engaging in some of the same activities with our boys now. These are not opposite responses (although they might seem it). There are healthy grievers who do it both ways.
Regardless, THERE IS NO VACATION FROM GRIEF. That is the key. Grief is love that we still have to give. Grief is love that got cut short. She is with us no matter where we go and what we do. Trying to ignore her presence would be like stopping light in a darkened room- it WILL leak out somewhere. And so, what I’ve noticed that seems universal, is that we are grieving healthiest when we honor our loved ones with purposeful direction of that leftover love. Find another avenue to pour that love into until you get to go home.
I digress… Let’s add vacations to the list of things that have had to change post-tragedy!
It’ll be shorter to list what hasn’t changed, won’t it?!: 1. God. List complete!
Pre-tragedy we didn’t have the resources to take “real” vacations. All of our Family was here (within driving distance), and the finances to get away were not. We took a few day trips here and there as a family and my mom and I got away to the beach once a summer (pre-covid). Vacationing is new to me, but I know that what we do now is vastly different from how it is generally viewed. We do not pick a place to go because we want to see the sites or because we want to relax at an all-inclusive resort. We don’t go to get a tan or even to have fun. We go to re-secure our torn chapters.
We have beautiful friends whom we got to know at a deep level over the past eight-nine years or so. I am so beyond grateful for God’s hand in bringing them into our lives! They stood by us as we waded through the early years of child development, they stepped in countless times as we struggled through depression and its fall-out, they allowed us the privilege of becoming one of the loudest voices in their daughter’s growing heart (and a smaller but similar role in their son’s), and on that awful day when the devil attacked us, they were there. They literally and metaphorically became “home” to us. We lived with them for a few weeks. More meaningfully though, they sat with us as our world continued to spin out of control. There were others who were present too, but none as constantly- God placed them there and they were willing. We are grateful!
Fast forward to almost a year post-tragedy, when the world turned upside down on them- we were there. We became home for them. They are family. Doesn’t Jesus say “Here are my mother and my brothers” referring to believers who were not of his bloodline? We have a lot of family connected by the blood of Jesus.
And now? God sent them halfway across the country for multiple purposes. But let me tell you that miles mean nothing to the God who formed this ball of dust- He can span the distance with His pinky finger! He will help us to grow closer even in this season of being way too far apart, even in this season of only getting to see each other twice per year, even while so many things separate us, the strongest force holds us together!
Our main vacation for the past two years has been to “return home” to our family across the country. The miracle of that first long hug in months is indescribable! We spend the time doing whatever, but just being together. We laugh, we cry, we share of our lives now and we reminisce. We steal time by pretending that this is our everyday even though it only lasts seven days. It’s beautiful.
We step into this world knowing that it can’t last. We graft each other back in knowing very well how much it will hurt when we have to tear ourselves apart again. We watch our living children interacting in this stollen time and we grieve knowing that they don’t get to grow up loved by them as our KGRs did. We know that we will very likely live this distance apart until eternity brings us all home. Still, we knowingly welcome this pain for the love that it ushers in. As with every part of life joy and sadness walk hand in hand.
This is the way of life though. As children we know only one “home” and its way more about the people than the location. We sense that it’ll be there forever because it’s all we’ve ever known. As we grow older, little by little, home is broken off of the pieces of our hearts and spread out. Some are separated by miles, some are left in the hands of friends who grew apart, some are left in relationships that couldn’t overcome the effects left behind by sin, some are discarded as we grow into adulthood, some get to run into the gates of heaven before us, some end in life circumstance, and etc. All of these pieces of “home” only exist fully whole in Jesus- it is to Him that we look to fill in the holes left. With each painful break and reliant cry to Him, our heart becomes less of us, and more of Him.
Our only alternative is to let the pieces of our heart die to feeling so that they cannot be broken and torn. Numbness doesn’t allow the pain through. What a choice huh? Pain (and love) or death. Welcome to the human condition.
In an argument to welcome the pain, I also want to share with you all that there are people who have chosen to separate themselves from us. People who have had the opportunity and decided that it hurts too much to be present and sift through their own pain or they have tried to hurry me through mine. Intellectually I acknowledge that they simply can’t (right now)- it’s too much. God has granted me my request to extend them grace. I truly am not angry. I won’t close the doors- we shall see what the future brings.
I share this to explain that knowing there are people here who are available physically (I occasionally run into them in the community) but not emotionally encourages us that it is entirely worth it to leave pieces of our heart 2535 miles away…. When you find people who stubbornly love you staying by your side through all of the things, hold on tight! They are worth the effort. How much more powerful is love that refuses to be disconnected by distance? I’ll see you again, my heart, if not in this world, in the next. And one day, when we finally return to our true home in heaven, the fragments of our hearts will be pieced together and we will get to have them all in the same place for the first time since they started breaking off. Until then, I love all of the (you) pieces, no matter where they are!
As we enter the holiday season, this is the message that God is pressing on my heart- “you are whole again with Me and you will be whole again in a new and more beautiful way when I get to be with you forever.” Because of this, the empty chairs around our tables are the most beautiful of all of them.
Gosh I wish I could hug all of the tears running down your face right now…
This homesick mama needs the hugs too to encourage me to “Keep Going, Really!”
Until next time.
-Markie
Returning Home
