One Month Later

January 23rd marked the one-month anniversary of Morgan’s death.  One thing I know now more than ever is that even though we are all born into a sinful world, most people are good, decent, human beings who are trying to do their best in this fallen world. I am amazed at how many people from my past and present are still reaching out to me.  A text here and there.  A card in the mail. Phone calls are still coming in.  Thank you.  As I said before, I actually consider it God using YOU to reach me to let me know He knows how much I’m hurting.

Today the opportunity presented itself for me to comment about losing Morgan on a substack I read called Coffee and Covid.  As I’ve said before, when you read certain blogs almost daily, you get to “know” the names/handles of different commenters, and you also feel like you know the writer.  This guy, Jeff Childers, is a sarcastic lawyer who never fails to make me laugh or smile as he snarcs about what is going on in our upside-down world.  Sometimes people comment that they actually spit their coffee out accidentally due to one of his quips.  As of my comment time about three hours ago, there are nearly 100 likes/comments with all of these “strangers” also offering their condolences and prayers.  By the way, I do not care one way or another where you might come down on the whole covid thing.  You do you.  I’ll do me.  Let’s just love each other anyway.

So at least in my circles, as it has been my whole entire life, I’ve been surrounded by very good people.  I am very blessed to know so many wonderful people, and through this loss, I only hope I can be the hands and feet of God to others when they also need it most.

So, first a catch up on something I forgot to, but meant to mention on a previous post.  That Sunday when we went back to Morgan’s apartment because we worried about the mail being overstuffed and just generally getting more of her things, we had her mailbox key, but she lived in a very big complex so how were we going to know what mailbox was hers?  There were like ten towers of boxes with perhaps 30 or 40 mailboxes in each tower.  As we traipsed across the short lawn to figure it out, a lone, rather large young man had stopped near to the mailbox station and was texting or otherwise looking at his phone.

“Excuse me, do you happen to know which of these towers belongs to that building?” (pointing).

“Ah yeah, that’s my building, it’s Tower 10”

“Thanks!”

Then it was a matter of trying every box until the key fit. God Wink (time savings, low frustration, right?)

My birthday. I knew it would be a heart-wrenching day.  I decided to go out and sort through some of her stuff that we’d brought back.  I figured since I’m going to feel bad anyway, I might as well feel extra bad.  I cried a lot while doing it, of course, but I came across one thing that made me smile.  I already mentioned that she was a candle lover, but would you believe I came across a candle that said, “Happy Birthday”?  I burnt a little that night and asked my husband if we could start a new tradition where we burn that candle on my son’s birthday, and his as well.  We agreed that would be a great plan.

I took a hike on a busy trail I’ve taken over a hundred times, up to a waterfall, near my house.  My dog generally behaved herself and we had a good work out. I slipped and hurt my tailbone and my left elbow, but today neither of them barely hurt anymore.  Then I shopped a bit just to be out in public, busy, and not in my own sorrowful thoughts.  I didn’t want a birthday dinner, so we just lazed around and watched “Where the Crawdad’s Sing.” I’d read the book and I think they did a great job with the movie.

The hardest part this week was the night of the 22nd.  We were watching the Eagles Documentary (the band, not the bird), which is one of my favorite go-tos when I don’t know what to watch.  There was a scene in part 2 where Don Henley was reminiscing about when he had begun to love the drums in junior high, contemplating that he couldn’t understand why the girls loved the jocks more than the musicians.  I wanted to grab my phone and text Morgan, “It’s funny that most of men’s sexual identity comes from the girls they knew in junior high and high school lol” or something like that.  That was the first time, my grief had a “present” moment, where I missed her on the spot.  Until then, it had all been backward or forward in time.

Already feeling super sad at that realization, I then blurted out, “A month ago is the last time I ever got to talk to her.  It’s the last time I ever heard her say ‘mom.’”  That was crushing.  I’d pre-written that night’s “Nightly Gathering” substack several hours earlier to post later that night.  When I’d written that earlier I had not cried, but at the realization later in the evening, I did cry.  Grief is strange.

As I was getting ready to go to bed, one of my cousins sent me the following poem.  She’d run across it and thought of me.  It appears to have no author…

“If before you were born, I could have gone to heaven and saw all the beautiful souls, I still would have chosen you.

If God had told me, ‘This soul would one day need extra care and needs,’ I still would have chosen you.

If He had told me, ‘This soul may make your heart bleed’, I still would have chosen you.

If He had told me, ‘This soul would make you question the depth of your faith’, I still would have chosen you.

If He had told me, ‘This soul would make tears flow from your eyes that could fill a river’, I still would have chosen you.

If He had told me, ‘This soul may one day make you witness overbearing suffering’, I still would have chosen you.

If He had told me, ‘All that you know to be normal would drastically change’, I still would have chosen you.

Of course, even though I would have chosen you, I know it was God who chose me for you.”

Did you get through that without crying?  I certainly did not again, and I probably never will. Yes, I’m weeping right now…

Ok, whew.  Onto another catch up…

The people who hurt me on Christmas Day (first post) and I had to let go out of my heart, appear to be trying to make amends.  I’ve already forgiven them (for they knew not what they did), as I’ve stated, but I’m not eager or even right now willing to have relationships with them again.

So, one month has passed.  My heart no longer has the vice grip it had for so long.  My brain is able to be occupied by thoughts other than of my daughter.  Neither of those things could happen for at least the first couple of weeks.  But the vice eventually unclenched and now my heart is usually just sad.  I understand I’ll always be left with the scars.  I’m glad that I enjoy the work that I do for a career. It keeps me occupied and focused a lot of the day.  I’m glad I know how wonderful the people I’ve had around me in my life are.  I’m glad I know how much God loves me.  That was something I always knew, but never appreciated as much as I do now.  See you tonight.