Boundaries

Fri, 18 Jan 2002

We had pork chops and stuffing for dinner tonight. A package of stove-top style stuffing that Phil picked off the store shelves over two months ago. It sat in our pantry, unused until today. Jim made dinner while I was at work, so I came home and the two of us sat and ate together. I mentioned the stuffing and that Phil had gotten it. Jim knew that, and he had thought twice about making it but thought again and decided we had to go on with our lives. You may laugh, thinking this is a small thing. It is actually, a very small thing on the grand scale of life, but it is a small thing that reaches deep into the heart and pulls on the strings.

I'm having my quiet time now, not knowing if I should just pray, or if I should write, or exactly what I should do, but I find myself here, writing. It is what I do to work through these thoughts. I am tired, once again, but I say that so often these days. Tired from what I wonder? The day was good, I am not that old, but it all drains me until I'm dry. Until I have to go to God and get a fresh drink of His joy to lift me up and out of where I've fallen. Sometimes, He does just that, He lifts me up and brings me peace and calms my spirit, but other times He lets me cry those tears and wash away the pain that has built into a dam ready to burst. And burst it does, until there is nothing left there but a dry lake bed of memories. I can't say that I feel refreshed after "bursting", I feel tired, but at peace usually. Needing to rest and then rejoin the world.

I love the world, I love the people that God has brought into my life, I love my life, and my family and I love what the future may hold but I also love my son who is gone from me now. I miss calling him "punk", short for pumpkin, and I miss having him here when I get home from my two days of work. I miss being able to make him stuffing and seeing his pleasure that it is on the dinner menu for tonight. I miss his hugs and his wanting to go shopping, even though I am not a shopper. I miss seeing him in his room as I pass by his door, and I miss him telling me that he "loves me more". I miss so many things, that my heart breaks. But... what I don't miss is hearing his footsteps first thing in the morning, wondering how he is feeling today. I don't miss listening to him go into the bathroom, waiting to see if he will be sick or not. I don't miss trying to gauge if he has a fever by simply looking at him so I don't have to feel his forehead and let him know I am concerned. I don't miss putting his numbing cream on so I can draw his blood out of his port in and hour and run it over to the lab. I don't miss running him to the clinic for transfusions, although I miss seeing our friends at the clinic who became an extension of our family. I don't miss him hurting and moving slow and getting bored because his mind says "go" but his body says "no". I don't miss that.

I do miss the old me that had few limitations. The me that could go on physically and emotionally with no end in sight. The me that I have always known, and probably had always taken for granted. Now I don't. Now I appreciate anytime I feel good, I'm learning to grab hold of those moments and cherish them. Last Sunday as Jim and I sat in church, before the service started I turned to Jim and I said, "I feel really good right now. I just want to tell you that because in a moment, I may not." That is how quickly it can change. It's not days, it's moments. Good moments and bad moments, and everything in between.

The book I'm reading pointed something out to me though, that is very true. During this time of grief, the sadness is definitely there a lot, but the happy times, the joyful times, the times of feeling good are much more outstanding. The conversations I have all seem deeper, richer. The people who surround me all seem more precious than ever before. The beauty of nature, the green hills and the sunshine make me stand up and take notice. The food tastes better. Everything seems to have new dimension to it. My emotions run high and low like never before, but that does not just include the hard emotions, it also includes the good and joyful ones. The world seems to keep spinning at the same rate, but I seem to want to stand still and take it all in instead of jump in and ride along as before. I'd rather watch and learn, than run and miss things. Even when I try to "run", I can only do it for a limited amount of time before I run out of gas, and I am simply melting as wax in the hot sun. Unable to hold myself up any longer, and only with God's strength can I bear to go on.

I am learning what those boundaries are, how much I can or cannot take and when to say "enough". It is a difficult lesson, but a good one and I think a very important one if I am to heal without unnecessary scarring. When to say "no", when to stop and drop and roll myself into a protective ball that shuts out the rest of the world, collapsing into the strong arms of God and asking for help to go on. That may mean the dishes don't get done, the clothes don't get washed as quickly, the phone calls don't get returned, whatever it may mean, but it means that I will keep my sanity and someday be able to rejoin the world not as beaten down, hardened person who is just surviving, but to rejoin the world as a new person who has learned how difficult life can be, how much it can hurt, and how God is truly the only One with the answers to all that I am needing. Some say they don't feel drawn to read the Bible as much as they would like. I understand that. I have been there. Sometimes it is just a book that sits around and gets dusty. Mine has in the past. But, it doesn't now. It hasn't for awhile. Now it is my survival guide, my lifeline to God, my comfort, and the answers to the questions that cause my soul anguish. It holds the key to all that I am needing, and when I start to sink in all the mud and mire, I pick it up and dive into all the truth and wisdom that it holds and God's living word speaks to me as never before. I read in Psalm 38:21-22 "O Lord, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God. Come quickly to help me, O Lord my Savior."

I read words written by other people in other times who felt distress also. Who felt the pain I am feeling and who also cried out to God for relief. Time goes on, people come and go, but life is life, whether it is the year 2002 or the year 12. People hurt, and people die, and we must all go on. How we go on is the question. Do we let our pain and hurt bring us down to the point of never really living fully again, or do we let our pain and hurt be the very thing that brings us up to truly living as God has called us to? Where everything is cherished just that much more, where compassion runs deeper and where our focus is not on the things of this world without our attention being riveted to a world unseen and even more important. The world that Phil is experiencing now, where there is stuffing that is out of this world, literally, and where there is no pain and no sickness and where we are once again walking and talking with our Father who created us.

I read recently that the streets in heaven are paved in gold because everything is turned upside down in heaven. The least will be the most, the lowest will be the highest, and where we will walk on gold because our values will be totally opposite from what they are here on earth. What we value here has no value there except for our relationship with the One who created us. The love that we share is all that we will take with us. It makes me smile, because Phil must be living well in his new home. He was a boy who loved deeply.

I'm writing a book, and as of now, the title is "Tell everyone I said good-bye." When Phil thought he was leaving this world, his concern was not for himself, for where he was going, his concern was for everyone else who he loved. He wanted to make sure that they knew he said good-bye. He said it twice to me. I told him I would tell everyone. He loved, with all his heart, and that is why it was so hard for him to leave here, and also why it was so easy for him to go. He also knew the love of God, deep in his heart. He knew the joy He gave, even on his sickest days. He was drawn to heaven peacefully by God's love, not fearing it, but looking forward to it. They say when someone dies, we have to face our own mortality. Some say that is hard. Should it be? We are mortal, we are going to die, it is only where we are going that we should fear. Not that we are going. Everyone before us has left in the same way, they died. It's a sure thing. I don't view death as I once did. It is not the unknown to me, but the known. I saw it happen. Sad yes, unknown no. It's the breath of God that makes us alive. Nothing more. When that is taken away, it is over. Recently they sang a song in church and it said, "I just want to sit outside heaven's door and listen to You breathe". We take each breath so for granted, until we see someone take their last one. Then we never take it for granted again. God breathed into man.

Genesis 2:7 The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

A baby takes its first breath and cries. A man takes his last breath and dies.
The breath of life is a gift, not to be taken for granted, but to realize where it truly comes from.

I will keep breathing, sometimes needing to take in deep gulps of air to fill the hole that I feel inside. But knowing that each breath is from God, and that He alone will give me the strength to get through each day.I will not fear. I will learn, I will grow, I will be victorious because the victory has already been won!

1 Corinthians 15:54-55
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immorality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"

For now, the "sting" is only for those left behind. For now, I have limitations as never before because this wound is fresh and needs to heal. I will accept that as best I can, keeping my focus on the One who heals.

The great Healer, who promises to always be there.

Psalm 147:3
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Love, Diane