It's quiet and cloudy today. I am feeling blue this morning, and I feel like writing. Doesn't happen so much these days as most days are filled with LIVING...the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, the busy-ness of being a mom and a wife and now a business owner. Most mornings I am too busy and/or excited about what's in store for the day that I don't have time to just be. But in the stillness of this quiet morning, I am feeling sad. I feel a longing for meaning and for God because I am standing at the edge of two very grief-filled events today...the kind of events that make a believer question, that conjure up all of the loss associated with Kate not being here, the ones that remind me that THIS PLACE IS NOT HEAVEN and that SURELY there will be no suffering akin to this in Heaven.
My friend Greg (not a close friend, but an old friend whose life was intertwined with mine in a peripheral way back when I was a practicing Catholic) is "celebrating" the life of his daughter Brianna today at a service at St. Rita, the church where I became a Catholic and found my way to God. It's also the place where I met Trey. Greg lost his wife Carrie to breast cancer 18 months ago. She was a vibrant, determined, optimistic, caring person who was flawed like all of us are, but who was the true HEART of her family in so many ways. I am guessing that Greg, Colin (his teenaged son) and Brianna were just now getting into a LAC (Life after Carrie) routine, and then Greg was given the devastating news that nine-year-old Brianna had an inoperable brain tumor that would end her life tragically early. She died in less than two months.
Greg doesn't know it yet, but this will be the grief that wipes all the others away. The one that changes his perspective on life permanently. The one that opens AND closes his heart in ways he cannot yet anticipate. It happens to everyone who has lost a child in varying degrees...at least all the ones I have ever met and had a close conversation with since Kate died. Losing Carrie was devastating to that family, but the wound that Brianna leaves behind will never completely disappear. It'll form a scar which will lessen with age and time, but it will always be there. A constant reminder of a little girl like Kate whose life ended way too soon.
Of course thinking of going to Brianna's service reminds me of Katerbug. How could it not? I feel compelled to go because maybe it will help Greg to see that he can survive his loss and that his son Colin will hopefully be surprisingly resilient like Will because he's a kid and doesn't feel with the heart of a parent. I long for a different kind of life where this kind of suffering doesn't happen. But I also recognize that events like these bind us together in a way that soccer teams and parties and work and all the "good stuff" can't. Grief and loss create a rich tapestry woven with deep and abiding love, a beautiful red thread, and commitment, a navy blue in my mind's eye, and the PURPLE joy that comes from knowing that the folks who have stuck with me through the hard times are GOLDEN blessings. It seems corny to write about what the fabric of my life after Kate looks like in this way, but I am struggling to explain why I wouldn't trade this life, MY life, for anything or anyone else's.
I am so GRATEFUL that I didn't succumb to my sorrow, that I am creating a new life post-Kate. But being close to the edge of another parent's loss still causes my heart to grieve and my throat to clinch tightly. The tears are close, but I won't let them fall today because this day is not about me. It's about Brianna and Greg and Colin and their story. I am just glad to be able to stand with them today.
The other sadness I feel today is for my friend Kathryn who contracted Strep A and has been battling for her life the last month. I am not even sure how many days it has been. Doctors say she will live now as long as a secondary infection doesn't set in. But her life won't look the same as it did. This weekend her family is going to introduce to her the reality that she is going to lose some or all of her limbs to some degree. This surgery may happen as early as next week, from what I understand. It's a devastating loss to someone like Kathryn who could do ANYTHING with her hands. A massage therapist by trade before becoming a mom, she could bake sugar cookies better that anyone I know, she was a pro in a campout setting, she could re-do and create and make beauty with her hands. And now she will be missing at least part, if not all, of them. My throat is contracting again just thinking about not only her, but her mom, her husband, her boys, and the people who love her.
I am especially sad because some well-intentioned person along the way who hasn't suffered a grief like the one that changes everything will say that God has a PLAN for Kathryn (I think he has a DREAM for Kathryn's life and has blessed her with many gifts and talents) and that somehow this tragedy was part of His PLAN for her life. I reject that thought process and that kind of FAITH at every level. Bacteria exist...just like the ones that killed Kate. Amazing doctors and hospital facilities and medicine also exist, and we hope upon hope that the drugs and care are stronger than the virus or bacteria. But sometimes the bacteria wins, even if it only takes a limb rather than a life. And until we have been in her shoes, or her husband's or her mother's or her kids', we CANNOT KNOW how it feels. To say or show anything but love and compassion, to try to explain this kind of suffering in the framework of God's will, is simply cruel when the moment is happening. My heart is heavy for what her heart will feel today as she finds out the full force of this infection and what it has done to her beautiful hands and feet and body.
Do I think that Kathryn will be "lucky" in the sense that she will get a glimpse of how much she is LOVED by so many people thanks to her survival and all of the ways people are and will continue to bless her life and those of her family? Of course! The rich-hued threads of her tapestry are already being woven, but it's going to hurt BIG TIME to weave them into her life, and my heart aches for her.
Will just woke up, so I need to move on with my day just like every other day. But it will be with a heavy heart and a longing for a different world in which the sorrow could end. I am so THANKFUL for the deep and abiding connections I feel to those I love now that Kate is gone and I have gotten to experience the JOY of knowing we are LOVED.
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