Mourning

So I’ve cried. I have been angry. Sorry, but not sorry, my word for it is “pissed off.” I’ve put the blame everywhere I possibly could. I have even laughed about it; more of a sinister sneer, but it still was a laugh. Death….. I don’t have a clue where your sting is, but I know where you left some other crap I’d like to return.  

This is a deep but simple venting session I have at least twice a week within myself. My mortality being harassed by thoughts of a coming step from one life to the other. What is my issue? I don’t control it—I guess. I have no idea when, where, or why. Just that it will happen.

This past January makes eleven years since it started. My dad passed away at the young age of 59. He had a very heroic war with cancer. He stood, and when having done all, he was still standing when death taxied him on to glory. I knew it would be that way because he told me it would. That death was just a taxi from one life to the next. It can’t keep you. It can only transport you. Yes, death is just a custom made bus that allows us to exchange one wardrobe for the other while being carried from this world to the next glory. 

If I am being honest, I have still not come to a complete closure on his death. I had to delete his cell phone number from my phone a couple years back. I needed some advice on a project I was working on, and I caught myself dialing his number. That hit me like a ton of bricks. So deleting his number from my phone was another step closer to accepting his death—I guess. 

Since my dad’s passing I have lost a number of relatives. Ten loved ones in eleven years. Eight in the last two years. I am fortunate enough to have a rather close knit family, so I do have contact with the majority of them. I realize I have reached a place in my life where it’s time for the generation before me to start moving on. I say that like it’s a job change or a vacation trip. Truth is, it is a natural part of life. The great cycle of the ages. When we begin to have children and our children have children, we then start to lose grandparents and parents. 

My mom remarried a couple years ago. I was happy for her. She seemed to be happier than I had seen her in a long time. Then, we had a fight with covid. Like many people all over the world, it has affected my family on both sides. Death, death, death. It comes in like a freight train, never asks permission, and never cleans up after itself. We lost my stepdad on August 7th of 2021, and my mom on September 7th of 2021. Totally unexpected. They were doing well one day and gone the next. Mom spent a month in the hospital and just never recovered. Part of me thinks she gave up because she didn’t have the heart to deal with the loss of her husband. I don’t fault her for that. 

Why am I telling you all this? I know I can’t be alone. I also hate to think that there is someone out there that is still recovering from the death of a loved one or the effects of loss, and they feel all alone in the fight. You are not alone. I’m here and thousands of others just like us. We are still here. Still living. Still thriving. No matter what the struggle looks like, we are still loved by, looked up to, and valued as important to someone whether you see it or not. I promise you that your life is being sized up by someone who has seen what you are and where you’ve walked, and they are better because of your example. 

Another reason I am sharing this is for my own sanity. Hi, my name is Johnny, and I am an overthinker. I place pressure on myself to be, do, and go beyond where the last generation left off, so I can share and help the next generation to do more than I ever thought possible. When I am faced with my own mortality, I freak out and think I’ve not done enough. I’ve not had that talk yet. I’ve not seen them succeed and grow yet. There is not enough time. I’m going to fail before I even get a chance to try. I said it earlier, we don’t get to decide when, where, or how. We only get to choose our heart’s condition. 

The thoughts that have flooded my mind in the last six months are simply overwhelming; thoughts that I have to take captive. I know that sounds so strong and bold. The truth is, I do eventually take them captive, but sometimes they wreak a little havoc first. Other times, I’m too busy having a pity party to notice how bad the thoughts are. The thoughts have caused such fear and emotion. Who knew that when they talked to us about emotions that it was actually the name of a monster roller coaster? Ha!! It’s ok to laugh at yourself. If I couldn’t laugh at myself, I think some days all I would do is cry. Even while I’m typing that last sentence, I’m laughing at myself. 277lbs and stand 6’1” talking about crying and being emotional. I’m sorry but to me, that’s funny. What’s a big ole guy like me doing carrying on about all this. Just suck it up and move on. I’ve told myself that more than I care to tell. It doesn’t work. It just gives me more fuel for the anger. Anger that explodes at the wrong times. Anger that surprises me more than anyone but tends to hurt everyone around when it happens. Then, there is the remorse and shame for having my “moment”. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a rush of emotions or anger. I still feel guilty for feeling the way I do because I know I’m blessed to be breathing. I have a beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous wife, and our children didn’t fall far from her tree. She has walked and stood with me through more downs than ups and still is excited to see me. She wants to be with me, and she loves to make me feel special. So it seems I can’t lose for winning or win for losing. Haha!

I know one thing for a fact: Above all that I have ever been able to even try to do for myself, God has always made a way for me. If not for God and His word, I would have already taken my taxi ride. I have reached the edges of my sanity only to find God waiting on me there—every time.

I’ve been off the chain stupid in my thinking. Then, I remember a simple verse of scripture, and my world comes to a halt. A peaceful halt. A halt to the madness in my brain, the anger in my heart and the emotional rollercoaster in my soul. It all stops with one word from The Father. 

One of the things about death is that for those of us who are left here, we get to pick up the things they have left behind and move them on or bring them to a close. Some of these things bring about happiness. Joy in remembering the life of another; what that person meant to you and you to them. It can also bring about pain. Pain in the surprises that were left behind: Finding that you were lied to or manipulated into thinking certain things because of more lies. Maybe you find out things they were hiding or at the least not letting anyone know. However you want to look at that, it is disappointing and disheartening when we find that people were not all that they seemed to be. A brother of mine simply put it this way: “Sometimes it hurts to find out they were human too.” That statement helped me more than he knew. I needed to change my way of seeing the situation, so I could get past the hurt. It did not change what I knew or experienced. It just allowed me to process, so I could move past that particular thing to deal with the next. It unstuck me in a place that had me stuck—bad. Thank you, brother, for reminding me. (You’ll know who you are if you read this.) Yes, occasionally we get stuck on things that are not ours to get stuck with; things we didn’t do and will not have to answer for. We pick them up like some badge of honor and wave our flag of justice to go fix what cannot be undone. It’s just simply not ours to do, but they made decisions that we cannot change—choices that never had us in mind to begin with and things done out of fear, neglect, and ignorance. None of which are our fault or responsibility. Whew, there I said that. I needed to hear it again. This one is a major wound I’m still dealing with that’s going to leave a bad scar, but I lived. It’s ok. My tomorrow doesn’t stop on behalf of them not getting something right. Release yourself from needing to correct their wrongs or even carry on their rights.

I wish I had all the magical answers to heal all the hurt and pain of losing a loved one, but I do not. No one does. Only the Father can heal such pain and grief. Thank you for allowing me to be transparent for a moment. I needed to release some of this as much as I wanted to help someone else. Remember, the Bible tells us that the name of The Lord is a strong tower and that the righteous run into it and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). When I have nothing else to say or do, and I feel like I’m going to die or explode, I simply say “Jesus.” It may sound funny to some, but I promise just calling out His name has brought me more peace than a hundred friends with good counsel. I need friends, but I sure do need Jesus. A little thing my Mamaw Speer taught me when I was a teenager is that “the bible tells us in Psalms that sometimes the redeemed just have to learn to say so.” She got that from Psalms 107:1-3  (ESV) it says: 

1. Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! 
2. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble
3. And gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. 

His love has truly endured for us through the ages, and He has brought us out of many troubled places. Sometimes, we just have to remind ourselves of that by saying so.