My friend just passed me the link to a grieving mother’s blog.  As I read her latest entries in the days following her precious little girl’s death, my heart broke for her.  She is walking the path of a long and very winding road of grief.

She is from my hometown.  They buried her daughter just miles from where my Mitchell is buried.

Cancer took this sweet girl at age 14.  Age 14.  Right before her life as a young woman would begin.  Long before she would experience falling in love.  Going to college.  Getting married.  Having babies.  All before her mom would have the joy  of watching her experience all of these things. But not before she lived life as a vibrant, happy, full-of -life preteen.  I saw pictures of her.  She was beautiful in that sweet-face-of-innocence way.  Her mommy called her Ladybug.

Her mama’s last post was written just two days ago.  Her road of grief has taken her on the turn of anger.  It is a necessary part of the process.  But it is not pretty or pleasant.  It stems from a pain so deep that sadness can not bear it alone and must give way to another emotion.  I remember it well.  And she was very honest about it.  Her post was raw.  She is very mad  at God and probably even doubts His existence at this point.  Her words portrayed unanswered questions and a pulsing ache that reaches past just the emotional realm and makes itself known physically as well.  As if a gaping hole is in the center of your chest where your heart used to reside. If it is possible to feel death while you are still alive, that is how it feels.

I read this woman’s words describing the fog she walks around in and it all came rushing back.  You hope that you will wake from the nightmare, as if you are living someone else’s life.  Your head cannot accept the reality.  Your heart cannot bear it.  Even your body retaliates – all senses diminish.  All desires dull.  All flavors become bland and tasteless.  Nothing can satisfy the longing of a mother’s bleeding heart.

She wants to know why.  Why her child?  Why now?  Why this way?  Answers that will not be answered.  At least not fully.  At least not now.  Which only adds to her anger’s frustration.  Without reasons, it is hard for the soul to rest.  There is a thrashing within it that cannot be calmed with words of comfort or even hope.  Another part of the process, this wrestling with the unknown, the unanswered..

She loves her child as much today as she did the day she left this earth.  And she wants people to know it.  But people are afraid to ask or talk about her loss. She wants to talk about her precious daughter, but is certain that people are tired of listening.  She doesn’t want her grief to be a burden to others.  But oh how she would love to share stories and memories of her sweet girl.

All of the details are done.  The memorial service is over.  The tombstone has been set.  All the planning and details that occupied this mother’s time are now done and over.  And she is left with just her thoughts.  Days and weeks pass and people go on to live their normal lives.  But her life will never be normal again.  At least not the old normal.  The process of her transitioning to a new normal feels foreign and wrong.  She doesn’t want things to change.  She wants her old life back.  Her old life where there was laughter and dreams and good times. And her Ladybug.  Her new reality has begun and each day it nearly gags her.

She has other children to care for, who need her.  But she doesn’t have the strength either mentally or emotionally or physically to give them what they need.  And she carries a false sense of guilt for that.  She does her best to comfort them.  They have had a horrible loss, too.  But her words are choked out by tears and her arms that want to hug them hang, instead, weakly at her trembling sides.  She needs to be held, to be in someone’s arms as she cries violent tears, convulsing with emotions she has never experienced.  But she will not ask that of her children.  She feels she must be strong for them.

When you lose a child, a part of you dies with them.  There is a hole that will never be filled.  A cut so deep that it will leave a permanent scar.  And when your child goes to heaven, you discover what you have believed all your life – that heaven truly does exist and that a part of you is already there.

I have never met this woman, and I don’t know if I ever will.  But I ache for and with her.  We are now a part of the same awful club that no one wants to join.  We have lost a child.  I am somewhat of a veteran, having travelled the road of grief and healing for nearly 15 years.  I can assure her that there IS such a thing as a new normal and it becomes a very, very good thing.  I can assure her that she will love her daughter as much in 15 years as she does today.  I can assure her that time does have a way of transforming a gaping, bleeding wound into a smoother, less bloody scar.  And I can tell her that she will find joy again.  There will be new hopes and dreams.  And that she will, if she allows, know the love of God in a way that she has never known before.

But she is not ready for these words yet.  What she really needs right now is a hug.  A listening ear that wants to hear about her heart and her daughter.  She needs others to understand that anger needs to run its course for a little while.

If one mother could have one wish for another mother, it would be that Mitchell helped welcome this precious girl into heaven with a hug and a balloon in the color of her choice.  And lots and lots of ladybugs…..

Psalm 34:18 – The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.