It was a normal Monday; at least, I thought it was normal when I got a pop-up reminder “HMR Zoom Meeting.” I was at work and tried to remember what those initials meant. Then I remembered it was the “Helping Men Recover” training I was at when my friend Karen told me, “Deb was found unresponsive.” It was a great training with great people, but Deb’s death will forever taint it.
When I joined the meeting, I met the faces of Dan, the leader I enjoyed, and several kind faces from the training. The group wanted to know how I was doing, so I shared details about Deb’s death and funeral. These people are good, but as soon as I shared about October 13th, I could sense something was wrong. Something inside stirred. It was my grief. I wish I could describe it better, but I don’t have the right words. It was like a physical entity inside me. I’m trying to understand it, but I’ve been unsuccessful so far. All I know is when it’s activated, I no longer have control. It pulls me around like I’m a puppy on a leash.
Feelings become too strong. I told my supervisor, “I gotta go,” He nodded as he saw I was beginning to cry. He knew I was having another Deb attack.
I barely made it to my car before bursting into sobbing. I drove home, thinking about the time I drove home 16 weeks earlier. It’s hard to drive when you cry this hard, but I’ve done it before. I remember my brother-in-law calling me, telling me Deb had just died. And I remember talking to the young officer, who told me I needed to find a funeral home ASAP. This memory was full of sharp metal corners that hurt no matter how I approached them.
I had been sucked in by that black hole again.
Shouldn’t I be more stable by now? It’s 16 weeks since she died. When will I get out of the woods? Do I have to live like this for the rest of my life? What’s wrong with me?
When she died, I could sense the black hole just a few feet away, ready to pounce and suck the life force out of me, like a Dementors from Harry Potter. The black hole followed me wherever I went, threatening to consume me, wanting to pull my soul from me.
As I drove, I tried to pray but could only get the word “Jesus,” out. I had no clear thought, no sentence. No request or complaint. Just, “Jesus…Jesus…..Jesus….” I wanted relief but didn’t know what to do. Looking back, I think Jesus answered that prayer of desperation, the prayer that had one word. But at the time, I could not sense Jesus at all. I only felt unending darkness. And nothing made sense. I wanted the pain to stop, but I didn’t know how.
Do I have to leave work every time I have a Deb Attack? Is there a more functional way to grieve? I was hoping to save time up for next month to see my brother in Atlanta. I can’t keep doing this.
Grief, no matter how predictable it seems to be, shocks me every time it hits me. It jars me to my core. It disorients, causing me to lose my bearings. For some reason, I’m still surprised with each wave of grief. It leaves me confused and directionless.
I went home and crawled into bed. Napping has become my coping mechanism. It’s my way of taming the beast inside me. It seems to be the only safe thing I can do now. Each grief wave pulls all the energy from my body, leaving me wiped. I felt like I ripped tar shingles from a roof for eight hours, but I didn’t do anything. At least, not physically.
I slept for over an hour, which is good, but then I lay there for another hour. I stared at the ceiling fan above my body, hovering. Its five large blades spread out like a starfish.
Was I hiding? And if I was, what was I hiding from?
I find that I tend to stare at things. I’ll “zombie-out” anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, just staring at something with a blank expression on my face. Staring allows me to pull out memories and thoughts I haven’t considered for a while and look at them like a book on a shelf.
Sometimes, I just think of her voice, and sometimes, I don’t think of anything at all. I don’t know if this is healthy or not; it’s how I process things. As I stare, waves of pain wash over me, rendering me useless, just like my new washing machine downstairs.
Mom
Laying there, I thought about my mom. In the last year of her life, she was mad at God. She didn’t want to live anymore; she just wanted the struggle to be over, and she wanted God to take her home. Please understand that she was among the godliest women I’ve ever met. And she was incredibly sweet. But something happened to her at the end of her life. She had enough. She didn’t want to wait for Jesus anymore. She wanted to go to Heaven and pound until she got it. So, she just lay wide awake for most of her last weeks in bed.
One day, I got the courage to venture into her room with her. I didn’t want to intrude on her without permission, so I moved slowly. Her room was sacred to me.
“How are ya doing, mom?”
She immediately turned over and began talking with me. She gave a few generic answers about life. I don’t think she had the language to explain her pain. I think her pain was primarily emotional, and emotions weren’t often discussed. She did her best.
So, instead of talking, I asked her if I could read her the Daily Bread she had sitting on the nightstand. She was okay with that. Then, afterward, I prayed with her. When I was done, she just stayed there in bed, lying still.
“Don’t you have something to do, Andy?”
“No…I’m just going to stay here for a bit.”
So, we just sat there in the silence.
I remember how happy she was when I read and prayed with her. I also remember that I only did this once. I say this to my shame. I was “too busy” to do this again before she passed away.
I was being self-protective. I didn’t want to risk rejection, so I didn’t enter her room (where she was) a second time. And besides, I was busy with a wife, three young children, and a house to take care of. Today, I regret my passivity in spending more time with her.
What she was doing was hiding. Hiding from life, from responsibility, from everyone.
I think she was mourning her life. In silence, she grieved the best she could in her safe place. She raised six children, seven if you include my dad. My dad was a great man; he didn’t know how to help Mom, so she was kind of on her own. I think she was too worn out to try anymore.
She was waiting for God to take her home.
Was I doing the same thing? I was in my safe place, hoping the beast inside would leave me alone. I was like my washing machine—powerless, useless, and taking up space. And just like Mom, I was shut down. I hoped the black hole would spit me out. I wanted to return to normal because nothing I had was normal.
Most of my life has been lived under the cloud of shame or the fear of that shame. I wish I had the guts to spend more time with her. I wish I could have read one more Daily Bread to her. I wish there was more time.
I will regret the thousands of conversations I didn’t have in Heaven because I was too afraid to have them. I think I will be disgusted at how small my life was. I allowed fear to occupy too much of my heart. I gave up too much ground. I could have done more.
A Boy
As I lay in bed, I felt like a 6-year-old boy hiding from the world. Maybe I was hiding from my pain, but where is there to hide? I’ve led dozens of men’s groups and have worked to challenge murderers and rapists on my caseload. I try to get prisoners to understand themselves and face their fears. And there I was, hiding under my covers.
“You hypocrite” scrolled through my mind.
I know this was a lie from Satan. But why did it hurt so much if this was a false accusation? Maybe I was a hypocrite, trying to make people believe I’m something I am not.
A widower once told me, “Don’t waste this.” Great wisdom. I think I understand what he means. I need to resist the urge to run from pain. But I still need a break from it, right?
I think God is increasing my resistance to pain. I think he’s trying to grow my character. I need to allow the silence to turn my suffering into something good. I can’t live life hiding. I need to risk feeling this grief. But I don’t want to.
I’m afraid to write this, to let my guard down. I know several people who don’t respect me at all, and I don’t want that number to grow. But I need to put this self-protective shield to the side so I can receive love from those who do.
In my heart, I want to honor Jesus. In some strange way, these writings are doing that.
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Read Anonymously from the Pulpit
Temptation is an outworking of stress in my body; the greater my stress, the stronger my temptation to act out. Since I struggle with sexual fantasy, my temptation is to act out with porn. I am seeking “Relief,” with a capital R,a physical response to an emotional problem. My relief becomes a god, something I’m willing to sacrifice my values to get. The greater my stress, the greater my pressure to act out. I don’t want to sit with this pain. I want to wiggle away from it. I want to pull my hand from the hot stove and find instant relief if possible. By surrendering to God, I surrender that outlet to him. Faith assumes God has something better, something I’m not very good at.
My pressure comes from the lie that “I don’t have what it takes to be a man,” and “I need to be accepted.” When life (people) challenges me in either of these vulnerable areas, I react with increased fear, and the temptation to overeat or seek sexual release seems entirely justifiable.