I’ve been feeling very good. Excellent, even.
I realize that for the most part, hopelessness has fueled my writing on here, especially under this category, and this is why I haven’t popped on here in a while. If you checked the date distance between my last post and this, you’d probably think that I have been having writer’s block, or have become uninterested in this venture. It’s none of the above.
Life has been event-full. I just haven’t found the best way to continue on here.
While I’ll keep my testimony for a later post, owing to the fact that I always get overwhelmed, speechless, when I think of my journey to this point, you have to know that it revolves around a loving God, and a willing almost 30 years old girl. Before the end of the day, most days, lately, I find that I’d have counted over five “Jesus heals/saves” that have come out of my mouth. I simply do not yet know how to give the account of my healing process, which is a surprise to me, since words are my forte.
I know that I have to talk, write about it, so that the way my work on here provides grief angles, and ‘what-to-expects’, it’d also help you understand that it does get better, no matter how bad it is.
That will happen in time, maybe in a published work.
In the meantime, there’s been a dark cloud over me, in the past two days.
Sadly, this post is about death; I’ve been spurred to write after a period of unsure silence.
My close friends had their dad die some days ago, and it’s rocked me, hard.
After my baby boy died, my reaction to news of death has been different. I don’t remember now, but I think in the past, I’d focus mainly on the person who died, and if I knew them personally, try to take ‘solace’, in the most detached way, in times spent with them. Nevertheless, if I only knew of them, I’d brush it off with a sigh. Now, I focus on those left behind, worrying about how they’d deal with the new turn of things.
So, when I received the news of my friends’ father, my thoughts immediately went to the whole family. I hurt, thinking about how suddenly, their life as they knew it, was over. It didn’t take me hours to get dressed and head over to their house, with intentions to smother them in consistent availability. I thought it’d be easy. After all, I’ve been feeling very good, excellent even.
However, nothing could have prepared me for their reactions.
At first, it all seemed like a familiar act; the crying, silent sighs, loud questions; you know, the usual step-by-step process that follows the death of a family member.
But, as I sat still for longer, giving tight hugs, and back rubs, wiping tears off my own eyes, the smell of pain so palpable, I found myself reliving my experience.
It seemed like it was December 22nd, 2022, all over again. They had the similar looks of confusion and resistance, or as I like to put it ‘confusing resistance’: it’s that state where you stubbornly refuse to believe something is true, yet you don’t even know what ‘true’ is.
Looking at each of them reminded me of a place so dark, no one would willingly walk into, but without permission or a warning, grief plunges you straight in.
The part that gutted me the most, was when I accompanied one of them to the mortuary, which is the same mortuary my father was kept in, and she walks out after being shown her dad’s corpse, with the same head-aching cry as I had months ago. As she held me tight, bawling on my shoulder, I closed my eyes, and hoped that this process could be fast-tracked, to the place where it gets easier and better.
This is why I’m writing this.
For my friend, or anyone else in a bad place, caused by death or not, you should know that while the process is heartbreaking, and filled with uncertainties, it does get better.
Breathing gets easier. Sleeping and waking stop being a chore.
The room will be filled with light.
Unfortunately, there’s no timeline for this. I can’t say you’ll feel less depressed, or even less suicidal in a year or less or more. I wish I could. But while, I’m aware that the timing is different for different people, It without a doubt gets better.
Jesus helped me. He can help you.
I feel really good now; excellent even.
You will too, soon.