Love notes…Scattered thoughts

 Love notes from God can come from anywhere. They come to us in ways that are very personal and unique to the challenges we are facing in our life. Sometimes Love notes, Tender Mercies, can come from a wide range of scattered deep thoughts that we may have as we are going through the grief process. When you are grieving you have a lot of time to spend contemplating your life because it is very hard to focus on normal everyday activities for more than a few minutes at a time. It’s like you are consumed with the person you miss and you are searching for any sort of peace and comfort to help you get through one more day. You think about the past, the present, and the future. You have so many unanswered questions but have to trust that someday those questions will be answered. Someday the tears that are so unpredictable now will be wiped away and everything that is so confusing will make sense. There are many sleepless nights when you have hours and hours just to spend pondering the whys or the what ifs?  It requires tremendous faith to trust in Heavenly Father’s plan for your life.

 As I have been experiencing all of the deep emotions that grief brings along, I am amazed at the ways in which I am starting to see life so much differently than I ever did before. The problems in my self absorbed world that I thought were so important before now seem to be so shallow. I continually try to see everything in an eternal perspective. To me this life on earth is just an interruption of the life that I hope to have someday with my family that will last forever. This life is a test, a learning experience to see if I will be grateful for what I have been given. I am here to see if I will submit my will to God and become what it is he knows I can become and do what he asks me to do. Finding Love notes during the storms that I face is my way of coping. I have found that gratitude is the true source of happiness. It is not always easy, but it changes your whole perspective of what your life can become if you choose to let it. We are here to have joy even during the difficult parts of our journey.

 There’s a story I heard right after Mike passed away that conveys that there are times when we are too hard on ourselves as children of God. We long to be that perfect person who always has it together. We may be prideful and never want to show the weak part of ourselves to such an unforgiving world. I know that I’ve always wanted to achieve far greater success than what I have. I always seem to be lacking in some area and more often than not I condemn myself for not meeting my own expectations as a human being.

  Last year there was a woman who wrote a blog about this very thing. She decided that she may not be able to be or do all that she thought she should each day, but she could give herself credit for the things she did that made a difference no matter how small. She called her little achievements drops of awesome. She talked about how we should stop trying to be everything and do everything. We should concentrate on putting one small drop of awesome in our bucket at a time and then let our Savior fill the rest of our bucket with the drops we are lacking. I loved this concept! What if we do all that we can do and then let the Savior fill in the rest of the bucket? What if we can only give one drop of awesomeness today but at least it was one drop of awesome!

 Sometimes when you are grieving it feels like you have days where there is not a single drop of awesomeness to be found inside of you. You have to dig really hard to find a drop of awesome to add to your bucket that day. Just getting your kids to school on time may be your only drop of awesome that day. You may have a job that you have to go to while you are still mourning and emotionally unstable, but just getting through your day without falling apart in front of your coworkers is your drop of awesome for that day. You might have bills to pay but you no longer have the same income since your spouse has passed away. Finding the way and the courage to pay one of those bills may be your drop of awesome for that day. There will be days when you want to have the desire to keep putting drops of awesome in that huge bucket but you are exhausted and all you really feel like doing is kicking the bucket across the yard and screaming out whatever comes through your head. You may feel like losing the person you loved is unfair and that it is even more unfair that people still expect you to give them what they need while you are still filled with so much pain and suffering. They want you to be happy because they love and care about you and it hurts them to see you suffering. They want to make it all better for you, but it will never be all better.

What if during those days of suffering the only drop of awesome you can give is to trust. It may be that all you have inside of you is just enough trust in the Savior for him to keep carrying your bucket for you and filling it with drops of awesome that can begin slowly healing your heart day after day. Maybe he’s just waiting for us to turn to him and use the gift of the atonement that he so freely gave to us. He gave it to us because he loved us not because we are deserving or perfect. He gave it to us because he knew that we would not be able to get through this life without this gift.

When Mike passed away there were times when I really felt like my life was over. He was my other half; he was such a huge part of who I was that I didn’t know how I would ever start to begin healing. A few days after he had passed away I remember waking up before the sun came up and feeling an overwhelming feeling to run away from it all. I knew what was coming and I didn’t want to have to face it. I drove out to the beach to have some time to think and some time to let the tears flow without hurting anyone else again through my tears. Grief is such an awkward thing. There are times when you feel like you can’t show your true emotions to those you love because you feel like it just seems to add to the pain that you already see when you look into their eyes. You want to protect them as much as they want to protect you. I remember sitting on the cold, wet sand that early morning watching the waves crash across the beach.






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 It was overcast and the scene before me resembled just how I felt inside. There was a cool breeze blowing my hair into my face and I could see for miles of endless miles that never seemed to end. I could relate to that on so many levels. It was all just beginning, but I couldn’t see an end in sight. The following day would be the funeral of my 43 year old husband. I was 39 years old and had no idea how to start living again. If I lived to be 85 I would need to come up with something to do for the next 45 years without him in my life. He was my life. I would have to recreate my life. I couldn’t see an end in sight to what I would be facing for the next several years without him. It was all too much to comprehend. It seemed impossible and unfathomable. How was I supposed to do this?






I remember sitting there feeling so numb. I couldn’t cry because it hurt too much to cry. I wanted to lie right there on the beach and stay there until it was all better. I didn’t care if there was more to do to make sure the funeral plans were completed. I didn’t care if I had a dress to wear. Mike wouldn’t see it on me anyway. As I was sitting there feeling these wave of emotions come over me I had the craziest thought come into my head. This thought that came into my mind seemed like such an easy answer in that moment. I knew that my whole family was here in Florida to support me, the funeral was ready for the most part, and the kids were taken care of. I had the crazy, selfish thought that I could get into that suburban and I could drive off forever. I could run away and not deal with what was coming the following day. They could handle it right? I didn’t want to be the widow that I had seen in movies wearing the black dress looking pitiful and so alone. I didn’t want everyone to hurt for me any more than they already had for so many days. If I drove off away from it all it would solve everything. I could change the whole scenario and life would be back to how it was last week. Mike would kiss me goodbye, climb into his white work truck holding his protein shake in one hand and his phone and laptop in the other. He would waive his goofy waive and smile at me as he backed out of the dirt drive way to go grow some beautiful trees and shrubs. I would continue teasing him that he thought he was the best grower in the Garden of Eden.

I remember the sun coming out from behind the clouds at the very moment I was considering this crazy plight. It started shining directly on my face and filled me with an overwhelming light and warmth. It seemed to melt all of the fears and irrational thoughts I was feeling in that moment. I felt a love note sent to wake me out of such a crazy state of mind. I began to feel so much stronger than I had ever felt in my whole life. I knew that I could face tomorrow as a tribute to my husband and the beautiful life that he had led. I got up and dusted the sticky sand off of my body. That day instead of taking the easy way out I drove my old white suburban back to the house Mike and I had built together. This would not be easy, but I had been given some extra strength to help me pull through what was to come. Choosing to go home that day was a drop of awesome for my bucket. It would be the hardest thing I would ever do to watch them lower the casket of my best friend and lover into the ground, but I was going to be there. I was going to be there for Mike and our children. 

The months following his death were unbelievably hard. Each day I would try to find any kind of love note... a tender mercy from God letting me know that he still knew I still existed. There were minutes of peace that I knew came from the Holy Ghost and there were minutes of tremendous suffering. One day I was going through some clothes in my closet and came across a shirt I had bought the summer before. I had bought it thinking that if I wore it when I exercised it would make me want to push myself harder. I had always had the well intentioned desire to run a 5k someday. My desire to do that was sometimes ruled out by my desire to sleep in for just one more hour. The word strength was written across the front. At that moment I didn’t see it as a work out shirt anymore. I knew that this would be the shirt I would wear on days when I would need to find strength... those days when I felt like I couldn’t do what I had to do as a mother of 4 children. I have worn it on several days since Mike passed away. I do not resemble a woman of  physical strength yet I wear it because it gives me strength. I’m sure people think I wear it because I am in denial of my fitness appearance. I’m sure it comes across as quite humorous to some. That is so far from the truth, but I know what it resembles and that’s all that matters. It reminds me about the scripture that Paul talks about. The one that tells us that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

 There comes a point when you are grieving that you stop caring about what others think of you. If you ever been around a person who has gone through some trying circumstances you notice one thing about them. They don’t base their life on what others think of them. They have had to rely on something bigger than themselves to survive something so very difficult. I think of breast cancer survivors I know. Before they had the cancer they were wonderful people, but after they survived the cancer and conquered its ugliness they become different people. They became strong. They found something inside of themselves that they never knew existed because they were put in a circumstance where they had to find it. Sometimes the person with cancer does not survive, but that storm that they fought changed those who were with that person every step of the way. Those people never see life the same again. They realize that having the ones they love with them is a gift and they don’t take life for granted anymore. Grieving for the loss of someone who is a large part of your life is painful, but I could never compare it to that of a cancer survivor. That is one battle I hope I never have to go through.

 I took this picture one day after I had been crying while making a dinner that Mike would never come home to enjoy with us.
 



I took it because this is real. This is what grieving looks like. It’s not pretty. It’s not something that you can control.

 It doesn’t look like the pic I had taken with the girls a few days before to post to the world.   That picture that showed how wonderful and strong I was. It seemed to say, "Look at how strong I am still... even after losing my husband of 20 years less than a year ago!"

 

This is real… this is my battle right now… with God I will get through it.

  I have a dirt road that runs along the side of our home.      
I was walking along it one evening, when I started noticing all of the beautiful wild flowers that were scattered all along the sides of the canal.
 



They weren’t flowers that were planned to be planted in a specific spot. They were growing between fallen limbs, ant piles, and in between slopes on the side of the road that were anything but smooth. They were a little out of place and didn’t quite fit the mold of the perfect flowers in a perfect environment, yet they were still alive. They were still beautiful and they were still thriving even in an unstable environment. There was no guarantee that they would have a wonderful future or that anything would stay the same for them, yet they were in the present moment becoming something beautiful. They were making the most of the situation that they were in at that time in their lives. They were giving something back to the world if it was just standing strong in places where they shouldn’t have been able too. I started thinking about how sometimes our lives are like that. Sometimes we feel more like a wild flower or a weed in life. We have no control of our lives because what has happened yet we can control how we choose to react to our circumstances. We are not sure where we belong or what our purpose is anymore. We start to realize that Heavenly Father is our creator and that he has a plan for us. Our life may not fit the normal mold that we feel it should, but we are still something beautiful in his eyes. We have a purpose and he has a plan for us. That plan may just be to help all of the ugliness that surrounds us appear more beautiful because of our strength during the storms of life. Maybe there are others who we can help because we know what it’s like to go through hard circumstances. Maybe we weren’t meant to be a perfect flower in a perfect world that never learns to grow amid the curve balls life throws us.
 The day after Mike passed away our family was given a gift. A beautiful niece entered the world. Her name is Paisley Raye. She is always smiling and brings joy to everyone around her.




Paisley was born during a week that was full of all kind of deep emotions. One minute we are all feeling the shock of losing one of the most important people
in our lives to death, and the next minute we are trying to feel the joy that comes from a new fresh baby that has been sent from heaven to this world.  It all happened within 24 hours. I remember Mike’s brother coming to our home with tears in his eyes telling me that he knew Mike had been at the birth of this precious baby girl.  He said he remembered feeling like Mike was standing in the room with him as he held his first born.  When I heard him talk about this I knew that there would be no other place Mike would rather be. He had always loved babies. If there was ever one around you could bet he would be holding it, kissing it, and making it smile. It didn’t matter if it was his kid or a stranger's. Mike was love.














 There is a little boy named Carter that used to sit in front of our family in church. He and Mike connected from the very start of his life.



They had a bond that was very evident. Almost every week Mike would lean across the bench and grab him to sit him on his lap, play with him, and talk to him.  He always brought a smile to Mike's face.  When Mike passed away Carter's parents brought him to the viewing and the funeral so that he could say goodbye to Mike and learn about the resurrection.  He wanted to know where Mike had gone.  There were times before Mike passed away that we would talk about how Carter seemed to be so wise for his age. He wasn't like most of the kids his age. Still today,  Carter continues to send our family pics that he draws of Mike quite regularly.  He tells his mom what his pictures represent and she writes the words for him since he is still so young.  Just last week on Easter he was telling his mom how Mike was going to resurrect someday. He gives me hope that our relationships in heaven as spirits are continued here on earth and that they will be just as strong someday when we return to our Father in Heaven.




 When Mike’s burial plot was chosen, we chose for him to be buried at the head of the grave of one of his cousins who had died as an infant. His name was Joseph… just like Mike’s middle name. I can only imagine the joy that will bring Mike to be put to rest by a child. He was always so much more comfortable with children than adults.




 One of the hardest concepts of Mike leaving this earth so early was that I wouldn’t be able to share those grandparent years with him and our grandchildren. That really bothered me and I shed many tears over the fact that I would be missing something that we had looked forward to in the next few years. One day one of my closest friends shared a thought she had about that. She said, “You know what... maybe he won’t be here during those years, but if I know Mike he’s up there choosing them out right now. He’s choosing athletes, and spiritual giants, and comedians for the family.” That gave me such peace and put a smile on my face when she said that. Of course he was meeting them. We may not be together physically, but we would still be grandparents together spiritually.







Love notes are all around us all of the time. They may be earth shattering miracles, they may be good deeds from others that he puts in our path, or they may be just scattered deep thoughts that come to us to give us hope and change our perspective of our circumstances. Our Savior is completely aware of what we need when we are grieving. He has felt all of those thoughts. He has felt the pain that we feel every minute of every day. He knows that we all have different circumstances and different needs on our journey though life. It is up to us to open our eyes and our hearts to the gifts that are given to us to comfort us and give us strength. Sometimes we may be at our lowest point before we are humbled enough to have to find a source of strength in a love note. God knows you. You are his child. Love notes are real.