January 13, 2018
Today's #refugeingrief writing prompt was about kindness.
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I'm hesitant to start out on such a shallow note, but I know just beginning to write will help get the ideas flowing. How am I being "to my sad self hereafter kind"? One thing is self care. I'm taking yoga classes a couple of times a week; having a Thai yoga session, pedicure, and a massage each once a month. I work out--rowing class and weight training--because it makes me feel good, and also because if I don't do it, I feel more anxious. I get my 10,000 Fitbit steps every day. I had a 19-month streak going when Rader died and one of the decisions my lizard brain made when I woke up (OK, I didn't really wake up because I hadn't been able to go to sleep; but I GOT up) that first day was that ending the streak would make me feel worse than going outside and trudging those 10,000 steps. So I did it that day and the next and the next, and six days after he died, my Fitbit friends online organized a #stepforrader where hundreds of people completed 16,000 steps in recognition of his 16th birthday. Kindness.
So many kindnesses got me through those first days. First, our next door neighbors on the night he died. When my surviving child and I arrived home from our meeting, the EMS had already closed off the house to investigate and my husband was out on the front porch. Our neighbors, Marshall and Barbara, were here caring for William and greeted us with hugs and tears. They brought drinks of water, wrapped us in blankets as the temperature cooled, and stayed with us. They stayed and stayed, until we were finally given the OK to go inside. Then, Barbara made trips to the grocery store for us, brought food, and let some of our friends who came in from out of town stay in their guest rooms, able to come and go as they pleased.
After Barbara and Marshall's kindness in the immediate aftermath, first thing the next morning, our best friends Jim and Kristen showed up. They probably brought something and we probably have it written down on what is essentially our list of kindnesses provided, but anyway what I actually remember is they came. They walked in our door early in the morning, and after that sleepless night in which my brain kept asking me how on earth are we going to live through this, what is life going to be like, how do we do this, how is anything ever going to be OK again, when Jim and Kristen came in, my whole body seemed to heave a sigh of relief. And my brain went,"Oh, OK, this is how. We have our people." And throughout the day they came, and came, and came. First the local friends and then the ones from miles and hours away within the state of South Carolina, and then Doyle and Mia (it took them a day or two to make arrangements to get here from D.C.), and when Mia arrived, she took over (her literal job title is "controller") and then everything was really going to be OK, whatever OK means after you lose a child to suicide.
And people made calls for me that I needed made (cancelling Rader's upcoming appointments with the optometrist and dentist--no way could I call them and tell them he was dead). Our former minister, Ivey, came and shepherded us through planning a memorial service that was perfect in every way for a family that had essentially lost its faith already (that's quite a story for another time); and his wife, Teri, went with me on what should have been the worst errand of my life: buying a dress to wear to the service. But she made it OK, so OK that after we had picked out and tried on and purchased the dress, I still felt up to driving back to the location of the meeting where we had left Matt's car, and Teri drove the car home for me.
People who had lost children themselves were incredibly kind. Rader's high school principal came to visit the first day, attended the service, and sent a beautiful peace lily from the staff and student government. He and his wife lost a son to a brain tumor at age 7, 13 years ago now. A local woman who writes a blog about the aftermath of her teen daughter's suicide came and had lunch with me. A minister's wife in the nearby town where my husband grew up sent a beautiful ring along with the story of how at her son's memorial service, she received his ring back that he had given to a friend in need of encouragement years earlier when they were teens, a story she hadn't known anything about.
So I don't believe anymore that the Bible is THE TRUTH and that Jesus is THE WAY, and that the God of the Bible is the REAL GOD. But I have a deeply Christian past, and it may seem contradictory to some, but I still love the Bible and still find a lot of truth in its verses. A few weeks ago when I received a Facebook message from a former teacher at my kids' Montessori school that another former teacher's son had taken his life that morning, this verse came to mind: "Praise be to ... the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
And I knew that because of what I had received, I had something to offer Ms. Kris. And so the next day I got in my car, and I drove a couple of hours to North Carolina, and I walked through her door.