Beyond Alright. Someday.

Mama,

A few weeks after you were gone, an acquaintance recognized me in another town in a crowd outside of a concert. They asked, "How are you?" And I plastered on a bright smile and said, "Good!" By the way they instantly frowned at me I knew that they knew and their question had been sincere. Unlike my response. 

So I try to answer honestly or at least with something other than  “good” when people ask how I am now. 

Until more recently, I’d usually say I’m doing “alright.” Occasionally, someone will ask “Just alright?”

Yeah. For now. Just alright.

The day you died flowers flooded in with kind notes of remembrance and I filled your room with ephemeral lilies and evanescent roses and other transient tokens of remembrance.

You loved flowers.

When you had faded and withered and passed away, the vacant space was heavy with the scent of weeping stamens and a dusting of ash-like pollen. It was the brief and final gasp of a stemmed life, and my stomach churned at the smell.

Is this what death smells like?

I couldn’t tell if it was the overpowering, sickly sweet bouquets or if it was actually death… but it made me want to vomit. For a while, I could barely stand being on that end of the house.

This is not what you smelled like, I thought. You smelled like Esteé Lauder, like homemade coconut and almond body butter, your breath smelled like coffee and orange tic tacs most of the time—except when you had really bad breath I would grouse to you about.

Maybe this is what a mental breakdown feels like, I thought, after I tore apart your bedroom in a frenzy looking for the source of the smell and still couldn’t pinpoint its origin.

I ended up laying on that silly giant rug you bought for the living room because you thought I’d like it. I didn’t. I do now, but only because you bought it for me.

And then I screamedandscreamedandscreamedandscreamed until my throat tore and bled and I couldn’t taste or smell anything but the blood in my mouth.

There was silence.

I did not hear you. There was no celestial and comforting word from God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. There was no text or phone call. No concerned knock at the door. Only silence, as I numbly stared around until my eyes settled on your many neglected and wilting houseplants.

It was easy to picture you tending all of those un-fragranced potted perennials, as you did when you were still vibrant and busy as a bee.

I don’t know why that was the thing that picked me up, but it did. So I watered your darling African violets, your resilient peace lily and sensitive orchid—mustering some small hope that somehow maybe they will survive

I join a Facebook group for houseplant lovers. I read caretaker guides and fertilizer directions fastidiously; once a week with water or a cup every day. It reminds me of all those pill bottles and the hospice booklets that sat needlessly on the kitchen counter for months after you were gone and I’m taken back to when I nursed you and not your flowers.

Don’t die... Please don’t die.

So I speak to the silent flowers like I did to you in those last days when you were beyond response because I read somewhere that it helps.

“You look so pretty today.”

“You’re doing a good job.”

“You’re strong.”

I wept again on the day I washed the last of your clothes and when I threw out your remaining memorial flowers. I cried every day for a long time.

On your birthday, when we spread your ashes, I barely cried. Did I even? I don’t remember.

I have a hard time remembering a lot of things these days.

When does my shift start today? Can I leave flowers there? Did I wear this outfit already this week? What was her favorite flower? When is this bill due? Did she ever tell me? Where did I put it? Did I even bother to ask her?

On Mother’s Day I wondered if anyone would know what your absence meant to us.

Would it be worse if someone asked me how I was doing and I burst into tears?

Would it be worse if they said nothing at all?

Definitely saying nothing at all.

Someone counseled me, “People see the favor and blessing on your life, and don’t realize you’re still in the middle of grieving.”

One thing I’ve learned through counseling is the body will sometimes tell when the heart and the head aren’t doing well. Especially if you ignore when they aren’t.

People are always telling me how stable and how faithful I am… I’m really not.

I’m having a hard time without you.

In the spring, the flowers you planted the year before burst unexpectedly out of the soil and my heart shuddered in my chest.

I was diagnosed as having panic attacks by two doctors in the spring. Sleeping is difficult sometimes. I’ve gone three months without a period and then had one that lasted over two weeks. I’ve fantasized about running away more times than I can say.

I try to count my blessings in between the difficult things, keeping a gratitude journal like you did.

I have a sweet German Shepherd to keep me company. I can listen to the music you hated as loud as I want in the mornings. I’m going on an incredible vacation in December! I had to write an opposition to parole letter without your help for the first time but it got me back into the counseling center, which I needed. I’m thankful for encouragement in the body of Christ.  For renewed friendships. For mamas whose hugs last longer than mine. Mamas who bought the ingredients for hot toddies (just like you used to do) when I was sick. Mamas who invited me over for dinner with their families when it was one week until the next payday and I was broke as a joke.

I miss you more than I can say.

But I meant what I said at the last. 

“It’s okay. You can go. We’ll be alright.”

I’ll be alright. Someday I’ll be beyond just alright.

Broke

What is this concept of brokenness?

Is it a posture, a pathway, a process? 

All of the above? 

"When you tell them, you won't cry. You won't shed a tear." This is the thought you stoically rehearsed in September. "It's a testimony, not a tear jerker. You're a victor. Not a victim."

It takes you a long time to say it, because you want your voice to be as steady as possible. You take a lot of breaths in between. When the tears started to come, you looked up at the ceiling so they wouldn't spill over, you only had to wipe your nose just the once. 

Two months later, at the Mourner's Bench, a strong voice demands: "Who told you not to show emotion?!"And the tears come and flow unbidden because you know who told you. You sob uncontrollably all the way home. Distress is clear on their faces and then the obvious, inane questions come: "Are you okay?" or "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." A stupid question deserves that sort of answer, you think. 

When you wake from the night terrors, you don't scream or cry anymore. Your roommate doesn't even stir when you jerk awake, clawing your blankets. No tears, you console yourself, and breathe deep. This time you fought back--

"As the plot thickens, so does the skin." the poet-preacher lilts his homily, "That's your pride, woundedness, secret sin." It's a message about brokenness--illustrated by Mary at the feet of Jesus, unannounced and uninvited, pouring out her costly and precious gift. 

--but somehow the dreams have become more real. You feel that heaviness upon you, even heat sometimes, shifting faces of those trusted and familiar, the stinging betrayal deep in your gut, the give of a knife as you plunge it in.

Yes, there are no tears. But there is still more anger. 

"The only way we keep a soft heart is by not being afraid to be broken." he says. 

Eight months from the beginning, you lay prostrate on your face after service. The sorrow rises from some hollow in your chest, climbs up your throat, presses into your head. Your heart feels it, recognizes it, but... if you can push it down it won't be real. It won't reach your face, won't be known, can be forgotten. 

You always make excuses, rationalize why it's an inconvenient time.

Sometimes it's self-effacing: The storm in your head will disturb the peaceful atmosphere.

Sometimes it's self-conscious: If you start you'll never stop and someone is waiting for you.

Sometimes it's selfish:  It might make you or others feel sheepish if you let that guy know how affirmed you feel by teasing bumps and nudges because it shows he knows you're delicate but not fragile.

This time it's just stilted.

So you start to work it down, swallow it. Maybe later, in the privacy of your room or the car or the bathroom...  

BUT DID MARY HAVE PRIVACY?

So you lay there a while longer--tremble. You remember suddenly the bitter waters of Marah. The Hebrew root in Mary is the same as Marah.

Recall the poet-prophet's words: "...the oil of joy for mourning..."

A memory, a vision; phials, gleaming like jewels and full of liquid light--the knowledge that the essence was once your tears.

A still, small voice: TEARS NOT JUST FOR THE THINGS PASSED AWAY. THE NEW, AS WELL. THE DEATH YOU LIVE RIGHT NOW. 

You wrote: "I'm tired of struggling with things I was initially forced to do..."

So many places you've loosed your grip, opened your hand. But you still obey your old master.

You-know-who told you not to cry.

Bitter waters, bitter tears.

And those are the ones I take to His feet and break like the alabaster jar, inconvenient and unannounced. But it is an oil both fragrant and pleasing, however costly.

It is genuine and pure and now. It is a sob that pierces the lull of a song in a dark room full of people. Weeping your gratitude, however ridiculous. Angry tears at your friend. It is resolution. No longer bitter.

Like the tree in waters of Marah, like the cross in our lives, somehow it makes something unfit into something pure.

One month left to go... And I've only just broken the silence.

Spotify - Broke by Kye Kye

Apple Music - Broke by Kye Kye