Grief

In my community we recently had a tragedy. During a community activity, a small plane accident took the lives of two people. One of the men was the brother to my daughter’s best friend. The situation reminded me of something that happened when I was a teen.

During a combined church activity one of the leaders was killed while snow tubing. I don’t remember much of the events, but I do remember a lot of tears and when we were being ushered out of the mountains we had to pass the site. The snow was stained red. The other leaders tried to shield us from it but the red couldn’t be hidden.

My hope for this accident is that everyone at the scene is found and talked to. They always tell everyone that a grief counselor is available but not everyone looks for help. Some sit on the side lines trying to hide in the background while drowning in their grief.

In my situation, I was new to town. Not everyone had accepted me yet and I didn’t feel like I belonged yet. The young woman’s leader that had died was the mother of a guy in my class but I didn’t know her well.

For some reason, I took the death pretty hard. Most likely because it was the first time I had been near it. I walked around in a fog. I didn’t know how to process the events and it wore on me. No one came to talk to me. I wasn’t connected closely to the family. There was no reason for me to be sad. But I was.

A few days later, I had a very vivid dream. To this day, I haven’t forgotten -

I was in my church, in the gym. There are rows of chairs facing the stage and I’m walking down the isle separating the chairs in two. The entire room was dark but the stage was lit up. I look around the room at the different people sitting. Most were kids from my ward and their families.

As I get closer to the front I spot my classmate sitting with his family staring at the stage. They all held each other and cried. I stood to the side of them, trying to come up with something comforting to say. As always, I come up short and stand awkwardly.

“How would you rather have me die?”

 

I turned towards the voice and saw the woman that had died laying on the stage in a beautiful white dress. She appeared to glow from the spot light that I don’t know where the source was. I start to cry. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because you’re here. You were taken from your family.” I look back at my classmate and locked eyes with him. My heart broke for him and I turned back to his mom.

“How would you have rather had me die?”

I was baffled why she would ask or even care what I thought. “You wouldn’t be dead.” I stared into her non blinking eyes.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Any other way.”

“But how?”

“Fine, you would have died in a peaceful manner. Maybe in your sleep, I don’t know.”

“Thanks.” She went silent but I knew she wasn’t done. “I want you to know, I’m fine. I’m at peace. You don’t need to be sad for me."

I sit up in bed and use my blanket to mop the tears I’d spilled while sleeping. I’ve had many vivid dreams in my life and this is one that shook me to my bones. I got out of bed and went into the bathroom on shaky legs and splashed some water on my face hoping to wash the sadness away.

Even though I wasn’t connected closely to her, I was deeply affected by the experience. Luckily for me I had a supportive family. My mom found me in the bathroom where I was crying. I was able to talk to her and work through it.

Bad Day

You know those days that you just can’t get out of a funk? That was me just a couple of days ago.

It’s as normal as any other day. I get up and get ready for work. School’s out and my mornings are easier. I don’t have to get the kids up, ready and out the door. This morning was as simple as any other but there’s a dark cloud hanging over me.

I drive to work, park and go inside. Nothing out of the ordinary, a beautiful morning. I love the cool mountain air and normally revel in it. But all morning I’ve got negative thoughts going through my head and can’t shake them.

It was weird to have such a dark feeling surrounding me. I try to be a positive light for everyone. Try to get my friends and family to see the ‘silver lining’. At times I think they rather have me go away, let them wallow but eventually I get them to smile.

But that day I just couldn’t bring myself to see anything good or funny. I smiled and was nice to everyone that came in but I was exhausted from the effort.

Finally! Lunch comes. My oldest comes into the bank where I work as I’m leaving, I say hi and goodbye and head out the door to get into my van and head home for lunch. I jump in, put the key in the ignition and turn it.

It turned over and the van shook. And there’s a bad sound, it wasn’t just an odd, oh I need to get an oil change kind of sound. I turn it off and hoped my baby was just having a bad day like me.

I turn the key again and groan as the van shudders as it idles rough. It made a sickly clicking sound. It sounded like a bomb preparing to go off. I turn it off again and slid out the door. It was the worst sound I’ve heard my poor van make and it saddened my heart.

I make my way over to my daughter’s vehicle, thankfully she was still there. She agreed to give me a ride. Thank heavens for that. Even then I realized she had incredible timing.

Before I go back to work, I ask my girls to tell their dad, my husband, to come look at the van when he got off of work.

Back at work the cloud over my head still hung there, taunting me with it darkness. I tried to lighten up my mood but it wouldn’t. I knew it was there and no matter what I did it wouldn’t lighten. I waited for my husband to come to look at the van and express my concerns to my co-workers. I think they were starting to think I was losing it a little.

After a while I went to my supervisor and ask if I could have the next day off. It would be slow and I was thinking I just needed to take a day. If my van needed to go into the shop I would need the time off to get it there.

At the end of the day, my husband comes and gets the keys from me. I watch him through the window and pray my van is just being fickle. I agonize over what he will tell me for the last twenty minutes of the day but he doesn't come back into the building. Not a good sign.

My husband breaks the news after I get into his car. My van... *sniff* ...has bit the dust.

I never thought I'd become so attached to a vehicle. I wanted to go home, crawl into a dark corner and cry. I'm not sure if the devastation came from my actually loss or the realization that now I would have make an expensive purchase again. We'd just gotten a new car for my husband.

My worries were short lived. My wonderful, sweet, and awesome husband jumped into action and two days later I have a new used vehicle in my driveway. I've down sized from my van to a four door car. I have to admit, I like it.

That whole experience was sad but what throws me the most is that I felt like I knew doom was pending before it all came crashing down. But this also taught me that no matter what happens, there is always a silver lining to be found, even for me.