Butterfly Chronicles Volume 58: Grace Clings

Some days butterflies aren't enough. 

Some days faith is faithless.

Some days I don't want sunshine.

Grace clings like a spider web, stubborn.

My dreams are bad.

I demand a wake up, a redo, an undo, a rewind to sense that makes sense and has an ending I can understand.

A child should not die.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 57: Heart Holes and Hugs

                        The Lord is close to the brokenhearted 

 and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

It gets more difficult to write this blog as each day rolls by. Living in a world I can barely survive, I feel indulgent when talking about the pain as if the world needs to hear any more about it; I mean just look around.  How does it all get fixed? 

I already know the answer, but it is a heavy burden on a broken heart to see so much sad and bad and hate and too late in the world.

On October 10, I posted on Zach's FB wall and wrote I wish I could hug you.

The next night, I dreamed.  And there was my Zach.  Waiting for his hug. Not an I'm 13 so I'm wriggling out of it before it starts kind of hug.  No, this was a hug where he hugged me back as hard as I hugged him forward.

Then he hugged me again. Warm and full and arms wrapped all around me.

He smiled, kept smiling.  His smile like sun fingers caressing the cracks in my broken heart.

Today, lots of days, but not all days, I can't stop crying.

I never knew how big my heart was until his piece went missing. The hole is so big.

This isn't the way it is supposed to be.

I wish I could hug you, Zach.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 56: Root of Bitterness

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, 

be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, 

tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Frame of reference.  We all have one, but what is it?  We waltz, or trudge, or skip, or skid through life absorbing the sights, sounds, best and worst that life has to offer. Upon a metaphorical peg board we hang information, grouping ideas and experiences together to enrich and enlarge our view and understanding of the world around us. Tick tock tick tock the clock twirls the seconds by and our perspectives, perceptions, and preferences mold and morph into new or altered or changed ideas, and we mush and mash this all together and add it to our peg board.

What is your experience?  How do you view life?  Upon what do you base the meaning of your existence?

Unlike most people, from our peg board hangs the suicide of our son.  An experience I am thankful does not hang for most people.

But how do other people on another peg board deal with a suicide?  We've heard things like, "Why are you still sad?"  If you know me (and I mean know the real me and not the "all the world's a stage" with a mask on me), you know it is highly likely that my one and only desire when those words tumble into daylight is to sucker punch the person, kick him when he is down, and then walk away nursing the bruise on my fist with a gritty, pissed smile on my face.

Did I really just write that down?  Yup.  But, the thing is, I know what I believe, and I know why I believe it, and I know those horrendous, angry, bitter, aggressive thoughts aren't who I want to be although I truly could be all that. Choice. Those things aren't what and who God wants me to be.  So much life is being learned on this nightmare ride we're strapped into.  To be saved from the darkness, we have to let go of the desire to punch the crap out of that person who has a peg board filled with daisies and moonbeams, and pimples and shaving rash bumps as the most traumatic islands in their lives.  I should be happy for them, knowing they are ignorant of a suicide kind of pain.

Get rid of the bitterness. Get rid of the wrath. Get rid of the anger, and clamor, and evil speaking.  Get rid of the malice.  A haggard picture these paint.  Let them go.

It is hard to turn toward the light.  It is hard to put on a smile.  It would be so easy just to give up.  But really, what would the point of that be.  I don't want people to ever say, "Well, it was just a matter of time.  We knew she'd be a drunk, or a pill popper, or as wrinkled and shriveled as a prune because bitterness ate her life.  We knew it was just a matter of time."

Nope.  Not for me.  I have to remember that some words shouldn't come to the light.  Some words should be swallowed hard, pushing them down, eating the bile, slamming the lips tight against the dark spew that could so easily come and has, and I'm not gonna hit anyone.  Stop it.  Swallow it.  Silence it.  Marshie said don't be bitter.  Okay, Marshie, I'm wearing my big girl panties and working it out.

Just to keep it in writing - not a day has gone by.  Not one single day has gone by without butterflies.  Not a single day.