It Started with the Hat

November is a month I could just do without. Mikael died November 27th. I know there are others out there who also have months they could do without. If there was a way for us to bypass it, we most certainly would!

I was doing some rare house cleaning, putting away summer things I should have dealt with a while ago and getting out warmer jackets. There were numerous baseball caps hanging in the entry way. I mean, how many baseball caps does a person need to have? I gathered them up and brought them to my husband to decide what could be put away. I imagine every wife and/or mother knows this drill; hold up one item at a time and your husband or kids say "keep" or "put away." So I wasn't prepared for the response, "that's Mikael's hat." A stitch in my soul, a breath missed. It was as though he had just left his hat here the other day. Except he didn't.

I hung Mikael's hat with my jacket and continued with my cleaning and reorganizing, pushing my tears away, screwing the lid shut on the grief jar inside me. I'm not sure why I didn't just deal with these feelings right there, in the safety of my home, but I didn't. Because sometimes that's just what we do.

Later, as I was driving to town for a meeting, the lid came off the jar holding the hat. I found myself sobbing, screaming in the car, begging God to just let me talk to my son one more time. Although the car is a pretty safe place for a meltdown, the problem is that it also means that you are about to arrive somewhere. What are the options? I can pull myself together, attend the meeting, fake my way through it and no one will know I was just a sodden mess a few minutes prior. Or, I can turn around and go home and send a message that I can't come, making up some excuse because the truth is too vulnerable. And of course, I can attend the meeting and just let it all out in front of people I don't know all that well. None of these options felt ideal. I chose option one.

This quandary is so common among the grieving. Triggers that happen and options that are far from ideal. Because to tell the complete truth of our emotional state at the time is too vulnerable, feels socially unacceptable and just not on. And retreating to our homes every time we are triggered isn't really viable either. We would build a reputation as completely unreliable. We choose the best we can.

Now, you may ask, "where was God in all this?" He was beside me all day, waiting for me to let my feelings surface. He was sobbing with me in the car on my way to town. He was screaming alongside me. He sat with me in that meeting and helped me keep it together. He was there, just as he has always promised to be.

In the devotional, "Tattered Hearts and Hopeful Souls" I wrote this about God's Goodness: "God has promised never to leave us, and he has kept that promise. He is a friend beyond all friends because he is always there to comfort and guide us. No human being can ever keep the promise of always being there, but God can and does. This is also goodness. If you are walking in a relationship with the Lord, you can know that he is always by your side and that he is there to comfort you at every moment. You can count on this goodness.

...Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you, Hebrews 13:5"

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