For almost four weeks now, I have been trying to formulate this post. The rain started falling. I tried to wait it out. But the clouds just got darker and here I sit, a sopping mess.
The hardest part, is that from almost every perspective, the sun should be shining on my life. My blessings are too numerable to even try to count. Things, for the most part, are really good. Yet the clouds still came.
It started several weeks ago with some issues that temporally seemed like a huge ordeal (though are fairly insignificant from a broader perspective). I allowed myself to feel hurt, very hurt, by the actions of some of the people that I care the most about (it still hurts) and that should care the most about me. I felt the darkness creep in and the hurt turned to anger. I was HURT and I WAS ANGRY, in a way that I have probably never really experienced. As the events unfolded, the anger deepened and even when I started to realize that the the source of my anger was really being fueled by the adversary, I continued to allow it to consume me. I didn't want to let it go. And the clouds started to roll in.
In the midst of that, I was following the heart wrenching journey of a friend from high school and his beautiful little family. This amazing soul had always been someone whom I have admired and looked up to. We were frequently in the same social circle, extra curricular activities, and even partnered in a school sport.
He was diagnosed with a brain tumor our senior year of high school, forcing him to relearn multiple skills, including how to walk, and I will never forget the hundreds of tears that slid down our faces (the graduating class of 2002), as he stood from his wheel chair and walked across the stage to accept him diploma.
We both attended Utah State following graduation and we occasionally found ourselves in the same groups. I was always in awe of his determination, his strength, and his confidence. He knew that he could do anything he set his mind to, and he did.
I lost track of him for several years until his sweet wife friended me on facebook. From there, I learned that the cancer had returned in 2007 but that he had beaten it again and had been cancer free ever since.
I remember reading the heartbreaking post last year that the cancer had returned and that it seemed to be far more aggressive. I knew that He would choose a plan of attack just as aggressively. I hoped. I prayed. I pondered. I feared. I reflected. I followed his sweet wife's posts and found joy in the good news, and heartache in the bad.
Then came the news, just as my clouds were closing in and the rain began to fall, his tumor was no longer responding to Chemo and they were starting radiation. My heart broke for his wife. I looked at their tiny children and then into the eyes of my own. I cried. I couldn't help but notice the similarities in out little families and felt guilt and gratitude and heartbreak and fear and a million other emotions. All of the sudden it wasn't just someone else. It was someone I had know and cared about. It could have just as easily been us. I watched the grace and strength of his beautiful wife and my soul yearned to do something, anything, to help, but I didn't even know where to begin.
The last weekend in January, they decided to have an open house birthday party for this incredible man, husband, and father. All were welcome. I felt an overwhelming prompting that I needed to go. I tried not to think to much about it but somehow knew that it was something I should do. I wavered back and forth. The entire 2 hour drive I thought about how fragile life is. How cold and scary and dark and unfair this life can be. How it is supposed to be that way. And about how much our Father in Heaven loves us and how much pain he must suffer watching his children suffer. I almost turned around a million times, questioning if I should have come even when I pulled up to the house. Would they wonder why I had shown up after nearly 10 years? Was I crazy to have come when they probably had a million other close friends who had been far better friends than I had ever been to them? As questions and doubt raced through my head, a calm, quiet thought entered my head. None of that mattered, all that mattered was that they knew that they were loved and cared about, by more than just those they see everyday. That people really do love and care about people, despite time or distance or the tumult of the world. I wanted them to know that they mattered to me. That his life and influence has mattered to me.
I will never regret, for one moment, walking into their home, giving his wife a real hug instead of a "facebook" one, looking into his eyes and telling him that I was grateful for his friendship and his kindness to me. It was a beautiful, emotional, hard day. One that I will always be grateful for. In a way it changed me, it has brought a sense of mortality to my perception that I hadn't allowed in before and in some ways, it allowed the rain to keep falling. I continue to to think of them and pray for them and hope for them, everyday.
Then came news that both of my Grandmothers were struggling and would likely need to be moved to higher level care situations. As days passed, my Mom's mother seemed to be rapidly declining and there was fear that her time may be coming to an end. The ache in my heart had become a throbbing as I tried to keep being strong.
The ache deepened even more when a week ago I found out that one of my dearest friends was facing what would likely be one of the most difficult and painful situations she will ever face.
And the rain fell.
Between all of my emotion and the added stress that my sweet hubby has been under with work and his weight loss challenge, my two favorite little people began acting out. Sadly, monster mom came out to handle the situation leaving me swimming in the gigantic puddle of guilt I had created. I have felt like an awful mother, completely under qualified to take care of these two amazing spirits. To say the least, my self confidence was shattered.
So here I sit. In the midst of a storm. A storm I never saw coming. A storm that refuses to rage, but instead is content to just drizzle without end.
A sopping mess.
I am able to see the blessings. I'm humbled and grateful for them in every situation. I know that the dreary clouds will part eventually and that even though the clouds weren't on my radar, if I'm strong enough, and brave enough, and patient enough, the sunny spot that was supposed to be mine, may help break through some of the other clouds.
Sometimes, when it rains, it pours. . . .and sometimes it just rains.
