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| Carrie (#2), Andrew (#3), and Tiffany (#1) with their youngest brother, Christopher. |
from my childhood to grown-up friend Carrie
Ya'll my good friend Carrie, who has written almost one hundred posts for this Blog that you can find here: Tribe Life Tuesdays, lost her brother just a few weeks ago.
May 4, 2019
Night is the worst.
With the night my body feels the heartache, the nausea, and the pit in my stomach that seems unshakeable.
The only momentary relief comes from my ♥️’s posture, my spirit, which says, “Lord, you still get my whole life. I still choose you. I fully trust you. You are thoughtful and kind and loving.” And I settle into that.
The pain, the sickness comes back—and for that there is no cure. No antidote to this nighttime uneasiness.
And the darkness of the night revels in its own mystery... A taunt to my soul.
With the night my body feels the heartache, the nausea, and the pit in my stomach that seems unshakeable.
The only momentary relief comes from my ♥️’s posture, my spirit, which says, “Lord, you still get my whole life. I still choose you. I fully trust you. You are thoughtful and kind and loving.” And I settle into that.
The pain, the sickness comes back—and for that there is no cure. No antidote to this nighttime uneasiness.
And the darkness of the night revels in its own mystery... A taunt to my soul.
May 8, 2019
“By 'coming to terms with life' I mean: the reality of death has become a definite part of my life; my life has, so to speak, been extended by death, by my looking death in the eye and accepting it, by accepting destruction as part of life and no longer wasting my energies on fear of death or the refusal to acknowledge its inevitability. It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich it.”
An excerpt from, An Interrupted Life by Etty Hillesum
May 10, 2019
The kindness of friends astounds me.
There are highlights in every friendship; weddings, birthdays, memorials even. But it’s in the mundane of friendship where Tribe is built. When the campaigns and hashtags dissolve, the instastories disappear and we’re left choosing each other.
In this choice we get to bring all of who we are to the table. Our strengths and our weaknesses. Our pain and vulnerabilities. Our agreements and disagreements. These relationships, in Tribe, are about the value of one another based on who we are, rather than what someone can do for us.
It’s about the call and the cause. Calling each other to worthiness and joining in their cause...better yet helping to carry their cause.
This is a photo of my dining room table where a friend, a tribe mate took up my cause and reminded me of my call.
A note to my mother: “I don’t know what to do or say, nothing helps.... no expression of love from the other children eases the pain—devastation—sorrow of the one gone.
Friends of mine, who have walked a similar journey of sorrow, recently told me that “firsts” are the hardest. This is your first Mother’s Day without Chris...and I’m sorry.
I’m praying for proportional joy for you today. Proportional to the pain. Not the happy face, smiley joy. The settled, Son-soaked, stabilizing joy. The ease of soul joy.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.
Carrie
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