A Lament

 How do I tell you how guilty I feel moving on with my life? How I want to keep writing you letters...about everything and nothing. About how I swept and mopped today. About how I see pictures of you from this time last year and all I can think is...were you already fighting it? 

I see the sinister trendils of cancer weaving themselves into my memories. Because for a year, that was all any of us could think about. 

Will you be here next year? How long will you make it? 

And you’re not. You didn’t make it. 

I read stories of people who survived Glioblastoma for years and years. And the sharp edges of my soul wonder why God didn’t hear our prayers. 

See I can say that and still have Faith. Still believe. Still know in my heart that Gods will is His and His ways are above my own. And His Will...was that pain and sickness and cancer and loss were never supposed to be part of our lives. The farther we get from what He wanted the more our souls know, truly know, we don’t belong here. 

People quote “O Death, where is thy sting” without stopping to allow themselves the chance to hurt. Grief is not bad. Pouring my soul out to God, asking Him why the hell He chose *my* Dad is not wrong. Crying over pictures is not wrong. Laughing about the gawd awful songs my Dad used to make up is not wrong. 

I can love God. And know where my Dads soul is. 

And still hate every single day I’ve spent without Him. 

It is a Lament. A keening of the soul. A longing for the past when I could call up my Dad or send him a trillion texts or hear him ask me to bring the kids over on a Sunday afternoon. 

Nothing about my life is the same as it was last year. We have bounced around and lived out of suitcases and struggled and cried. I have wept, bitterly, asking God, please, please...just let Daddy be the miracle. 

Not everyone gets a miracle. 

And I miss my Dad. 

And I am mad. 

I find myself yelling more than I mean to. Day dreaming. Getting lost in thought. I never feel like I’m on top of things. I always feel a step behind. And I want life to slow down. 

I am annoyed with people talking about ICU Christmas. I HAD an ICU Christmas. The hallways were bare expect for the people who had to be there. I walked those hallways with my six month old who had ear infections waiting to hear if my Dad was going to come out of surgery. I held his hand. We all did. We ate subway and prayed and cried and paced. 

And I didn’t go back when he got out of surgery. And maybe one day I’ll be able to let that go. Or maybe it will never leave me, maybe it will haunt me, like watching Dean be life flighted haunts me. 

I just want to call him. 

And all of my soul feels like a lament. 

I know Gods goodness. I know His heart for us. I know He rescued us. 

And I know, that right now, it’s not about those things and it doesn’t have to be. It can be about the pain and the hurt. For a season it can be about the mourning. 

It’s a season of Lament and Mourning. 

And it is beautiful in its rawness. 

It is mine.