Grief is a strange thing …

I am in a VERY odd place physically right now–having been up since 6AM Wednesday morning in Hawaii; being up right now at 10:15PM Thursday in Montana and about to leave for the airport to pick up our new Golden Retriever puppy, Lilikoi (“Lilly”); and having to wake up at 4:30AM (tomorrow? my body wonders what DAY IT IS!!??!!) to take my parents to the airport to head home.

Seriously.
I set three alarms: one for 10:00PM (get the puppy); one for 4:30AM (take parents to airpot); and one for 7:30AM (must get Fred to a meeting!).
Weird.

ANYWAY … I’ve been thinking a lot in my sleepless state about how strange grief is.
Or maybe–how strange I AM, particularly in regards to grief.

For instance … why did I FREAK OUT SO MUCH when my sweet Golden Retriever, Choza, died last December?

But then NOT completely and utterly fall apart when we lost the baby last week? (Only ten days ago! I can’t believe it.)

Do I care more about a DOG?
Is a dog more important than a covenant child with a SOUL?
OF COURSE NOT!

So what’s going on?
I don’t know, of course. Not really. Not 100%.

But I’ve been thinking about how our grief concerning our lost child is a grief that has to do with POTENTIAL joy and POTENTIAL sorrow. (I.e., we never saw him or her; death came even before the first ultrasound or heartbeat.)

But with Choza, I had experienced true companionship and happiness and “real” (tangible) evidences of God’s grace to me during this life day after day after day for YEARS. And that was a loss.

Plus–I FELT SUCH GUILT OVER CHOZA’S DEATH! Truly. I blamed myself for not keeping her safe. I’m crying now, in fact, even just thinking about it.

But with the baby? Even I–Tara–SO PRONE to self-condemnation!–can’t come up with a way to blame myself for the miscarriage of this (precious! loved!) child. I was sitting there and then I started hemorrhaging and then the baby was gone. Almost immediately. As soon as it started it was over. I couldn’t stop it or affect any more than I could stop the sun from rising or affect the rotation of the earth.

So I think a lot of my freaking out with Choza was not so much grief and it was GUILT. And I had to ask for God’s forgiveness and then trust in His forgiveness–not just for my sins, but His grace to cover my mistakes and inadequacies and humanness too.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about grief is how, sometimes, it seems like the “BIG STUFF” almost has a–not less, but different–effect than the smaller losses in day to day life.

Like God’s grace just POURS OUT in such a HUGE and TANGIBLE way right when we need it … that we are carried.
But at other times, He gives us grace as we kick a bit in the pool to keep our heads above water.

‘Course, the realities of life and not having any TIME to sit and have a good cry also come in at times too, eh?

WELL … if any of this is making ANY sense … I wanted to let you all know about an opportunity to help someone who is in a HUGE, OVERWHELMINGLY DIFFICULT, grievous situation. She is a young mom with young children (one of whom has special needs) and she was recently diagnosed with cancer. And she could use our help.

(It’s not a scam. Really. I’m the most skeptical human on the earth. Trust me. Check it out. And consider giving too. We did–and again, no “help my husband in Nairobi and get rich” email scam here. This the real thing.)

You’ll be glad you did.

Gotta go get Lili now.
Pics coming soon! Of course. 🙂

Love ya,
Tara B.