It's been a long day...

I drafted this post more than three months ago, and didn't publish it. I didn't want my first post in a long time to be such a downer, but it is what it is, right? I want to be real. I'm backdating so it makes sense, but really publishing this is July.

Rosi Golan (if you don't know who she is, look her up on iTunes - she is awesome) has this song called "Been a Long Day". It's a beautiful song, and it's been on my mind for the past ten months or so. My favorite line is "It's been a long day / And I just want to hide away" - that's pretty much how I feel.

This has been a very rough year. Well, ten months so far. Lord, help me for the next two.

It began (sort of) in May, with a diagnosis that surprised me, yet was expected, rocked me, yet was a strange sort of relief. I have been drafting a post in my head since this summer about it. I'll eventually write it down, but I am not quite ready yet. I'm still rocking a bit too hard with it. (I promise, there is no need to worry, it's not that big a deal - it just rocked me.) I took a short leave of absence from work, and when I returned, part time, with a treatment plan in place, I thought the rocky part was over.

Then this happened in late July. And my whole community - the whole world, it seemed - heaved and moaned with grief. I'll never in my life forget standing in line with my friend to check out at Vineyard Vines, a size 6 blazer, a size 6 white shirt, and size 6 khaki pants in our hands, holding each other and sobbing, while the world spun out of control around us. It is still a very raw, tender, difficult part of my heart to touch (and all of our hearts, I'm sure). Eight months later, and I still just can't believe I will never see his sweet face again, his beautiful brown eyes so full of life and mischief.

I was so happy to say goodbye to 2013.

And then, in the last few months, I've seen two teenagers I know and love with my whole heart face situations no one their age (or, really, any age) should have to face, and I have shouldered the grief for the loss of a piece of their innocence and the anger that resulted, directed toward the adults in their lives who should have known better, who should have never put them in a position to face it.

Then, a few weeks ago, on a Sunday evening, Bryan got a call from his brother R that one of his other brothers (he has three, all of whom are older than him), S, was very very sick. S had been battling colon cancer for two years, and they were sending him home with hospice care. Nobody had any idea how long he might last. Bryan hadn't been back to visit in almost exactly three years.  He and I were able to fly back home to visit on Tuesday, hold his hand, and let him know we love him. He was able to communicate in spurts of lucidity, and he knew Bryan was there. He also knew he was dying. Bryan held him and prayed and they both cried and I couldn't even watch. We put together puzzles with others holding vigil, delivered meals, bought groceries, clung to each other, talked through arrangements, and sat in silent disbelief that this 43-year-old man, with a wife and two children, was, very certainly, very near death. We came home with heavy hearts on Friday, and then the next Wednesday we got The Call. S had died overnight.

The whole family flew home this time. Bryan was chaperoning a trip to DC, so we picked him up there on our layover, where our wonderful friend (Auntie) Megan was keeping him sane. We stayed for a week with R, and spent almost all of our time with Bryan's family. We visited S at the funeral home with Bryan's brothers (R and M, both of whom are older than S) and their wives, their mother, and S's wife and children. S, who was in the construction industry his whole life, was buried in a t-shirt and jeans, with a crowbar in his hands. The funeral was difficult - it's so impossible to understand why a man so young, with so much yet to offer, had to die. And to waste away like he did... it was just brutal. And now his sixteen year old daughter has no father to walk her down the aisle, his thirteen year old son has no father to teach him to shave. Two more teenagers I love in pain they shouldn't have to face.

Bryan's mother, another woman (ironically, with the same first name as Grant's mother) burying her son far before his time, was so broken she could barely stand at the burial, and Bryan, R, and M literally held her up. It was such a picture of his family. They are all boys, but they are very close, and they take care of each other and their mother so well (especially M, R, and S, who all live very near each other and their mother). Every need is a family need, every loss is a family loss. They hold each other up. There was absolutely no question and no discussion about the fact that all of us would pitch in to help with the arrangements, the cost of things (S unfortunately had no life insurance), the daily living. In some ways, despite the incredible weight of the grief, it was a beautiful picture.

My dear hope is that some day there will be beauty out of these events. I am not naive enough to think it will outweigh the grief, the sense of loss, the anger, the frustration, the brokenness; I just want a thumb on the other side of the scale.

But right now?

It's been a long day.

I just pray it doesn't get any worse.