White Shoes

Today I saw too many people standing on the side of the road, asking for help. In the three miles I travelled to get to my errand, I saw three people. The one that struck me the most was a woman standing alone with a small sign in front of her that read, "family needs help." She didn't look like she should have been there. She looked clean and decently clothed, and her face was full of worry. You never know what people are going through. How many times have I been walking through the grocery store, probably looking like a "normal" person, but in total agony on the inside? Too many. 

 

In these past 5 years, there were some points where I felt so hopeless I also wanted to end my life. It all gets too much sometimes - still. And then people came to my rescue in some way. I know God orchestrated all of this. There is no way you can tell me any different. Some helped in big ways, like paying bills for me, some just being a friend to me when I really needed one, a job offer, and more. So, today I felt like I really wanted to do something to help.

 

Today is R's Birthday. He helped people without giving it a second thought. Year after year, I try to think of something special to do on his birthday and these grieving anniversaries, but I have been waiting for the right idea to come to me that could start a yearly tradition to celebrate his character. Maybe today I found it. Maybe it'll just be for this year. We'll see if it sticks. 

 

Here is the back story:

One evening we were walking to our car after a movie, in quaint little downtown San Marco. An older man stopped us and asked for money. R surprised me and the man when he pulled out his wallet and said, "I can do better than that! Here ya go," he said as he handed him a gift card to Burger King. R looked at the man's feet, and said, "what's your shoe size?" I was confused. Shoe size?

The man said a "12."

R said, "Come on over here, man." He led him over to the trunk of our car, opened it and handed him a pair of very gently used leather white shoes. The man was so surprised, he tried to turn them down.

"Aww, naw man! I can't take your shoes!"

R insisted- "take them! I don't need them!" He put them in the old mans hands.

He looked at R and grinned and thanked him profusely.

 

I don't have a lot of money to give out, but I figured, a person who is on the side of the road will probably take anything. I've always wanted to make Blessing Bags to keep in my car, but struggled with what to put in them that won't melt during summer... or for that matter, what do they really need at this moment? I don't want to assume that I know what they need. That's when I thought of a gift card. I can keep it in my car for when I run across these poor souls and just hand it to them, with a little word of encouragement. So, I went into Dollar Tree with some money I just made off of selling my son's clothes to a consignment store. I didn't spend all of it, but it was enough to create 4 Blessing cards. One person will get an especially nice message. I bet God has that person picked out already.  

 

I had these cards from the Billy Graham Library, that have been sitting in my purse waiting to be given out. Benji kept grabbing handfuls of them and we came away with a little stack. So, each card contains one of these, too. I planned to hand them all out today, but wouldn't you know it, on my way back home they had all disappeared. So it will have to wait for the next time. For those chosen people. Who are they? What are their circumstances? God knows.

 

Don't ever think that your little bit of kindness isn't worth anything. I have appreciated a sympathetic look in my darkest days. Your kindness could be saving someone's life by letting them know they are worthy to be here.

 

 

Tomorrow Would Be His 41st

I wanted to throw him a big party for his 40th, but he was 38 when he took his life.

I still look back often and can't believe it happened. Just about everyday I ask myself, how did this happen? How did I get here?

 

He was a gifted guitar player, a strong Judo player, loved animals to the point of rescuing wild birds :-)

Was kind, wanted to give back, cared about family, liked to have fun (which I have learned is a very big deal). He was fiercely loyal and I always loved that quality about him. Robert was FUNNY. In a good way, not in a dirty jokes or sarcastic kind of way, but like an intelligent sort of humor- like you hear on NPR during their games shows, or just a simple play on words that makes you feel like a giggly 12 year old. We laughed together many times at the beavis & butthead kind of jokes, mostly because we were laughing at ourselves. :-) Those are the times I miss the most- laughing together. I can hear his laugh so clearly. It was an honest belly laugh. My son has the same kind of laugh when something is REALLY funny, ever since he was a little baby. I feel like we carry that on in our relationship, even if it is different now, that part of it is still the same. I tell those funny, silly jokes to my son now. And then I tell him how Daddy would have thought that was funny.  :-)

 

Today we had a small purple butterfly playing with our puppy that stuck around for quite a while, putting itself into harrowing danger- the jaws and paws of a puppy!! I thought that is one tough damn butterfly and I thought, it's R. He's here trying to play with all of us. You might think that sounds crazy, but look around on the Alliance of Hope forums; plenty of people believe their loved ones come to them for a "visit" in the form of an animal.

 

If you knew R, please take some time tomorrow to say hello and happy birthday to him :-)

My son and I will be honoring him in many different ways.

 

 

Forgiving

Can we forgive ourselves? Is that really possible if you are a Christian? I believe in the Lutheran doctrine which says that God is the only one who can forgive us. R's death was a choice he made, and I know that intellectually. But there is still guilt. And what to feel guilty of if I was not the one to kill him? Lots of things: simply being alive while he is gone, what could I have done to stop him? (answer: nothing), why wasn't I able to save him when I found him? (answer: it was too late), etc...the list goes on and on. Some of these things are logical and some are not. Through all of my reading I have learned that with any kind of death there is guilt. It seems to be a criteria for the grieving process. And so what do I forgive myself of? Or what do I ask God to forgive me of? Whatever I can; for instance, anything I ever did to hurt R, not being able to help in some way, being angry at R, all kinds of things. Anger is one of the biggest issues I have. I get angry for the littlest, stupidest things and it is sometimes intrusive and inconvenient. Example: the other day I was happily walking my son into the YMCA for his swim lesson. It was twilight and a huge firetruck sat in the front entrance with it's lights flashing around. As I walked past the firetruck I was instantly transported back to that horrible evening when R decided to kill himself. When we found him it was twilight, the sky was the same color, it was damn near the same exact time of day, and after I called 911 there was a huge firetruck, ambulance and 2 police cars sitting in my front yard with the soft light of evening in the background. I sat on my front steps praying in a panic and wondering what in the hell to do with  my son at this moment. How to protect him? You cannot. You cannot protect your children from everything in the world. I think I had good instincts in keeping him with me, and explaining to him in very simple language what was happening. And back to my anger: walking past a firetruck is a simple task, right? Normally one  might wonder, what happened here? Is everyone OK? But not me. I think about how we came home and found him hanging there - and proceed to think, You son of a bitch. I can't even walk past a firetruck without thinking of what you did. How could you do that?! How could you do that to your son?! 

However, this truly is a process. And each time I am reminded of his suicide, the cut hurts a little less and a little less and I am able to move past it. Deep wounds do heal. It just takes time and care, like healing from a heart surgery. My chest was opened and worked on, and sewn back up again, but the true healing takes much longer with special care for months and months and maybe even years afterwards.