How Are You...Really?

I hear the care and concern in people’s voices when they ask how we are doing.  It is genuine. And I answer, “we’re doing okay.” And we are doing okay, for the most part. In some ways, I feel as though we should be ready to move on, and yet it is not really possible, not yet.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Back-to-School Night. It was something I had always done by myself so I didn’t think too much about it ahead of time. By the end of the evening, I felt raw. I had not prepared myself for all the caring, compassionate encounters with parents who hadn’t really seen me since Jeff’s death. In those moments passing in the halls, or sitting in classrooms, they conveyed their condolences. I received them, hopefully graciously.

In some ways, nothing has changed--I still do the shopping, planning, supervising of homework--but in reality everything has changed. There is a hole here in the fabric of our lives, and sometimes it is just too much to conceive. We’ve been rearranging lots of things in the house, in our lives. That’s kept me busy, and yet it can’t really assuage the feeling of absence, of loss.

So how are we…really? We’re doing okay, as well as can be expected, but even if we don’t say it, not even to ourselves, we are still staring into this gaping hole that we don’t really know what to do with. There will likely come a time when we find healing. Right now, the edges are still so raw that, as much as we would like to pretend that everything’s fine, we can’t ignore them. Even as we engage in the normal things we have to do everyday, there is always a nagging pull. And right now, that’s how it must be.

Psalm 13:1-2a

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?