Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and for the first time in my life, I don't feel like giving thanks.
I know that sounds awful, and I know I have a lot to be thankful for, but I just...can't do it. I don't feel blessed. I feel cheated. Thanksgiving is supposed to be about sharing blessings with your family...sitting down around a table and laughing.
Your grandmother is supposed to be there to tell you how beautiful you look, and to scold you for not having a boyfriend yet.
Your grandfather is supposed to be there to lead the prayer of thanks for the meal, and to talk politics with you, and try to convince you to go to school at UTPB, so he can see you every day.
And you're supposed to laugh and tell him you're perfectly happy ten hours away, and yes, you voted for Obama, "Thank you very much."
You're not supposed to cry. You're not supposed to have a whole in your heart the size of Canada. You're not supposed to feel sorrow and regret. You're not supposed to feel like your family isn't really your family anymore, because they're all trying to act like everything's normal when IT IS NOT NORMAL.
You're not supposed to pray that the last five months have just been a terrible nightmare, that you'll wake up and it'll be June 21st again, you'll still have a MawMaw and a Grandad who love you and spoil you and make you see everything good in the world.
You're supposed to be happy, right? Thankful.
I should be thankful. I have a wonderful mother, a loving (if at times crazy) father, a brother, sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, my Nana, and even a beautiful new niece.
How can losing two people change everything so much??
Instead of thanking God for what I still have, I'm angry with him for what he took from me. Who he took from me. He must think I'm the most selfish person on the face of the planet.
The funny thing about grief is, you think you're over it. You go throughout your life, living day by day, and you think you're finally doing okay. And then you hear a song on the radio or you see a television show or you hear windchimes and every single ounce of the sorrow you thought was gone comes crashing back into your heart.
You'd think I'd die of dehydration, with all the water that's leaked out of my eyes these past few months.
I'm rambling, I know. But I can't talk about it, so I write about it. Nobody has to read my diary...but it's public anyway.
Anyway, the point is, tomorrow will not be Thanksgiving for me. I'll probably pretend, and put a smile on my face and talk about school and tell everyone that I'm perfectly fine being single ("No, I don't think I'll try eHarmony just yet. Thanks, though."), and give everyone hugs and laugh at their bad jokes. Lord knows I'll stuff my face. But it won't be Thanksgiving.
I don't know if I'll ever have a Thanksgiving again.
Maybe, Lord, you could ease the pain in my heart just a little? Maybe you could change something for me, to let me see that you are good and sovereign and that somehow...somehow...everything is going to be okay?
Life has to go on. And it has. But I wish it could go on........happily.
I know that at times, it certainly is hard to be thankful. You've gone through some tough times, and sometimes the good things that happen seem so insignificant in comparison to the great loss you've suffered. It's true that grief may never truly go away, but it shouldn't be allowed to overrule all of the other beautiful things that are happening or can happen. You need to hope in good things coming, have the courage to dream and the wisdom to do so rationally. Thanksgiving is a time of thanks for things we have, yes, but it can also be a time to be thankful of what we had, and what opportunities lie ahead of us. Be thankful for all the wonderful times you've had and the time you have. I know that I'm personally thankful to have a friend like you in my life. We are both emotionally driven people, and can tend to take one emotion and get completely lost in it until we see no way out. Be it sorrow, happiness, anger, or love; but any of those things, when they are all you see can seem like too much to handle. You've helped me through some pretty tough times of my own, and I love you for it. I just want you to know that I'm also there for you when you need to talk about anything, or even if you just need a friendly pat on the back to get you through a rough day. I know this may not be any sort of magical life-changing comment that will immediately help you recover from what you've been going through, I just wanted to leave a friendly reminder that I am here for you. Just one text away.
ReplyDeleteSo picture this: me sitting with you quietly not saying anything. Knowing that it's okay to hurt sometimes. Knowing that I dearly love you and nothing will ever change that.
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