Faith Restored- Part One

You know, the past 19 months have been a very shaky time for me emotionally and physically. The very foundation of my faith was shaken, and shaken violently when my Mom passed away. I will admit here in my blog, that for quite a few months, I wasn't even sure that I believed anymore. I couldn't understand why God would take my Mom, I wasn't ready for her to go, she wasn't ready to go! Her grandchildren (particularly mine since Rich lost his Mom when he was 8) deserved to have a Grandma! I was angry, I was hurting so deeply. I was basically PO'd at the world. I was 34 years old, and I had lost the two most important women in the world to me. My grandmother when I was 17 and now my mother at 34. I sat with her while she died, and it was the most horrible experience in my life. I have never felt as helpless as I did that day, and I have never felt as much guilt as I have since then. Rich and I were the only people present when they took her off the ventilator, and we were the people she had told the night before that she didn't want to die. I felt responsible, and to a point I still do. Confession is good for the soul they say, and since this is my blog, I am confessing.
In my rational mind, I knew that there was no 'life' for her beyond her existence then, intubated, not able to breathe on her own and sedated. I knew that if not for medical intervention, she would have died the night before. But my heart couldn't understand that. My heart didn't want her to go, and probably would have been content if she was just 'there' and not really living.
The aftermath of Mom's death was even harder. I had to leave my Dad, and go back to my real life in New Jersey. The life of being Rich's wife, Matt, Meg and Hannah's mom and a full time employee in the accounting department of my previous employer. I spent every night over a few weeks, crying myself to sleep and feeling so empty and broken.
A month went by, two months. I have more to deal with, my Dad has a new relationship. I don't know how to deal with that, and I still don't even today.
All this time, I am stuffing, stuffing. Putting my pain into boxes in my proverbial closet. I cried for her, but people told me it was time to move on. I know that when we grieve, we truly grieve for ourselves, not for the person who passed. And we do this because we miss them. My pain grew into Anger, so much anger. I wish I would have given myself more time to grieve. There is no set time for it, I understand that now.

One day at work, shortly before Christmas a very sweet Christian lady at work made a comment about this being my Mom's first Christmas in Heaven. And how she would be singing with the angels. I turned around and looked at her, and told her "There is no heaven, there is only death. My mother is just dead!" Where did that come from? This woman was so very sweet to me, and in fact suffered from the same condition that Mom did. She greeted me with hugs nearly every day, and particularly on the days she could tell I was hurting. Perhaps she was an angel, sent from Mom to comfort me, I don't know. All I know is that I didn't want to hear it.

My faith in God has always been a cornerstone in my life. In fact during my younger years, when I so often felt like I was walking through hell, it was my relationship with Jesus that drug me through. Each and every day, I would cry out to Him. I would talk to Him, like a friend, and I really felt as though He was my friend. I had a personal relationship with Him, that it seemed many people around me didn't. Although God didn't always answer my prayers in the time frame that I wanted Him to, He always answered them. Any doubts I had about that, were resolved the day I met my wonderful husband. God has given me such an amazing gift in that man.

Once January of 2007 came along, all of the turmoil and stress I was feeling in my life began to take a toll on my physical health. I was experiencing what I know now are panic attacks, and was misdiagnosed for a year. I had debilitating dizzy spells all during the day, so bad that on one occasion, my supervisor was walking behind me in the hallway at work and he had to catch me so I didn't hit the floor when I grew very faint. By April of 2007, I was waking up at night gasping for breath. I was terrified, I thought I was going to die. I was diagnosed with asthma, viral pneumonia, severe allergies, God knows what else. At one time I was taking 8 prescription drugs each and every day for various allergy/respiratory issues and I was not getting better at all.

I will finish this later this afternoon, have to run some errands.