Mixed Emotions

Ecc. 7:3 Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.

Yesterday was not a good day, not a good day at all. It would be the day of my dad’s funeral. The day that family all gathered ‘round sharing tears, memories and love. There would be brothers and a sister, aunts, nieces and nephews, maybe cousins who I haven’t seen in ages all gathering to show their love for my father. There would be something missing from the family gathering…namely me. A series of mixed emotions would encompass my entire day.

Steven was very sick yesterday. Well, seriously he’s been sick for two weeks, first with a nasal infection but it seemed to have cleared up but by Monday something was running amok in his chest. He has asthma and breathing had become very tiring for him and by yesterday when I woke he announced, “I have to go to the doctor!” I scurried to get dressed in record time and we were at the doctor by 9:30.

I had first called my mother to make sure she was okay on what would be the hardest day of her life, putting her husband of sixty years to rest. I tried to keep it together but by the time we returned home from the doctor, I was once again on the phone to my mother seeing to it that she was going to be okay. She assured me that she would be, she had loving family surrounding her and she’d be okay.

After the phone call I broke down sobbing like a child who lost her puppy. I run the gamut of emotions from sadness, anger, guilt, shame, hate, love, sorrow, grief, concern despair and sympathy. No wonder the tears flowed by the bucketful.

At three o’clock (four o’clock eastern time), the time the funeral was to begin, I lit a candle for my dad, placed my little angels around the emanating light and sat a picture of my mother and father there and then I mourned. I was once again crying like a fire hydrant at full throttle. I was feeling all the pain that my family was enduring rush over me, as I looked at memorial pictures of my dad at the funeral parlor’s website.

Why am I not there? Why am I not grieving with my family? Why did nobody see to it that I was able to make the trip? I threw a pity party for myself and it felt okay, it felt like the right thing to do alone out in the middle of nowhere. The answers would come one day, but right now I just wanted to be alone to cry, to let the floodgates open and mourn.

Last night for some reason I wanted to watch It’s A Wonderful Life. I wanted to see Clarence, I wanted to see George, I wanted to see family and friends rally around him to make sure his Christmas would be a memorable one that made his life worth living. I wanted to see Clarence get his wings and leave George the message from beyond, “No man is a failure who has friends.”

It's a Wonderful Life

If it were not for my friends rallying around me to offer me comfort and support, the death of my father would be unbearable. I received a condolence card from a dear friend whom I’ve never met in person, yet she reached out, took her time out of her day to think of ME! Nothing touched me more than that moment of knowing, someone out there, cared for ME. My spiritual friends have been a welcome comfort where my blood family cast me aside and sent me out to sea.

After the movie ended I once again placed a call to my mother, not thinking she’d be home yet, so I’d leave a message reminding her to take her medicine. To my surprise she answered the phone and said she had just walked in the door. She went on to tell me how it was good seeing my father with no tubes in his nose, no mask on his face and not being hooked to wires. She felt a peaceful feeling knowing that she had family surrounding her during one of her darkest days. As we parted words I would go to bed in a sea of mixed emotions.

"Each man's life touches so many other lives, and when he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?" says the angel Clarence to George Bailey.