When Death is Mocked

AJ’s been enjoying heaven for 16 years, today. 

I’ve been grieving for 16 years, today. 

Grief doesn’t disappear. It changes, but doesn’t go away. Just like love remains, grief remains.

The rebel in me didn’t want to write anything today. 

It’d be easier to hide, to escape feeling the all too familiar emotions today brings. But experience has taught me that it’s healthier to dig in to what I’m feeling because I know the path of healing requires feeling - feeling every and any emotion - being present. 

I’m writing today not out of obligation but rather as a protest of freedom. I’m writing so grief won’t win over me. I’m writing out of a declaration of hope - choosing hope and longing to share hope with you. 

Fear is contagious, but so is hope. Today I’m choosing hope for me and for you.

Halloween was the day that took my husband’s life. 

Halloween mocks death. Death is not to be mocked. Death is not funny. Death is real. The darkness is real, it’s powerful and evil. Evil is real.

Those that know me well know that as soon as the month of October hits, the air seems harder to breathe. Part of the struggle comes from the anticipation of the anniversary of the accident, but I’m also coming to understand it’s magnified by seeing death mocked all around me.

I can only imagine that our neighbors that have turned their front yards into graveyards have never known what it’s like to kneel beside a real grave and weep. Because if they have, I can’t imagine they would want to reenact that horror and real pain in their own front yard. 

So why do we do it? Why has it become normal to put skeletons hanging from trees in our yards and coffins on our grass? 

Just because it’s common, does it make it OK? Is it good?

I wonder if as a culture we choose to mock death because we’re actually terrified of it and we don’t want to feel the pain?

Everywhere we look there are ways to numb pain - whether it’s watching TV, scrolling social media, shopping, consuming things, alcohol - the ways to avoid feeling are numerous and pervasive. We don’t want to feel, not the bad things at least. 

I believe in cutting off feeling the depths of our heart, we cut off part of our humanity. We become less alive in the land of the living. When we avoid feeling it makes us less of who we are and who we’re made to be. 

I want you to know life‘s greatest riches which are found both on the mountain tops and in the valleys. 

Go gently today dear ones and know that you are mightily loved. You are loved with a perfect love that casts out all fear. Open your eyes to the realities around you, don’t let life move you, choose to move through your life. 

You have a choice and the choices before you are good. Embrace them. 

Grieve in a healthy way. 

Grieve it all - significant and simple. Make no emotion off-limits because when we start making emotions off-limits we start becoming calloused and we stop truly living. Be OK with feeling, with feeling it all. This is how we heal.

No one can make it through life on their own. 

I am so grateful for your genuine support, care and attentiveness to me through these years. It’s my hope that my words and music help spur you on too - bringing true hope to your heart. This is why I do what I do, it’s an act of love and service for each of you. It’s the best way I can think of paying my gratitude forward for all that you’ve given to me. 

We press on. We press on together, today and everyday.