Questions

Tonight I drove to the cemetery after work.  Scott’s death still seems so unreal and like the worst nightmare.  I wonder when or if it ever feels real.  Kneeling by Scott’s grave, tracing his name on the stone with my finger, I was angry – angry that he had to die so young, angry that there was no chance to say goodbye, angry that Jaelyn’s father is gone.   When does it become real?  When do I fit the identity of widow?  I still feel and consider myself married.  When does that transition in thought begin to take place? 

Grief takes so many different shapes and forms.  Every day it feels like I am in a different place.   I am finding that grief is a place of many questions and few answers – and honestly having the answers to those many questions would not take the pain of loss away.  So I wonder at times what good the answers would do and if the answers won’t do any good, then why ask the questions. 

There are questions that I need to ask – how is Jaelyn working through this?  Is she grieving in a healthy manner or should I be concerned?  Is there anything I can do to help her or are there things I should be doing differently?  Am I allowing her to see enough or too much of my grief?  And these are questions that I need the answer to, but there aren’t really concrete answers to most of these questions.  I pray that God will guide me and give me the wisdom when and if I need it with all of these questions.  That trust in God’s guidance is the only thing giving me peace in this process.

Then there are questions to which there are no answers right now and may never have answers.  Why Scott and why so young?  What good can come out of someone dying so young?  Why Scott’s family on top of his mom’s stroke?  Why weren’t there signs of this problem ahead of time and if there were signs why didn’t anyone see them? 

 Then there are the regret questions.  Why didn’t I do a better job of making sure Scott knew how much he meant to me?  Why didn’t I do a better job of encouraging Scott to follow his dreams?  Why didn’t I put aside my “need to do” list more often to spend time with him when he asked me? 

I try not to spend too much time dwelling on the questions as it tends to make me angry that there are no answers or no good answers.  This is a waste of my energy.  I try to focus on the positives in Scott’s life and what I want to learn from his life.  I try to focus on God’s plan in all of this.  If I didn’t believe that God had a plan in this, I’m not sure that I could keep myself going sometimes.  I hope that I am able to see some positives come out of this tragedy.