Lori's Rambling

This week as we made the painful decision to say goodbye to Shadow I have been reflecting on saying goodbye to Scott.  I realize that the situations are vastly different, but both have the universality of death.  I think Scott’s death has shaped the decisions that we have made with Shadow.  One major difference is that with Scott’s death we had no warning and with Shadow’s death it was an uncertain time frame due to the uncertain speed of the tumor.  I talked with my mom about the stress of an impending death with the uncertainty of time frame.  It left us in a constant feeling of being suspended, waiting and watching for the end.  That uncertainty took its toll, at times just wishing for it to be over, yet in the next breath feeling guilty for wishing Shadow was gone.  So many of our memories of Shadow and Scott are tied up together, so losing Shadow was like losing a chunk of Scott’s heart — he loved Shadow so much.  I have thought about how hard this would have been for him, facing

Pity party. . . .  This is not the type of invitation that I would want to receive.   Yet last evening I found myself throwing a pity party.  I didn’t invite anyone else . . . . I had enough sense to realize that no one wants an invitation to someone else’s pity party.  I kept reminding myself that today, with time and space, my perspective would be different than it was in that moment.   Last  night I had the insight to realize that it was a pity party and not to allow myself to wallow in the negative thoughts.  But there are many moments when that insight is lacking and the wallowing takes place for far too long.  I have found that there is value and lessons learned that have come from past pity parties and moments of wallowing in negative thoughts.  Would I want to avoid pity parties and negative thoughts?  Absolutely!   Yet it is in those dark moments that God’s truth is blinding.  My prayers in the dark moments are more heartfelt, more vulnerable, and more desper

Three years.  After three years, one would think that I would know my way on this grief journey.  Yet I am still learning that my daughter, at 10 years old, has a wisdom way beyond her years and a simple, yet straight forward, way through the grief.  I have learned so much from Jaelyn on this journey.   One of the biggest lessons started last year on the two year anniversary and became even more clear this year.  Typically when one thinks about celebrating the anniversary of someone’s death, the first thoughts or ideas that come to mind are putting flowers on the grave, releasing balloons, etc.  Last year it didn’t take me long to realize that Jaelyn didn’t want to “celebrate” her dad’s death, she wanted to celebrate his life.   Such a seemingly small distinction, but oh so big in significance.  You see, Scott was so much more than his tragic and early death.  He wouldn’t want to be remembered for dying young or dying suddenly.  He would want to be remembered for how he lived,

Tomorrow it will be three years since the first - and last - family pictures that we had taken before Scott's death.  As I sit in the living room looking at our family picture on the wall, I am thinking back over our journey since Scott's death.  I have blogged my way almost every step on this painful journey, and privately journaled as well.   It has been a journey of faith as much if not more than a journey of grief.   It is easy to trust in God when everything is going well, but when every step felt like I was about to take a step off of a cliff, it required a great amount of trust to keep taking that step forward.  I am thankful for the encouragement, prayers, and support that always seemed to come when I was having difficulty taking that next step forward.  As I talked about in my last blog post, it was very hard to take steps outside of my comfort zone -- it seemed like my comfort zone shrank when Scott died.  I could only handle so much -- and work became extremely diffi

In the almost three years since Scott’s death I have realized how extremely easy it is to get in a rut.  When Scott’s death occurred, my immediate and longer lasting reaction was to grab hold tightly of anything and everything that I could control – even though his death revealed that control of anything in life is really just an illusion.  My mind and heart were so busy trying to come to grips with his death and the effects of his death that I stayed with what was comfortable.  Anything outside of that comfort zone resulted in extreme stress.  This perhaps explains why my job change eight months after Scott’s death induced a stress and anxiety reaction like I have never had with any job change in the past.  I have had almost a light bulb moment while on over vacation about all of this.  In sitting here thinking about it, I understand that maybe an easing of this stress/anxiety reaction over things outside of my comfort zone is the truest sign of healing for myself. A case in poin

Today was the presentation of the second annual Scott Bradley Memorial Scholarship Award.  I'm thankful for the chance to honor Scott's memory and his legacy, especially by investing in our youth.  Scott always enjoyed working with the youth and it is very fitting that his memory is honored in this way. The winner of the 2015 Scott Bradley Memorial Scholarship Award is Mikayla Ragsdale. As with last year's presentation, I again had an opportunity to share a few words that God laid on my heart with the graduating seniors and the rest of the congregation.  I have included here what I shared this morning. When Pastor Ken talked a few weeks ago during the community series about picturing worst case scenario and asking God what then, I realized that I have faced worst case scenario.   The hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life was tell my then seven year old daughter that her father had died and was in heaven with her Uncle Jason.  Then an even bigger challe

Over the last couple of months I have been using a devotional that goes through each of the Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes in a year’s time – My Daily Scripture Devotional, God’s Wisdom for Today.  The Psalms have really met me where I am emotionally and have comforted and encouraged me. Tonight I was reading Psalm 31.  There were a few verses that caught my attention as being such a clear cry from a grieving heart. “I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul, and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.  Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.” – Psalm 31:7-9 The author of the devotional for this chapter, Trevor Barton of Hawk Creek Church in London, Kentucky, shared, “When this is our reality, we can’t fix it or undo it.  In that moment the only thing to do is trust that God

Even though it has been two and a half years since Scott’s death, I am still sorting through his things little by little.  I have to say, by far the hardest things to sort through are all of his papers.  Seeing his handwriting is enough to bring all the emotions surging back to the surface.  For those who knew Scott well, you know that he wrote notes to himself on anything and everything he could find – empty envelopes, on the back of bills, edges of newspapers, etc.  He had a notoriously poor memory due to attention deficit disorder, thus the need to write everything down.  It is a painstaking process to read each and every piece of paper to make sure that I am not throwing away a gem of truth, a word of wisdom, or a funny story.  There are many notebooks of dreams and goals – and the research that went with them, notebooks of Bible study and spiritual truth, papers of names, addresses, etc.  Sometimes all mixed together in one notebook.  It is like getting an inside view into how hi

      Today was my Grandma Herr's funeral.  To be honest, I was dreading it.  Funerals have become extremely difficult since Scott's funeral.  Before the service began I had a chance to chat with my uncle about the healing I have seen in Jaelyn, as well as myself.  It is not an easy thing to talk about this as the tears come so easily still, especially when my emotions are so close to the surface.       I shared with my uncle that one thing I have begun to realize over the last couple of weeks is that as I have seen the significant healing in Jaelyn, I almost feel as if my grieving is just beginning.  This certainly isn't completely true, but there has been such a huge part of me tune into and focused on Jaelyn and helping her to grieve and heal that there is a part of my grieving that hasn't begun until now.  I think that putting that into words today for the first time was a huge first step.  I have been pretty deliberate and conscious of facing grief head on, not a