Band-aids and Brokenness
It’s been a while since I have written on here. There has been so much to process, a lot of it wouldn’t be palatable for the masses, so I have been very strategic about what I want to share.
While I was pregnant I started a journal for Ira. The plan I had was to journal throughout my pregnancy and Ira’s first year of life, and give him this journal on his 16th birthday. One of the first thoughts I had after him passing was realizing I would never be able to share the journal with him. I wrote to him about every experience I had while he was in the womb, the things I was already learning as I processed becoming a parent, I wrote my hopes to him and my dreams for him. I told him about the intentions his father and I have as parents. I told him I hoped that on the days when he was frustrated with us, he could look back and read about what our hearts set out to be for him before he was even born. I asked him to be gracious to us as we learned to parent. I told him that I knew we would make mistakes and I knew there would be times where we disappointed him, and asked for forgiveness ahead of time for that.
I sit here, thinking about those times, pregnant and full of hope for my little boy’s life, with tears streaming down my face. That journal that I set out to give to my son and write for him as he was young, has turned into a journal to process my grief. I wonder if God lets him read it, or if somehow since the entries are worded as letters to him, if he can hear me… I hope he can, I feel like somehow he can. I’m glad I have continued to journal to him, it helps so much to tell him the things that I am feeling inside without filter.
I have had a pretty emotional week. A friend sent me a text yesterday to see how I was doing. She and I had a long conversation last week, and she said (later) that during the conversation she sensed that I was going to experience some new emotions in the next week, and that it was going to be challenging. She was right!
When individuals face a trauma or suffer a wound physically or emotionally, the natural response is to bandage it. Bandages are necessary to help ease the pain by applying pressure, and also to protect the wound from debris that may collect inside and cause infection. All of us have cultivated our own first-aid kits for coping with life’s blows. What is in these first aid kits is highly dependent on your history… and there is almost always a pattern through out the generations of a person’s family line for dealing with hardship. Maybe it was religion. Maybe spirituality. Maybe it was by projecting the pain onto others through verbal and emotional abuse. Maybe it was turning to substances. Or becoming a gym addict. Or running away… it could be anything really. It’s called coping. That’s the band-aid. It’s a natural, normal, and can actually be a healthy response to wounding. You feel the pain and bandage it to keep the wound safe. If this is done in a healthy way it is actually a necessary step in healing.
The problem arises in what we use as our bandages and how long we leave the bandages on. This requires decrement and wisdom. If you leave a bandage on a wound for too long, it can turn create complications in the wound… too much moisture for too long can prevent the wound from healing properly and actually cause infection of it’s own over time.
I am in a place of my healing process where I am seeing the band-aid, which for the most part has been a very helpful, healthy bandage, and being faced with my next step- Removing the bandage to let the wound breath. I don’t know if you have ever had a major physical injury, but generally, the first time the bandage is removed, it is not a fun experience. Removing a bandage on a wound this large is painful. I am at that step. In the last few days I have stared at my wound, with it’s perfectly wrapped bandage, and the Great Physician has whispered to my heart that it’s time to take it off. I keep telling him, “But look, it’s so pretty!! I did such a good job wrapping it! Do we have to take it off?”
Unfortunately, no matter how well we wrap our wounds, or how well we respond to life’s blows, in order to get full healing, the wrapping must be removed. So, that’s where I am at. I have started to remove my bandages and take a look at the condition of my wound. It’s really big you guys, it’s a real big wound and it hurts bad. I know that I have to be brave though, and I know that healing will come.
I just miss him so much…