Azaiah Stone DeGarmo 11/2/12 – 1/4/13
There are some days when I feel grief gnawing at my heart. Some days it just doesn’t feel like there is time to grieve. I mean there is still a home to run, meals to prepare and kids to pick up at school.
But something I have recently learned, “there is a time to mourn.” And if I don’t take that time it will take me.
Yesterday was one of those day. I tried to hold it together. I started the day off with a morning devotion outside while two of my little girls played. But there was a restlessness in my heart. I tried to get some housework done but accomplished little. By the time lunch came around I barely had the energy to scrape together some Easy-Mac. Then the exhaustion over took me.
I aimed for a fresh start when the school kids were coming home. I tried. But the longer the night wore on my nerves did too. I barely survived dinner. I snapped at my children and hated it.
Then I sat down at my desk to escape. That’s when the trap door opened and I fell through.
There was a picture of Azaiah that I hadn’t put there on my desk. The day he died I couldn’t get him to rest. So I wrapped him up tight and stuck my Bible in his carseat with him. He slept. He was so precious sleeping with my Bible I snapped a picture. That picture stared at me last night and demanded I grieve.
That picture said, “He is YOUR son. You love HIM. You want him with you. Even if you know he is well, you are full of sorrow. You still must grieve. You must feel every emotion. You must.”
I have to walk through every door. I have to take every step. I have to be in every moment that is mine to grieve. Even for a believer in the power of the resurrection, death stings. To deny that is to deny the truth.
And so at 7:00 pm I put on my pajamas, climbed under the covers with a roll of toilet paper and wept. Eventually my daughters joined me. For the first time my two-year-old said, “Mama cry. Miss Ziah.” Funny, even a toddler knows I need to grieve.
I’m still not sure how to blend life and grief. I’m not sure how to feel the emotions and be in the moment when I am in the middle of the grocery store or the elementary school. I’m just not sure.
It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. Ecc. 7:2
