Going home together the night of the visitation was an exhausting experience. We were all so tired and none too sure about the next day. Laughter was scarce and everyone kept to themselves. It was so hard for me because the kids still wouldn't let me mother them and the constant barrier they had set between us was really getting to me. When sleep finally claimed me, I was awakened an hour or so later by Katce's screams. She was crying for Jeffy, something she had done for the entire week. I soothed her and her Daddy snuggled her. And I crept from my bed away from the cuddling - away from the feelings of love. I went downstairs and bawled on Katie Aronin's shoulder once more and became at least a little calmer. But then she too went to bed and I was left alone again.
Why did Jeff do this? Why? Didn't he know how much we loved him and how much we needed him. I had it all fixed. He would start his job on Monday, go to the doctor's that same week, maybe go on the mission trip, we were figuring it out? It was so dark and still outside, so I went and sat on the porch and wondered where God was, and why He allowed this. I had done everything He'd ever asked- everything. And yet here I was again, standing in the midst of death. Death that had claimed my Mother, my Husband, my beloved Grandmother, and seven Babies- only to add an eighth.
Are You out there? Do You really care? I pray for these kids and for this husband, but I cannot pray to You for me...I cannot talk to You...I am tired of obeying...tired of giving up so much...You asked too much this time. You have asked me to love a child deemed unloveable- I did that. I fell totally head over heels in love with this child. You asked me to give up my sewing business, my art show, my home, my life- all for this child. And he did nothing, but hurt me almost everyday. You asked me to endure a year and a half of public scrutiny, when he left after smashing up my heart, my body, and my home. You asked me to forgive him when he never asked for it or even apolojized. I did that. You asked me to accept him every time he walked through the door. You even asked me to get all of the charges dropped if I could , walk away from restitution - beg the courts to get him mental help. Then I even took him back in - the first moment that he asked, and now You take him. I have to find him dead. All of the blood, the gun, the eerie midst of rain, the yelling, the complete and utter confusion, the total lack of comprehension. Suicide....You allowed him to commit suicide. Hadn't I found my mother in time before she killed herself? Hadn't You allowed her to live? Why? Why not him? Why couldn't he have lived too? You allowed him to kill himself? WHY? I want to know Why? Don't You think I deserve that much? I need a sign...a sign that You are here...A sign that somehow, someway I won't be swallowed alive by this awful, awful pain and guilt....
And there was no answer- only stillness...there was no miracle...only death, but as I walked toward the door to go into the house, a light appeared across the river, a bright light on a house somehow just turned on...Was that my sign? I didn't know...I didn't know anything anymore accept that I was completely alone in a house full of people in a world that had finally and indefinately deserted me after all I had did to change it, all I had did to protect it. I wasn't even angry....I was just - just sad and done and disallusioned with a life that I had once believed was a fairytale.
And somehow...in a few hours- I would bury my son...the the only person I had ever felt like I totally failed. A failure at being a wife and a mother. All I ever wanted to be and I had failed. The weight was so heavy on my heart and my spirit that I was consumed, so consumed that I no longer wanted this life that God gad given me. Tim didn't need me, the kids certainly didn't need a failure like me...heck my dad wasn't even coming to the funeral. I had failed Jeff after years of living my whole life for them and thoroughly enjoying it...this is what was left...an empty whole of death....and as I laid my head back on the pillow I cried myself to sleep in the arms of my best friend- who unfortunately was also my dead son's father.
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