Another Life Lesson

I’m a book person, always have been, and I imagine that when my sight fails I will request the companionship of someone who wouldn’t mind reading to me; books on tape just don’t smell the same.

Anyhow, I turned to a book I found shortly after I had begun working with hospice. I knew Kubler-Ross worked extensively with death/dying/grief and I liked the fact that this books title had ‘life’ in it. Life Lessons (Kubler-Ross & Kessler). I finished it a few months ago, but I am one of those people who put stars and hearts and little notes in French in the margins to remember to me what my first impression of what I read had been. I then go back to the same book after I am aware that my experience has broadened or that I have grown and I reflect. I came across this today:

“ What ever you are feeling when you lose someone or something is exactly what you are support to be feeling….Healing is not always direct; it’s not like an ascending line on a graph, quickly and smoothly carrying us up to wholeness. Instead, the process feels something like being on a rollercoaster – you climb toward wholeness then suddenly plunge into despair; you seem to regress, then you move forward; then you feel you’re back at the beginning. That is healing. You will heal, you will return to wholeness. You may not get back what you have lost, but you can heal. And at some point on your journey through life, you will see that you never really had, in the way you thought, that person or item you were mourning. And you will see that you will always have them in other ways." (79-80, Life Lessons)

I think so much of yesterday with Matt and our conversation and the surprising pain that cracked me open in a different way. Again, I am always amazed at how gracious God is in the way we heal. As I read in a different book the layers of our grief are revealed to us only when we are ready. I believe God is behind that. He journeys with us, He holds our hand. It’s as though He were a coach in some way, gently pushing us along, training us, helping us as we take on new challenges and set new goals for ourselves and only when He knows we are ready does He add something new, maybe more push-ups, a longer piece, a higher bar. Only He knows when this will be, because He’s watched us, He’s trained us, He knows everything that we are capable of and the things that we are limited in. I emphasize that it is when God knows that we are ready for that next step because so often, at least in my experience, I do not feel ready. I protest. I think, Are you kidding me? I can’t face this! I’m not ready! God knows otherwise. God knows that we have grown in the ways we have needed in order to be prepared for the next part of our journey. It is so graceful that we are not in charge. I know for me, specifically with my adoption/relinquishment healing I would want to either take it all on and be done with it (as if that were possible) or I would keep it as far away as possible, never touching, remaining trapped in my own woundedness.

There will always be areas of pain in this experience for me, I believe. They may lesson as each is taken out of the darkness of shame, repression, dissociation and guilt and is brought into the light of Christ. “We are more than conquerors, in the love of Christ,” I must never forget this. Even when something new, something with the strength of a black hole, something that has been waiting for just the right moment leaps out before me, I must remember all has already been won through Christ.

I think of an onion when I think of my adoption story, not to make a Shrek reference or anything. I think of it having many layers, many hidden parts. I think that by the time I was able to ask some questions, much was forgotten. I think by the time I was able to ask other questions, I wished the answers had been forgotten. This week I found myself in the traps of perfection, competition and self-worth. I will most certainly be unchosen/kicked out/left and therefore worthless/pathetic/nugatory, unless I am perfect/the best/flawless. They are traps I know well, snares I have been able to detangle from except when a new and more challenging level has been presented. Think of it as going from Heroic, to Legendary when playing Halo. The Master Chief has beaten this before, but now there are more enemies, maybe less ammo.

I uncovered more anger than I had previously realized existed, and like a good WASP (well, I grew up in a WASPy part of the world) I reassured myself that I don’t do anger. Except, I need to do anger. For their to be healing, there must be grieving and if there is to be grieving there must be open honest anger.

I recently shared the stages of grief with the spouse of one of my patients and a sibling. We spoke of how it is not linear, that denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are not as easy as 1,2,3. They are not neat little boxes to check off your list and be finished with. We talked of the back and forth, the peaceful acceptance, and the anger, the way that we can be in all of those places at once seemingly, and that certainly throughout the course of the day we may makes stops at each, more than once. Just this morning she shared with me that she had a good cry the other day and then got angry, yelling “Why did you leave me alone?!” Her husband died two days after our initial encounter and I was offering her condolences. I also offered her grace, and normalization to the experience of weeping deeply, then screaming out in pain.

So why then, am I unable to be as graceful with myself? I sat in church yesterday weeping over the pain of being relinquished (the other often unmentioned side of adoption) and seconds later cried out, “You want to know how fucking great it is to be adopted? Look at me, isn’t this awesome? I’m a fucking mess and it hurts right here in my heart!” I went on to say, “I can’t be unadopted, I can’t have this hurt undone. I’m so sick of being adopted! I just want to be normal!” I misused the word adoption even in all my pain and anguish. It’s not the adopted part that is the searing pain in my heart, it is the relinquished part. I’m so sick of being RELINQUISHED! is a more accurate account of the feeling. I’m sick of the fact that my deep woundedness manifests itself as self-rejection, self-sabotage, perfectionism, competition. I’m sick of the fact that someone left me, abandoned me, gave me up, threw me out, tossed me away… All those words are but a sliver of the ways I have described what my birth mother did to me. All those words are also words that describe the hurt little girl inside of me who doesn’t understand how a mother could leave her child.

There are times when I can reframe, when I can use other words, when I can see God’s mighty hand in the plan of my life, but it is in those moments, the crying out moments, the anguish moments, that I need both God and a face of God by my side to hold me in that pain. I realize that I offer true compassion to those I care for in my ministry and that I am often all too eager to deny myself that same compassion. I am blessed to have a man in my life who does not allow me to do that. I am blessed to have friends and family who also remind me of how important it is to receive what is freely given and what I freely give.

When Matt said to me that I could find healing over this with God, I became angry at first, quickly saying, “but that will never change anything!” And I am right, it will not. He is also right. When I reread this portion of Life Lessons, I almost laughed at myself and how our conversation was so similar to the writing. He went on to communicate essentially this, “You may not get back what you have lost, but you can heal.” Healing is possible, especially and most certainly with God. And today with refreshed spirit and God’s grace I have communicated essentially this “at some point on your journey through life, you will see that you never really had, in the way you thought, that person or item you were mourning. And you will see that you will always have them in other ways,” to myself. After all, a very wise woman once said to me that the more I get to know my own heart at its’ truest, the closer I will be to knowing the one who gave me birth.

And, so far, I’ve liked her a lot.