Love Came First

With music blaring in the background and kids screaming around me, I find myself standing in a crowded room, unable to place what I have lost or even what I am missing but I just have this overwhelming feeling of loss. I want to scream. I want to catch my breath. I look to the sky for answers, maybe written in the clouds.

Then it hits me like a brick to the back of the head. It’s not what I’m missing; rather it’s once again who we are missing.

It’s hard to believe a year has passed today since losing someone else in my life that meant so much to me – my father-in-law. He was a father figure to me, a pillar of the community, the rock of his family and a gentle voice in a world of doubt and judgment.

I recently read a beautiful poem about grief – Love Came First – that put so much of it into a new perspective, in a way I never thought about it.

Before all the pain, the tears, the soul-shattering sorrow, and the grief that comes with losing a loved one, love came first.

For many, once someone is gone and the grief sets in, instead of embracing it as another part of life, they choose to ignore it, hide from it, or even act like it isn’t eating them alive.

Once accepted though, grief becomes another part of your life that eventually is another guest at the table at holidays or maybe even every night for dinner or someone who tags along like that annoying kid sister whether you like it or not. It will be that 800-lb gorilla in the room taking up all the air, though, until you truly come to accept grief is another part of your life now.

“And the days when your anger is high, remember why she came to you, remember what she represents. Remember. Grief came to you, my friend, because love came first. Love came first.“

– Donna Ashworth, Love Came First

When being strong and courageous are your only options every day of your existence, to help you get out of bed and face each day – for many of us who call this our lives – it’s just a normal morning. Typically, as a mom though, my mornings also include the added bonus of teenage angst and attitude with a dollup of (soon to be) pre-teen know-it-all-ism.

Often our lives are moving at the speed of light, so when it slows down for even a moment, it’s then that the grief hiding behind my eyes or the pain filling at the pit of my stomach starts to boil over. Now, I am quickly reminded that no matter how sad I am at that moment, love came first.

I’ve known my share of loss in my life, as have so many others. I know I am not alone. Losing both my parents, my stepson, my father in law, my own grandparents, and both my husband’s grandmothers who I held at such a high regard, grief sometimes feels like another person in our house, living rent-free and eating all of our food.

Coming back to the hard truth of it though, it is hard to believe that for the last year, we have lived in a world without my father in law. He had this infectious belief that the world was still good in some way and that he could make a difference. His extremely giving and caring heart that knew no boundaries or limitations was a marvel to witness. His innate ability to make you feel like the most important person in the room and that you were being heard. And the love – that unconditional love he showed for his wife, his kids, his grandchildren, his brothers, his mother – that is what books are written about and people dream of having in their own lives.

Even though love came first, grief will still come in the night and wrap us in a blanket of sorrow and tears. I have to believe it is our memories, our love, our values, and our beliefs that help make it all worth experiencing in the end.

My strength and courage are not meant to marvel or inspire because I know there are people just like me fighting their own battles similar to mine, and worse, every minute of every day. My battles, my fight, my challenges – I endure every day, but this is my cross to bear. The one I wake up with each day and fall asleep to every night. The one I blow kisses to when I drive by the cemeteries where Timothy is buried or where both my parents are laid to rest together. The one that also gives me strength to kiss my children and grandchildren every day and tell them how much I love them. The one that continues to give me courage to live each day with a smile on my face and love in my heart.

Without love, many of our lives that drip with grief now would never have even existed in the first place. Death is another part of the cycle of life. With life, it is a choice to keep moving forward and live in honor of those we’ve lost, or stay lost beneath the sheets and let the darkness swallow us whole.

Still I relent that love came first.