Then it happened, a series of unfortunate events... It really doesn't matter what they were, the point is, I am tired of this awful rug pulled out from under me life that just feels so unpredictable.
Church: Well from the moment I walked in and the opening hymn was How Great Thou Art, I knew that something was aligning against my emotions staying in check. I recalled clearly 11 months ago when I was hysterically crying MarShae getting her viola out opening our hymn book, thumbing through and decided to start playing this hymn. We wouldn't know for at least a week that Madie had sung a solo of it at her ward family prayer less than 48 hours before she died.
Some recent history: I have been gone from my home ward for 3 weeks and as MarShae, Marielle and I walk in a few minutes late (in front of the congregation) on the side door we always come in on, I look around and Larry isn't sitting anywhere close to where we would normally sit. He had a meeting an hour before so it wasn't like he didn't get there early enough, but everyone is looking at us like we are deer in headlights, and then people start pointing and there he is sitting on the other side of the room. Well, we aren't going to walk across the whole chapel in front of everyone, so we find a place to squeeze in about 8 rows back.
Another fact: Our family has sat on the front center row for years, (not that we have our name on the bench or anything) because I usually play the 2nd hymn and it is easy to go up and come back down from there. So all the way through the opening hymn, that I can't even sing I am thinking "pull yourself together because you have to go play in a few minutes". Pulled together, I stand after the opening prayer as a lady across the isle stands as well, she shrugs and says "I was asked to play, do you want to play?" Well with being gone for the past two Sundays I think "what the heck? Sure, I don't really care, (other than I have played the sacrament hymn for years, and okay, good to know that I wasn't let in on this till I had stood up), and I am feeling absolutely ridiculous now, which isn't helping my situation at all."
I sit back down and wait for her to start playing and think "what am I even doing here today? It is the 11 month anniversary of Madie's death, most people are now pretty tuned out to that, and here I am, a popping up and down spectacle who now can't quit crying because I am embarrassed, and emotional and wondering why there isn't a trap door for me to fall into so I can disappear until this day is over."
Then as if that wasn't a good enough sideswipe, today is the primary program (annual children's program) and it is full of songs that are all about eternal families, temples, I am a child of God, not to mention, sisters in matching dresses.
I have conducted so many of these in my lifetime, so I have floods of memories with so many of the songs,and I truly want to run away and never come back. But no, I am the only parent sitting with my girls, so I stay, and it is just personally awful. I sit through agony telling myself "you don't have to do anything that brings this much pain", and yet the mother in me says "you don't run away" and if you did everyone would know you were having an awful time, so I sit and the waterfall just flows, and my head is pounding...Then it is finally over and I run, well not exactly... I exit as fast and discretely as I possible can.
I am home and it is so much easier to be safe away while I am crying. This isn't well written, but it is today, it is what happened. I wasn't going to write at all, but the truth is sometimes even when I think I have it together... I just plain get sideswiped and find out I don't, and who knows when I really will, and this is the messy complications of grief...
I came across this video later today, and found again help that came with the right words, when I was feeling like the journey was just too hard today...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJKmXtoMI5s&feature=share
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