withstanding

“Loved ones she left behind

Just trying to survive

And understand the why

Anger shot straight at God

Then asking for His love

Empty with disbelief”

The last two weeks have, without a doubt, been the worst two weeks of my life. On March 8th, my mamaw finally went to the hospital for what she had been told was, “double pneumonia.” What she didn’t know was that sometime within the last few weeks, she’d also suffered from a heart attack. A week and three heart bypasses later, I walked out of the Heart Hospital without saying a word to anyone. As my family congregated and visited to take their mind off of the night’s events, I ran away, trying desperately to erase the image of my mamaw’s lifeless body.

I’ve always said there were only a few people that I’ve always needed, and she was one of them. After they declared that there was no longer a heartbeat, I just laid my head against her and cried in anger, telling her that I’d needed her. I needed her so bad, I still do.

Growing up, my mamaw was my best friend. I know that term can be used pretty loosely, but I swear she was. She would practice softball outside with me for hours. She taught me how to ride a bike. We had a flour fight while making dumplings. We would jump on the bed and eat Reese’s Cup after Reese’s Cup. We went sledding on a cardboard box in the snow one Christmas. When I was seven, my parents divorced. She quit her well-paying job as a truck-driver to move in with my mom and I. She worked as a waitress, making minimum wage, just to help my mom financially and to help me get through the divorce. We had sleepovers for months.

 

When she was out on the truck, she’d come home and share my twin bed with me because we just couldn’t stand being apart if we could help it. Once, she left to go back out on the road without saying goodbye (because I was sleeping.) I woke up and sobbed- my heart was completely shattered. When she lived in Dallas, we spent Christmas with her. As we drove away, my mom remembers seeing both of us with quivering lips, trying not to cry over having to leave each other.

All of this to say- I love a lot of people, and I love fiercely. There are very few people I love like I loved her, though. There are very few people that know me like she knew me. And vice versa. We knew each other like the back of our hand. She would tell my Pappy that every time she was sick or in pain, I would text or call her out of the blue… like I knew.

I’ve never lost someone this close to me, so it’s hit me like a ton of bricks. What’s more is that I’ve never had to cope with something this traumatic with a child, so I’m having to find new ways to cope so that my grief doesn’t consume me.

The day of her funeral, I told my mom I was concerned that it would consume me. I could feel myself getting depressed, even with my antidepressants. The next day, I woke up angry and apathetic. I just didn’t care about anything. I felt out of touch with Ollie; I felt like a bad mom. Everything felt like it was in a downward spiral. Honestly, I was never depressed to the point of being suicidal- trust me- but I did get to a point that day where all I felt was apathy in regards to dying. I just desperately wanted, needed, to be with her. I couldn’t make sense of the thought that I’d never see her again. I needed to be with her. I needed her. Thankfully, we have a close family friend that I was able to reach out to and talk through things with.

We’ve been home for a couple of days now, so we’re getting back into routine, which has helped tremendously. I’m trying to find the balance between staying busy so that I don’t become depressed, while also making time to healthily grieve. At this point, my biggest struggle is my faith. That’s a really hard thing to admit when you live in the Bible belt. My mind operates on logic and reason, though, and it’s just next to impossible for me to believe in something that I can’t see with my own eyes. That, and I’m a pretty cynical person. I desperately want to believe in Heaven, and God, and everything I once believed wholeheartedly, because I need to know that I’ll see her again. At her funeral, I had to stare at her until they closed the casket, because I couldn’t handle the thought that I might never see her in person again. I still get anxious thinking about it. Even after she died, I wanted to just stand there and stroke her hair for hours. I wanted to keep kissing her hand and forehead, taking in the smell of Virginia Slims before I forget it.

God, what I would give to curl up beside her again. I can’t express how much it hurts. I’ve been really proud of how I’ve handled it the last couple of days, and I know she would be too. I still have spells throughout the day where I can’t believe this is all happening.

They say you learn to cope better with time, and I think that’s true already. The idea of having to miss her for a lifetime makes my skin crawl, though. She’s been so close to me my entire life, but now I’m faced with the reality that the majority of my life will probably be spent without her. And that breaks my heart.

When I feel overwhelmed; when I feel like my heart can’t possibly handle this much pain, I remind myself of what my therapist once told me: “You can withstand.”

It hurts like hell, but I’m withstanding. For Ollie, and for myself. For mamaw.