Writing My Soul

I’ve heard from several of you who read my blog. Thank you for all your kind comments.  Honestly, I’m just writing my feelings. I am a thinker. Many times I over-think things to the point of dwelling on the littlest of details. Writing helps me sort all those thoughts out. There is no mystery in what I write.

At one point in my life, I thought about a career in writing. In fact, when I graduated from college, my dream job was to write Shoebox Greeting Cards. My quick wit and sarcastic sense of humor seemed like a perfect fit to me. My degree was in marketing and I also considered working in advertising, maybe writing commercials. But some how, I ended up doing collections. There wasn’t much need for my wit and sarcastic sense of humor in that job, although I may have made a few sarcastic comments after hanging up the phone from some of my collection calls. 

After I became a stay at home mom, the only writing I did was “to do” lists and grocery lists. I’d occasionally write down funny things my kids said so I could embarrass them with them years down the road. In fact, one of those funny things had to do with a grocery list. When Danielle was probably three  years old, she and I were grocery shopping. She was sitting in the grocery cart, holding my list for me. She knew that we bought whatever I had written on the list. She looked at me and said, “The list says ice cream.” I knew full well I hadn’t put ice cream on the list and that she couldn’t read. But it made me chuckle that instead of just asking me to buy ice cream, she told me it was on the list. In case you are wondering, I bought ice cream. I figured I was rewarding her creativity. And I love ice cream!

As my mom got older, she commented that she never really did a lot in her life. I didn’t understand how she could say that. I thought about all the work she did to keep our large family running. I wanted to write her something telling her how much she really had done over the years. I tried several times to sit down and write something to give her for her birthday or Mother’s Day.  I’d write a few words, but could never get the writing to come together. A couple days after she died, I knew the time was right. I sat down with paper and pen and the words just flowed out of me. I shared the tribute I wrote about her with Pastor Tim at our church. He told me that it was beautiful. He also said that my soul needed to be written and that I should listen to it and write it. I wasn't quite sure what he meant or how to go about it. It had taken me years to write that tribute. Well, maybe it was years of trying and about a half an hour of actual writing.  The thought of trying to write anything else seemed like more than my grieving heart could handle. Yet, on those sleepless nights, when thoughts were racing through my mind and I was reliving Mother’s last days, I decided to jot down some of them. Usually it was just a word or two. But by writing it down, it was as though I was giving myself permission to put the thought aside until a time when I could better deal with it. I’m not even sure I saw it that way at the time, but looking back, it is obvious to me that is what I was doing. Other times, my emotions formed  sentences and paragraphs that flowed onto the paper.  Perhaps that was my soul writing itself. As the one year anniversary of Mother entering the nursing home approached, I knew the time was right to do more writing. Why I decided to write it in a blog is a bit of a mystery to me.  It really is out of character for me to put myself "out there" like that.

Another strange thing is that when I started writing, my intent was to write about my mom. I didn’t intend to write a lot about God and my faith. Even though Pastor Tim told me that my soul needed to be written, I didn’t think that necessarily meant writing about my faith. But it just happened. I saw things happen with my mom and God’s presence was obvious.  At times there was no denying that His fingerprints were on the way things came together.  It is impossible for me to describe, other than to say that I just knew.  When you have an experience and know God is involved, it’s nearly impossible to keep it to yourself.  There is an amazement and comfort so powerful that you feel a need to share it.

I miss my parents terribly, especially my mom since her death is more recent. But my faith has been strengthened from the experiences I had during their illnesses, deaths and since then.  I know that Mother and Daddy would be happy to know that my faith has grown. Nothing would please them more.

Thanks again for reading along and going on this journey with me.  I know the next couple of weeks will be very emotional ones for me. Yesterday was the last day of school for my kids. We made our annual last day of school trip to Dairy Queen. As the kids sat eating their ice cream and chatting with friends, I found myself remembering our trip there a year ago. I remembered the table we sat at last year. I remembered the fear I had of how my mom’s test results would come back. I remembered that the next morning I heard the word cancer and that two weeks later we buried her.  But I also remembered that God had answered my prayer of not hearing bad news before school was out. I remembered that I was able to spend Mother’s final days with her. I remembered that God was there with us and continues to be. While the next weeks will be emotional, I will get through them. And in the process, it’s likely that my soul will pour out onto the keyboard. Now that I’ve started writing my soul, I’m not sure I can stop.