Coping Mechanisms

On the day that my finished manuscript was to be sent to the publisher, the struggle in getting the manuscript formatted for the platform had been intense. Because I did not learn the language of computer and due to the frustration of completing this challenging project and the thought that my overactive, overthinking mind being soon exposed had my anxiety coming in hot!

So when I finished with my morning coffee time/ prayer time, I needed to decide how I was going to spend my time before my 1 o’clock meeting. 

All kinds of ideas came to mind.

I could get the laundry started and clean the bat poop off the front porch.

I could just stay here on the deck, waiting for a hummingbird to fly by. 

I could go take a shot of Old Elk bourbon. 

I could take a walk, but with this humidity, I may not survive.

I could call a friend. 

And then I thought I could go get an Ooey Gooey cinnamon roll! OK I get it, it’s not the healthiest choice but it’s better than some. 

If you ever explore Brown County, Nashville, has a great little place called the Ooey Gooey and I highly recommend making a visit. The place feels like you walked into a Hallmark movie with a young couple who now own the place continuing to make coping mechanism type food with legendary recipes left from the previous owners who retired to Florida.

As I was exiting with a more than full belly, I noticed a woman sitting outside wearing a cowboy hat. Her hat invited a very interesting and thought-provoking conversation. She explained that she was a cattle rancher who owned and showed horses in the high country of Colorado near Telluride. Another woman, a stranger until this moment to both of us, walked out and joined our conversation. Both these women were widows, and they both had tomb stones for their husbands in that high country near Telluride, what are the odds? As I sat and listened to these women who connected at a very high-level, I yearned to know so much more. 

These positive, energetic women who had experienced life and grieved husbands, were oozing with life, joy and wisdom.

The rancher went on to tell us why she was in Indiana. She lived her childhood years in Colorado and moved with her family to Indiana when she was in high school to take care of elderly grandparents. She met and married her first husband, and they spent their time together living in Indiana. When he had passed from cancer, she was in her mid-50s. After grieving a while, she decided to move back to Colorado to the place she felt that she belonged. There she met her second husband. He has since passed as well, but this is what she said that just won’t leave my mind. She said I have had two great lives, one life in Indiana, and one life in Colorado.

Hmmm

With so many people I care about who are currently grieving, I feel she carries a provocative message. Maybe when a relationship comes to an end, a different one may be around the corner. Good for different reasons and different purposes.

When someone we love dies, we must grieve. There is no way around it. We must walk through that season of suck. We cannot go around it, we can’t go over it and we can’t slide under it, we must move painfully and heavily through it. Grief is not linear. The process can have similarities, but it contains many variables, along with ebbs and flows. There are no time parameters and with such a time measuring world in which we exist, this concept can only be understood by others who have felt the same kind of gut-wrenching pain.

If I had more time with those women, I would have asked them, how did they get through? How did they heal their hearts and give them permission to love again? From the rancher’s answer I wonder if she would describe her life as a book with chapters each containing meaningful purpose. She has grieved 2 men and yet she appears fully alive wearing a cowboy hat in Nashville In and riding horses daily!

Seasons of life

Is that how friends move forward after a best friend has left this world?

Is that how grieving mothers can return to life again?

Is that how widows find the courage to laugh again?

Is that how we find joy again?

Rising after a season of grief and begin dreaming again about the possibilities of this life. A life filled with pain but also one with opportunity of love.

For all those who are walking through the darkness, we see you and we love you!

Stay Blessed!