Choosing to Believe and A Sense of Otherness

January 30, 2010

Choosing to believe

I had breakfast today with an old friend I had not seen in awhile.  Over the last few years, he has gone through some losses – a divorce of his own and of one of his children, and other challenges for another young adult child of his.

It was good to catch up and spend some time reflecting on how we each have dealt with our losses. 

I came away convinced again that we all have choices – we can either embrace our loss, pain, and grief, and choose to seek ways to still believe in the goodness of life and in a good and gracious God, or not.  If we choose not to believe in these things, we can and probably will stay in our natural anger and bitterness over loss, shaking our fists at the God or fate that we think has dealt us such lousy hands.

Making a choice to believe does not negate or somehow heal me from my pain – I still miss my son deeply and probably always will.  Living in both realities – pain and loss, and hope and joy is the way I must live and the only way I can even imagine living now.  I must honor my son and my love for him, all the while choosing to believe that in the end and in between, “all things will work together for good” even when it is a good that I was not planning on.

February 4, 2010

A sense of otherness

Those are the words that Carol used last evening to describe herself.  She feels like she has a “sense of otherness” about her – she is no longer the same person she once was – losing Daniel has changed her at her core forever.

I also have this same sense – like I have crossed over into some new reality and taken on some new identity – I am no longer the person I was.  Some days this means that I do feel disconnected; I sit through meetings and conversations and feel like I am listening to words, but not really hearing them or understanding them.  It is almost like I am sitting among people speaking a different language and I literally cannot understand them.  At times, this feels like I am not even really present in the way that people perceive that I am, but instead I am hovering outside my body and watching the activity from a different reference point or even from some other dimension.

In those moments, I feel both disconnected from “real life” (what is going on at that moment in time) but also somehow connected to some greater reality – to a transcendent place where we might realize that what we think is real is not necessarily the only thing that is real.  When I am having this momentary experience, I often find that I actually have some sense of peace and sadness coincidentally as I realize that I both miss Daniel and somehow know that he is in a good place and I will see him again.