No Time To Grieve

I made my sister promise to call me the minute Mom passed away. She had been sick with cancer since right before 9/11, and I had been in Afghanistan since 2000.  It was agony not being there with her at her bedside as she took her final breaths.

The call came around 9pm in April, 2006. My husband was already asleep, needing to get up at 4am for an early flight. Aid work in Afghanistan never stops.  I had no one to talk to, so I woke up my 6 year old son and told him that Grandma had died. I felt a little human comfort as I hugged him and sent him back to sleep.

The next morning, while my dad and siblings were beginning to plan mom's funeral, we started three days of intense training with Security Consultant trainers, learning how to survive being taken hostage, kidnapped, or detained by foreign governments. They started out the training by singing worship songs. I couldn't worship - the first song was Blessed Be the Name of the Lord, the chorus of which includes, "He gives and takes away...."

I walked out for a few minutes because I could not get control of my sobbing. But no time to grieve - I needed to get back in there and learn how to survive, because little did I know how bad it was going to get in Afghanistan once the Taliban started targeting aid workers. I had to stay strong - as the wife of the leader, everyone was watching me.

Five years passed. I never had time to grieve. Dear Husband was busy being the Country Director of a very large, international, mult-million dollar aid operation, and we had a large team of expats to care for.  The first year Dear Husband was in this job, I got horribly sick -twice - in bed with influenza and literally could not move.

Because I never ever got sick like that, it was a major signal to me that I had to cut back on most outside-the-home activities, anything which would drain me, so that I would have the margin of energy to serve my family, deal with the abrasive culture, and be able to have some left over for emergencies and for me. We still had one baby in diapers, and I had to focus on homeschooling.  No time to grieve...it would just take too much energy, and I didn't have any to spare.

Attacks on aid workers increased 300% in 2008. Friends kidnapped, murdered by Taliban, held hostage. Expatriates going into crisis. Pressures at work. Husband experiencing major physical symptoms of stress, including constant headaches. No time to grieve - I needed to stay strong for the children, my husband, the community.

I was later diagnosed with Panic Attacks, and knew I was on the edge of depression again. Looking back, I can see I had panic attacks for at least the last two years I lived in Afghanistan, which I mostly managed by controlled breathing.

We arrived home late in 2009, and went through extensive debriefing.  However, we were blindsided by an unexpected and major transition and it took a couple of years to work through the ramifications and loss of relationships. No emotional and mental space to grieve, and very few people to talk with about the reality of what we were living through.

The grief has been "oozing out" occasionally during the years, sometimes at inopportune moments, but I learned to control it with systematic breathing and mental distraction. 

Finally, late 2011: time to grieve my mother's death.

I have space, a little time, and the quiet to write. I am not near depression, and I am not experiencing emotional, spiritual, mental upheaval. We don't have a major speaking engagement coming up, no trips to prepare for next week, children away at sleep-overs, dear husband  gone for a week so I have my bed to myself to read, write, and sob.

I've re-read my mom's e-mails to me, and experienced the warmth of her love, re-read her version of her marriage, history, and just enjoyed re-experiencing my e-mail conversations with her during the seven years before her death. I find myself sobbing late at night, letting myself grieve and experience the pain of loss in the depths of my heart.

I do have two more tasks to do before we move permanently to Turkey - I have to go visit her grave site. I haven't been able to emotionally have the energy to go and grieve there privately.

I also have to re-watch her funeral, possibly with my children, who were really too young to understand much. I've only watched it once, but had too many people about the house in Kabul to allow me the privacy to watch it and cry.

I was pleasantly surprised to be reminded of a letter I had written to her from an airport in the U.S. on my way back to Afghanistan. I remember feeling like it was one of my last times to express all the love, appreciation, and admiration I had for her as my mom, not knowing when she'd die. I remember sobbing uncontrollably literally the whole time we were waiting to board the airplane as I wrote the letter - it tore me up inside to be leaving her once again.

Here's one of the most meaningful things she wrote in response to that last handwritten letter to her:

_________________________________________________________________
Dear [Anna],

I've reread your letter to me you wrote at the [USA] airport.  It still makes me cry. 
I want you to know how very proud of you I am, and that the life that you are living has been my dream since I was young.  Little would I have guessed that while I was not permitted to do the kind of thing you are doing, my dear daughter would be called to do so.
While I know that security is not a feeling, and I know that you will be wise in everything you do, I still have the natural concerns for your  (all of your) safety.  I know that you are as safe as you can be in His will and that He is ultimately in charge.  Of course, that is the greatest comfort in being so far away from you.

How I long to come to you and to help you set up your house, do the things that a Grandma would do.  I pray I will be able to in a few months.  In the meantime, please know how very much my spirit is with you, loving you, your husband and children, and sharing the excitement of reaching your goal.
I love you so much it hurts.

Mom

____________________________________________________________________

While I did send a video of myself giving a tribute to her which I Fedexed from Kabul and was played at her funeral, here is the short tribute I wrote after she died:

[My Mother's Name]

As Mom herself predicted, she would not make it to her 66th birthday (April 13).  After a four-and-a-half-year battle against cancer, she died Tuesday morning at 11:17am and was immediately ushered into Heaven.  Please remember Dad in your prayers as he transitions to not having Mom to care for.

I am proud to be her daughter and of the life she lived.  Her funeral will be a celebration of a life lived well for His glory.  She was grace-filled to the end as she walked the path chosen for her and saw her body decay faster than her mind.  I am sad to not be with the family in [the USA] for her funeral, but trust in His provision for my needs in this season of deep sadness.

I am deeply thankful to so many of you who have been lifting up Mom and our family during this long and weary cancer fight.  Thank you for the e-mails so many of you have sent.  I have been unable to respond to them all personally, but I am deeply touched by the outpouring of love for Mom as well as for me as I grieve far away from the family. 
_____________________________________________________________________

Sadly, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer while Mom was still on her deathbed. Mom never knew that before she died. I'm fairly certain the stress of caring for Mom while she herself was a mother of young children was a contributing factor of her own health problems.

Another long season of chemo and not being there for my sister as we were still in Afghanistan. Every time she received a bad white cell count, chemo report, or had a bad scan, it just about "ate me up" inside, knowing that if my sister died I'd be the last woman of my immediate family of 6.

Thankfully, Dear Sister is still alive and doing well after 5 years.

How do I view all of this time-lag in grieving my mom?

My Heavenly Father knew what would happen through the years, and gave me just want I needed at each moment. He knew what I could handle, and gently led me through it all. Even so, at times I've been desperately hungry for mother-love and father-love.

But He has been so faithful to me, bringing people into my life when I least expected it to give me the right words of encouragement and strength to go on.There are numerous examples of when He had someone send me an e-mail, call me, or just in some way communicated His pride of me and love for me as I've walked this journey.   I testify to His faithful, holy, and steadfast love for all those who love Him.

Here's our family purpose statement, one that Dear Husband and I wrote before we ever went to Afghanistan. It has helped me through the many scary times in Afghanistan and the many troubles we've faced together.

FAMILY PURPOSE STATEMENT:
Our Purpose is to live by simple trust and confidence in Him, unflinching, unawed and undismayed by the troubles we may face, holding staunchly to our calling and enduring steadfastly with our gaze fixed on Him.