Her boxes arrived today. He brought them back to me...
from His house.
He dropped them off...
unceremoniously
at the door,
well not the front door, but the garage door,
a garage very like the one
He stood in four years ago,
12 days after she lay in my arms,
her eyes looking far beyond me...
and on that day,
four years ago, 12 days after she traveled far away,
I had come to the kitchen door
that separated the house
from the garage
to see what He was doing,
and I stood
speechless
as I watched Him lift an arm-load of her shoes into a box...
but before He dropped them...
into the box,
I saw her Doc Marten boots,
black
leather
chunky
clunky
funky
size 8
on top...
and a dry, hoarse cry,
made it's very sick escape from me...
and I called out to God!!!
"No!"
"Don't!"
"Don't throw them away!"
"Not her shoes!"
(even though they were boots, all of her shoes seemed to be whispering
whispering to me...
..."She won't walk in me anymore...")
and I felt as though I was begging for my own life
and hers
and He turned to look at me...
His face dark,
ominous,
perhaps tortured too, because my friends were so fond of saying..."that is how men grieve dear..."
and He said in low-thunder tones...
"Why..can't..you..just..be..happy..she's..in..heaven!"
...and my mind began to shake...and of course, the crying got harder,
(well it would, wouldn't it?),
and then the shaking and the crying grew more annoying to Him and
He looked at me...but not in a good way...in a way that said..."I am so sick of this...carrying on over something that I can not fix and can not change!"...and this was just 12 days after...she..........
...and I got very quiet...my face dark, ominous too,
and I thought to myself...(and I thought it really hard, really loud and really strong...)
someday...
...and that someday came. Today.
I have her boots.
They came today...at my garage door...
in the house I live in, with a garage door that is mine, separated by a kitchen
that is mine
and I have her boots
and they are mine
and she is mine
and no, I am still not happy that she is not with me. Of course...
I am happy she is in heaven, but only because...
Someday...I will be too.
Post script: I wrote a lovely little poem about how men and women grieve differently not too long after everything happened...but this is what really happened...and this is how I really felt...without all my Christian cossetting. And I still believe she is with God and I will be with them both someday.
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I love your ability to describe a particular scene..a moment in time. Men do like to be able to fix a situation don't they. The boots certainly illustrated the rawness of your pain. It is always something small that triggers the pain and emotion and it does need to find a voice.
