6 years later: The next best thing

Today, in these cooler temps, Chuck’s dad had on long pants for physical therapy. For a fleeting moment it looked like his leg might still be there; everything as it once was. Anyone seeing him likely wouldn’t know that his leg is gone, with what could only be the "next best thing" in its place.

It hit me on this day, the 6-year anniversary of my mom’s death, that this is exactly how grief works.

Grief on this very deep level is never less dramatic or upending than it was the day the loss happened. In fact, the only difference at all is that it’s simply less shocking; unchanged, just familiar now. 

Months, years… you are never whole as you once were and this empty space doesn't shrink in time.

You can put every good day, every celebration, every promotion or trip or lottery ticket in its place, even in as close of a fit as you can possibly get… but never will it be what’s missing; only the next best thing. 

Much like the prosthetic, this new life is manufactured. It’s consciously derived, entirely meticulous & remarkably intentional. All of those things, and yet one thing it’s not: forced. 

To truly continue on after such a loss can’t be forced because it requires too much cooperation. It’s careful and deliberate. It’s the most important and serious choice— to walk again, to trust again, to “live” again after loss. 

And like the prosthetic, the grief is often hidden from the view of others but never, never unknown or unfelt by the one wearing it. 

Literally not a single day does this next best thing make you whole; it just helps you to live the life you've been given.

Sometimes I wonder if people who see me happy know that this is just the next best thing. 

Because it is. 

Sometimes I wonder if people who know how close I was to my mom think that I am somehow whole again now. 

Because I’m not.

I find there to be so much solidarity with people who have lost on this level, not because misery loves company, but because no one who has yet to experience it can possibly understand the complexity of intentional living after loss, or the exact degree to which you could truly be happy with the next best thing. Because, by the way, the next best thing is so incredibly important too! 

I’m so thankful for all that I have; namely to be loved so well by the most phenomenal people God ever created, and the opportunity to live intentionally and deliberately, to be somehow softer and stronger, in what would in any other scenario seem entirely contradictory.  

I’m so thankful that now, more than at any time in my life before, I live so vulnerably for having endured (and survived) this heartache. 

I'm so thankful that this massive loss has permanently altered my perspective so that I can't help but view every vacation, every family gathering, every birthday, through the lens of borrowed time-- like God let me have just one more. One more best thing.

I’m not whole. 

I never will be again. 

But I have the next best thing.

And even (and especially) for that, for someone whose life and loss was absolutely everything to me, for the love of someone I wouldn’t even WANT to be whole without... I am eternally thankful.