Another week over

This week I met with some old friends for dinner. I met up with Matt and his wife- he was my boyfriend in 8th/ 9th grade. Haven't seen him in 9 years. I had dinner with friends from Thompson's. Haven't seen some of them in 3 years. I went to the Concord Christmas Parade with Ariel, Amory and her wonderful family. I danced at work. I rolled out our new Manual at work. So many things I would love to tell HeeJun. So many new things.

The Parade was my first since being a grown up. Man, this holiday season is going to be rough.

I also starting reading A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. Here are some quotes and my comments;
"Lewis had been invited to the great feast of marriage and the banquet was rudely snatched away from him before he had done more than sample the hors d'oevres" During Lewis' grief he asked "Where is God...Go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face". My own feelings towards God are all over the place right now. Sometimes I have never felt more closely the strength of His presence and at other times I feel like it is all a lie, and He is not good. At times I scoff when told He has a plan, God is good, BLAH BLAH BLAH. HeeJun would have laughed at that. I scoff uncontrollably sometimes and HeeJun always thought is was funny.

"Lewis mentions the feeling of fear..." Lewis said grief feels like being afraid. My grief feels more like being ripped in half. All of the sudden it will hit. I go about the day just fine, not 100%, but at least 60% at work, and then BOOM, i go to the DMV or Baby's R Us and I break down sobbing. But, I yearn for those sobs, those broken tears. Weird, but I look forward to them. When I am not crying and when I am doing all that normal crap, it just doesn't seem right. I still hate being told that I am healing. It feels like if I heal or start doing ok, it will take away from how great HeeJun was and how much I hurt.

- "Remember to swallow"- I have to remember to breathe.
"Forgetfullness"- I have double booked and left out and repeated myself so many times at work. I have gotten so behind on paper work. It's the little things that get overwhelming.
"Horror of those who say "Thy will be done""- Yep, I cringe and refuse to sing songs that say "brokenness is what I long for, or break me, Lord. Whatever. Those people have no clue what they are really asking.
"Soaring Joy which is in finding and winning the mate whom God prepareded for us; and the crushing blow, the loss which is Satan's corruption of that great gift of loving and being loved."
"Writing down his thoughts helped him make sense of the whirling chaos assaulting his mind"
"C.S. Lewis, the writer of so much that is so clear and so right, this strong and determined Christian, he too fell headlong into the vortex of whirling thoughts and feelings and dizzily groped for support and guidance deep in the dark chasm of grief"- Well, that's comforting...

"There is an invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. Yet, I want others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not me"- Yep, me too. Sometimes, it feels like I am pushing out caring words or even any words. I don't want anyone around, but I don't want to be alone, Vicious cycle...

C.S. Lewis wrote that sometimes he felt like he would be o.k. He had plenty of resources and thought people get over these things. He was happy before he met his wife. Then he said he would have a sudden jab of red hot memory and all that "common sense talk" would vanish. It seems true to me, too. At times thoughts of I will be o.k creep in. I am managing at work. I am managing at home. My house is getting clean. I am staying busy. Then I walk into the room, and catch a glimpse of HeeJun's shoes and fall apart.

"No one ever told me the laziness of grief. I loathe the slightest effort"- YEP! I can't get alot done at work or at home because I am constanlty restless. My mind goes a mile a minute. I remember I forgot to write that assessment, then while writing the assessment, I remember I need to tell Kato something, then I get sidetracked by a kid, then I remember the laundry needs to get done...

C.S Lewis struggled with the idea that God was not good after all. HE said " you never know how much you believe something until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of death for you." A rope is strong until you have to use it to hold you. God was good and I could trust him easily, until everything else in life pointed the opposite.

I'm not done with the book yet. It has been the only book I can really get through and pay attention to. I read the Mourning Handbook, too. I tried to read 90 minutes in Heaven, but I'm not quite ready for that.

"The act of living is different all through"- Everything changes, but stays the same. I still go to my favorite restaurants. I still go the the gym (a different one now, because I ended up crying on the treadmill. It was too hard to see all those happy people who had still been working out the past three months. Didn't they know one of their members had died? Why didn't they all stop?) I still watch lots and lots and lots of tv. But it is all different.

Lewis wrote that he started to put on his own beliefs and attitudes onto his wife. If he liked things, he would say she would have loved it. I have to remember that HeeJun was not me. I see his family and I doing that sometimes, making him into something he was not. Idolizing him, I guess. I have to remember the real HeeJun. Sometimes when I am talking about him or looking at pictures, that life seems like a fairy tale, like it didn't really happen. Lewis wrote and I agree that it is appalling to say "so and so will live forever in my memory. Their spirit will live on". LIVE? And for me, I hope HeeJun's spirit lives in Heaven with Christ, sitting next to Him, not inside the deary and sad me. poor guy. that would suck if he had to live inside of me.