Do you ever feel like you need to be a certain way for other people? Duh, of course you do. If you say no, you’re lying. That’s how I’ve felt about blogging this week. I feel pressure (from only myself of course) to post about the birthday party this past weekend and include pictures. Well guess what? I don’t have any pictures yet and I don’t feel like sitting down and rehashing everything without pictures…so I’m not going to write a post about it. I’m not ready yet. Yes, the party was great but I just don’t want to say so….yet.
I’ve also been holding two things back that I actually want to write about but felt like I needed time to construct the right words to talk about both. But guess what? I don’t! I’m just going to blurt them out because I can’t stop thinking about them. First I’ll share sad news but keep reading because it will be followed by good news. I wish the good news had to do with the bad news but they are actually completely separate events.
My mother’s brother, my Uncle, was shot in the head two weeks ago and died last week. Blah, there, I said it. It’s out and it’s terrible. His life has been anything but perfect and he’s had ups and downs. Sometimes he’d been gone for a while then randomly show back up. He struggles but my mom never seemed to worry about him. About a month ago she called me with glee in her voice because she just got off the phone with her brother. Completely out of character he called her up one day just to talk. I’m not sure how often they would speak throughout the year but judging by the excitement that he called I’m assuming it wasn’t often. She said he sounded happy and didn’t ask for money. He had a girlfriend of four years and things seem to be going well for him. He just wanted to talk with my mom and see how she was. I’m sure the conversation could have not lasted more than an hour but she treasured that phone call as if he called with good news. The good news simply being he was thinking about her.
This is the second phone call my Mom has received that someone she holds in the inner circle of her heart has died. The first one being her Father and I happen to answer that phone call New Years day years ago. I’ll never, ever forget her facial expression and shrill scream after my Great Aunt told her the news. This time the phone call came days after the incident when detectives were finally able to get a phone number for a family member. The details are not importable except that the bullet was not intended for him. I don’t know if it makes me sadder to hear that someone was or was not aiming for him; either way, irrelevant. He was put on life support long enough for the family to say their goodbyes; Thursday night they went ahead and let him go.
It breaks my heart for my mother because I’m a firm believer death tears a person up and they should only have to burry one immediate family member in their lifetime. Of course God has a plan I simply do.not.understand and fortunately he makes people, like my Mom, strong enough to “handle it”. This week she is across the country spending time with family and making arrangements for the memorial service. Just hearing her voice on the phone I know she is radiating with faith. Her voice lit up when she told me she was able to talk to her Mom about Christ. How can someone dealing with such a tragedy be so joyous? God has literally wrapped her up in a blanket of peace and giving her the strength to be there.
So there it is, my crappy news I’ve been holding in. Like I said there is happy news but I just don’t have time to write it now. Maybe two posts in one day? Or maybe it will wait until tomorrow.
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