never-ending pain

I know why it’s called a broken heart. No, it’s not just the metaphor of the heart as the center of feeling. When grief is deep and relentless, you feel literal pain in your chest.

I felt it all the time in the beginning. Now it comes and goes, never offering warning before it pounces. Somehow grief feels like both a predator and a friend, a thief and a companion. That’s fitting, I suppose, because grief is all about the both/and realities.

I can both laugh about silly Christmas memories and hate that he will never be present in new ones. I’m glad I’m back in a liturgical tradition of faith, because my soul needs advent. It needs the both/and, the already but not yet. Jesus is coming, but he’s not here yet.

I believed in an afterlife in an intellectual sort of way before Lee died. Now all rational analysis is gone, because I can’t breathe without the hope that his life continues into eternity and mine will too. If I’m wrong, I don’t want to know any different, because surviving this depends on telling myself stories of heaven.

Imprecatory psalms are my jam right now too. While the language is more polished, David sounds a lot like he’s praying my common prayer of “what the actual fuck, God?” in most of those. When Christians get uncomfortable about how open I am with my pain or question my raw expressions of lament, I know they haven’t read their bibles. Some day I’ll make an assigned reading list for friends of grievers, a list to remind us that the cheerfulness of our cultural Christianity is more culture than Christianity.

Tonight is one of those nights when my chest literally hurts. I’ll take a Xanax soon, but right now I’m breathing through the pain and letting myself feel it all. I know the only way is through it.

I also know that there’s not going to be another side to reach in this life. There isn’t an overcoming of his death. No light at the end of the tunnel offers the reward we want most. We’re running the race, but we know it’s one with no finish line.

Living with Lee gave me a safety net. I could fall into his arms, fall into the security of his income, fall into the love we shared. Now, I’m still on this tightrope of life, but without the comfort of knowing who I call if my car breaks down and who I list as my emergency contacts. Friends are intermittently spotting me, but they can’t be everywhere. Some nights I have to journey in the dark on my own.

I’m mixing so many metaphors in this post, but I’m not sorry. I just answered a call from my daughter’s Big Brothers Big Sisters program, and I realized I didn’t have it in me to carry on the conversation. I said, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this right now. My husband died four months ago, and it’s Christmas. I don’t know when a good time will be, but I know it isn’t one right now.” Some weeks it feels like there isn’t going to be a good time ever again.

It’s awkward to say that I can’t talk right now because 150ish days ago, a wave knocked my husband to the ground with enough force to break his neck, immediately paralyzing him and severing the nerves that control major bodily functions like breathing and blood flow. He wouldn’t be declared dead until 24 hours later, but he was already mostly gone when I got to him on the beach. So, no, right now isn’t the best time to talk.

When people ask what I need, my mind goes blank except for this: I need him back. But no one can give that, so I don’t say the words I think.

I’m crying more nowadays. I don’t know it that’s good or not. I think it just is.

It feels like gravity disappeared July 19 when he died. I was at home in him. We all were. And now all the properties of the world as we knew it are gone. We have to learn how to not float away from everything without his grounding force.

Typical metaphors fail. How do you express that you feel like you’re drowning when your husband actually did? How do you talk about waves of grief knocking you down unexpectedly when literal waves doing that were the cause of death? How do you ever look at the beach or water the same way ever again?

I can’t even consider wearing a bathing suit yet, maybe ever. I grew up in Florida, the beach a second home of sorts, my backyard pool my first home. I swam competitively in high school and was goalie for Carolina’s water polo team in college. I’m a water girl.

Correction: I was a water girl.

I don’t know who or what I am anymore. I hurt. The heart pain reminds me I’m alive and he’s not.

That’s all I know for sure.

Breathe. Eat. Show up.

I don’t know what to say anymore. I’m writing again, I’m pitching stories, I’m crafting words again.

But I don’t know what to say here, except that I’m still breathing.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

photo by Amy Paulson Photography

After I emailed her from a dark procedure room where a social worker had stashed a recliner for me to rest on that horrible night, a friend replied, “Deep breaths and make sure you are eating something.” Those words are still guiding me today, through Thanksgiving yesterday, through decorating today, through family visits and a trip to Santa tomorrow.

Santa can’t offer what I want.

But Santa — Black Santa, that is, the best in the land and only one we recognize — can offer familiarity to my children and routine to my chaotic heart. He’s magic, yes, but death defies the trappings and tinsel of the season. I don’t know that Santa will do much for me, but he will christen the coming month with goodness for the kids.

Goodness is hard to find for me. Some days I find it in God. Some days I find it in gratitude. Some days I don’t find it at all.

photo by Amy Paulson Photography

One thing I’m not seeking, though, is a solution. No goodness is hidden in false fixes. Unless you can rewind time to midday on July 18, 2019, you can’t cure the wounds left behind that day. Arriving to disaster with empty hands feels uncomfortable, I know. But filling your hands with platitudes or prayers or promises you can’t begin to keep? Those are all meant to make you feel better. They do nothing for me.

Showing up with empty hands, with enough empathy to know no tool can repair this, with a readiness to sit in the char and ash without trying to drag me out of it…

that tells me you see me,

love me,

accept me as I am.

It will be uncomfortable, but so is everything now. It will be awkward, but July 19 was the day everything turned awkward. I’m not sure I’ll ever know anything else again.

photo by Amy Paulson Photography

Showing up is all we have, for ourselves, for each other, for our kids, even for the dead. Lee’s story isn’t over. It lives on in everyone who loved him, who knew him, who became better humans by his influence. It lives on in me and in each of our six children, who will carry his heart in theirs until they meet again.

Showing up looks different for each of us. Angie takes my oldest two to school each morning and never expects me to wear a mask for my real feelings. Kim mails cards consistently, even though I haven’t replied to any yet. Kari mails my favorite brand of paper towels month after month. Kelly and Lise are my go to friends for a fountain Diet Coke and company; Angie H. has me covered for ice cream on Fridays.

Ruthie flew from Minnesota in August, and Andrea is here from Canada this week, and the week of Lee’s death I received love from Colorado and California and Alabama and Florida and DC and Virginia and Texas and other places I can’t even remember. Local friends have shown up with meals, even now, even four months later. Other friends have shown up by sending Christmas gifts ordered from a wishlist Gina created or daily necessities from another Lisa made or even items from personal wishlists for me and Jocie and Patience and Philip and Robbie and Patricia and Zoe that began a decade ago for my family, before they disowned us, lists I only continued with hope that they might return to them someday.

Nicole prewatches a new show we both like to let me know if there are any hospital scenes. Several friends have messaged or texted or emailed with spoilers from movies like Frozen 2 — from triggering scenes to the preview for Onward — to make sure I’m not caught unaware. Alicia’s laughter about my ridiculous Christmas decor is fueling me to get through the motions of lights and trees and ornaments and all the obnoxious inflatables I can fit in one yard, because I love it and because the kids do too and because sometimes sameness feels just like security.

We’ve had so many people show up for us that I can’t name everyone. We’re overtaken with gratitude. At the same time, we miss our one person so much that we’re overwhelmed with grief.

photo by Amy Paulson Photography

Showing up is what we’re doing too. Showing up to the alarm clock, showing up to the shower, showing up to carpool, showing up to wherever we need to be (or not, if we can’t), showing up to be a family of a different configuration than before.

Some days it’s all I can do to show up

to breathe.

to eat.

to take my meds.

to see my therapist.

to support the kids as they breathe and eat and take meds and go to therapy.

Maybe for you this is a season of showing up for us, and we are grateful. Maybe this is a season of showing up for someone else, and we are glad you are loving others well. Or maybe this is a season of showing up in self care, and I am proud of you for learning to love yourself as well as you love your neighbor.

Show up.

Breathe.

Eat.

Repeat.

We can do this. We are doing this. And when we can’t? That’s why we have each other.

photo by Amy Paulson Photography

what I said at my husband's funeral

Lee and I met in New Orleans over New Years when I was 18 and he was 19, both of us freshmen in college, me at UNC and him at NC State. I tried to set him up with my friend Katherine, because she saw him first and that meant dibs, and I’ve never been more grateful for a failure than I am for my failure to be a matchmaker for the two of them. We fell hard and fast for each other in a matter of days, and right before we kissed at midnight, we made the New Years resolution that once we were back at school, we would try to make this thing work.

Sounds like a movie or something, right? I couldn’t make this stuff up, though. Our love really was a fairy tale.

We weren’t just Instagram filtered happy. We were happy. We were never one of those couples who existed in parallel to each other: no, we have always been so intertwined that it’s hard to tell where one of us ended and the other began. And yet, here we are.

Our first Valentine’s Day together, I had what student health called the worst case of mono they had ever seen. So we could celebrate, he showed up to my dorm room with a stuffed bear, some bland grocery store sandwiches that he knew I could stomach, a couple bottles of Gatorade, and a bag of Hershey’s Kisses so, as he said then, “I can still give you kisses.” He also brought battery-operated candles because this was in my dorm and real candles weren’t allowed. He was always more of a rule follower than me, him the steady while I’m the swirling.

I share that Valentine’s Day story because it is such a Lee story. He showed up in whatever way you needed. And he’s still showing up, in the ways all of you are loving us so well. Together, Lee and I stepped out in faith into so many hard and complex situations, trusting that we didn’t need to have it all figured out just yet, but that our people and our God would sustain us, and now I’m venturing into this new and unwanted reality with that same sort of faith.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that death is an amputation, and it sure feels that way right now. I feel like we are missing a part of ourselves. Lee and I had a joke between us, based on the Bible verse about how marriage is two becoming one flesh. We’d be talking to someone, and if they asked something of us and I said “sure, we can do that!” then after they walked away, he might whisper, “you meant that as the one flesh we, right?” And I would reply, “oh, yeah. I definitely meant you would do it. One flesh, right?”

I don’t think C.S. Lewis was right, though. His analogy is based in the ableism that says amputation lessens a person, but I know all of us who were touched by Lee are made better and fuller, our hearts made even more whole, by having him in our lives. The night I told the kids, one of them asked me, “why does this place right here hurt so badly?” I think a lot of us relate to that right now. And I’ll tell you what I told him, “it’s because you love Daddy big and he loved you big. We have big hurt right now because we had big love.” And that’s how it is - we’re always changing and growing, even having memories turn a bit blue like in the movie Inside Out when sadness touches them. 

And having known Lee, none of us are made less by any of this. He made us all more, more of the people who God created us to be. As he often told the kids, “be good humans,” and we are all better humans because of him.

Another of the kids said to me recently, “Dad said once he wanted people to wear bright colors to his funeral and have it be a celebration... but I don’t think he knew he would die so young.” I agree. I’m not feeling colorful today, though his casket was one bright color and the vault for it painted bright red with an NC State logo on it, which shows how much I love him because - remember - I’m a Carolina girl. 

I want to leave you with the words of one of our youngest ones, a greeting she gave to some visitors in our home this past week. “Hello. This is our house. In this family, we always have big feelings, but especially today. You can cry or you can laugh or you can do whatever you need to do. Whatever you feel is okay.”

Amen to that.

Our GoFundMe is still live, and all funds - even those over the goal - come to us. (And finance nerd friends, rest assured we have an accountant and are covering bases there.) We are beyond grateful for the love shown, especially that the average donation is $50 for the $300,00+ raised so far.

This week I’m assessing all things financial with the help of friends: learning what bills we have and how we pay each bill and what our monthly expenses are, all thing Lee knew or did. All that to say, we set an initial goal, but? It was arbitrary because I don’t even know what the heck for anything.

So grateful for all the help we’ve received so far and will receive as we figure all of this out. I know I can do this, with our amazing support system here, but I really hate that we have to.

Dingle, party of 7

My partner, my love, and my home died Friday, July 19, after a freak accident. Lee was playing in the waves at the beach with three of our kids Thursday, July 18, and an intense wave hit him just right to slam his head into the sand, break his neck, and make his throat swell so much his brain was deprived of oxygen for too long to recover. Some heroes - including our kids - tried to save him, but it wouldn’t have mattered what they did. His body couldn’t recover from the initial injury.

We met when I was 18 and he was 19, and we’ve been together ever since. I wasn’t supposed to be saying goodbye at 37. I don’t know how to be a grown up without him, but I’ll learn. I just wish I didn’t have to.

(To help with all that is to come, friends set up a GoFundMe for us here.)

If you didn’t know him, I’m sorry. You missed out. As you hear people share stories, you’ll think, “no person can be that wonderful,” but? He really and truly was.

In all this, I’m discovering I have the world’s best people. We all feel so held right now, but the person we’d like to hold us won’t do so this side of heaven. I didn’t know it was possible to feel both so loved and so empty all at the same time. This will be a long haul, our lives forever changed, so please keep loving us well months from now

Details to come about all the things. Please pray for us.

Please pray too for Lee’s parents and Lee’s sister and her family. They lost a beloved child and brother.

And, you know, feel free cuss and smash stuff because God knows I’ll be doing some of that. (And breathing and hydrating and eating and taking medicine and all those self care things because I am worth it and because I have 6 little people to parent.)

The strangers on the beach and emergency responders from Oak Island and later medical professionals who worked on Lee are some of the finest and best people in the world. Additional response from Oak Island leaders, including the mayor, has been compassionate and kind. Please know that, if anything, everything involving Oak Island has made me certain it is the finest beach community there is. No one can give us back the one thing we want, but they did and have continued to do literally everything else possible.

I wish my symptoms could be measured

I like symptoms that can be independently measured, outside of my own testimony. I like blood pressure and pulse and even weight in our fatphobic culture. I like obvious damage in x-rays and MRIs. I like mammograms because they are looking for something others will verify as they review the scans. My thyroid levels, my blood sugar, and range of motion measurements are numbers that make sense.

Pain levels aren’t clear. Cognitive functioning is hard to quantify. You have to take my word for it when I talk about fatigue, about my body feeling heavy, about heat intolerance.

For a survivor of sexual assault, I’ve learned my word isn’t enough for some.

“Why would my testimony be proof of health but not sufficient evidence of crimes? If I wait a while with symptoms, will I be asked why I didn’t report my concerns sooner?”

Women aren’t believed, and I’m not talking about rape here. No, women are less likely to receive pain medication, more likely to wait longer for treatment, and more likely to be misdiagnosed with a mental health condition when they have physical symptoms than men under the same circumstances. (Side note: the research generally assumes a gender binary, so I’ll be using the men/women dichotomy here.) Even after major heart surgery, men were twice more likely to be offered opioid pain medications than women… even though women feel pain more acutely than men. This powerful essay describes the incredulity of a husband through his wife’s - in her own words - “trauma of not being seen” when she was ignored for hours in an emergency situation. When they have brain or renal tumors, women are more likely to have to go through more appointments before their diagnosis than men with the same tumors.

Among women, though, I am privileged because of whiteness; black women are more likely to have strokes and less likely to survive them than white women, and they’re more likely to be misdiagnosed for or die from breast cancer. Black women are more likely to die from cervical cancer or die following childbirth, the latter truth illustrated well in the story of Serena Williams who is only alive because she advocated for herself (and probably would have been ignored if she weren’t a well-known champion athlete).

Knowing what I know about women being (dis)believed, I want to measure my complaints with precision. That’s not always possible. I’m going into an appointment tomorrow (Monday) morning during which a CT scan will likely be ordered. But that unbelieved little girl within me worries that my word for my symptoms isn’t enough for the next test to be deemed necessary.

I know I’m a powerful self advocate. I know I can push for what I need. I know how to fight for myself and my health.

But I’m tired. I don’t want to have to fight. I don’t want to be mindful of every word so that my doctor understands the point, so that my symptoms will be taken seriously, so that I can get the care I need.

I want my pain, my malaise, my intolerance to heat to be graphed like my cortisol levels can be. I want to be able to give an undeniable number for my fatigue. I want to be able to show my symptoms in a way that no one can minimize.

But it doesn’t work that way. I’m learning to trust my body, my word, my resilience. I can’t ask doctors to do that, after all, until I can.