“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward” – C.S. Lewis
The last six months have been incredibly tough. Every day has been a struggle and a battle to move forward. I tend to be a private person when it comes to ‘deep’ things, but writing for me has always been cathartic. Chase and I have been dealt a difficult hand, and it’s been such a learning process for us. We’ve experienced the stages of grief—denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—and some days we go through the cycle multiple times. We’ve been trying to cross the monkey bars, letting go of the past so we can move forward. Unfortunately, I’ve always been real clumsy and have no hand-eye-coordination, so I’ve fallen off the monkey bars... A lot. Some falls are just bumps and bruises, others feel more like gashing wounds and fractures.
I am so glad that I’ve had such a wonderful husband that is crossing the monkey bars with me.
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).
We have been one flesh through this process. When he grieves, I grieve. When he has a small victory, so do I. Every day has its highs and lows, but every day we become closer, more as one unified flesh, than the day before.
It seems that those fighting the biggest battles are often the most quiet about it. We are not public people, and we don’t like others knowing our most vicious battles. This experience that Chase and I continue to fight has taught me so many things.
1. Laughter truly is the best medicine. Part of the grief cycle is depression, and we truly have experienced the lowest of lows the last few months. There have been days when there was only darkness and it felt there would never be light again. There have been a lot of tears, a lot of fear, a lot of pain. However, we have made it a point to laugh and find the positive. We don’t get upset about the little things. When dinner turns out to be a disaster and it smells and looks horrible, we laugh about it and go out to eat. We don’t point fingers, we don’t scold the other person. We’re a team now. We are to be unified in flesh. We have to laugh together at the daily mishaps—the spills, the ruined dinners, the forgotten groceries, the unplugged crockpots. Laughing and humor has been our defense mechanism that has gotten us through the hard times.
2. Everyone is fighting their own battles and demons.Because I have always used humor as a defense mechanism, people tend to have no idea what is really going on inside my head. I’m like Shrek—we both have layers that aren’t for just anyone to peel back and get to the center of. This has been a technique that works for me. When something bad happens, I try to play it off and cover up the pain with humor. Fake it till you make it. This can be frustrating at times though when I really want to just sob and breakdown and yet no one knows what is going on. This has taught me the importance of empathy and patience. Everyone has their own monkey bars to cross, whether or not they let you see what their trial is. I think if we all would take a step back and take a minute to help peel back layers, we would be shocked to know what people were silently fighting.
3. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Some of Christ’s last words on the cross were directed at those that had hurt him the most. He was hurting—physically and emotionally—due to the actions of others, yet he had no anger or malice. This has been the greatest example for us-- being able to have no anger despite the circumstances. This has been anything but easy. We’ve been taught strategies on letting go and work on them daily. Some events take longer than others. I picture myself on the bank of a river. The “event” is simply a single leaf floating by. I don’t hang on to it. I don’t let it consume me. At the end of the day, I am able to think of all the good and go to bed cheerful and happy.
With every day that goes by, we get stronger. We become stronger with our relationship with each other, stronger with our relationship to Christ, and stronger with our relationships with family and friends. We are more confident in ourselves and we are happier because of it. We are moving forward on the monkey bar, letting go of past experiences and looking ahead to new ones.
