Tears

Yesterday was a difficult day. I kept crying all day.

Perhaps it started with the pastor's sermon on "Why Jesus Had to Die." The first reason he gave? To teach us about suffering. "God wanted us to know that no suffering is senseless." That is a ray of sunshine in the morass of grief that overwhelms me at times. I don't know what use God will make of this year, but I clung to that reassurance even as tears bunched behind my eyelids and leaked out.

The last reason he mentioned was to give us eternal life. Oh, Jolene, that promise holds me up even as it taunts me. You are there, but I am still here.

Then a friend drove me to the hospital to visit Mom by a different route. We drove past a coffee stand where a particularly memorable moment occurred. (It does not reflect well on my mother, so I won't repeat it.) A few minutes later, we passed a miniature golf course where the three of us had played. I had such a hard time walking around the course; Jolene got a little impatient. She was young, and enjoyed physical activities during our visits. I couldn't do nearly as much as she wanted. I didn't know, of course I didn't, that we would never play another game of miniature golf together.

The loss ... the permanence ... I don't want to accept it. But I must.

About Mom: She's moved into a rehab hospital, not the one we first expected, but one where they can continue to monitor her ongoing problems with diabetes and kidney failure. She is discouraged about the unexpected problems. Her heart appears to be healing well. Her surgeon said perhaps the diabetes/kidney problems were lurking.