I have so many unpublished posts that I have written over the past 11 years. About once a year I go back and read them bringing on a flood of emotions. I don't know why I am afraid to post some of them. Maybe I worry people will think I talk too much about Branson, or grief or life struggles, when in reality we all struggle. My struggle is no worse than any one else's and we are all just surviving. I am reminded though that sometimes speaking our pain, our grief, our inner thoughts, helps someone not feel so alone. So here is a compilation of past drafts I never posted. If they seem like unfinished thoughts, it is because they are. I usually would get overwhelmed with emotion, stop writing, and never go back to it. I am starting with the oldest and moving towards the most recent. Although I clearly still have healing that needs to take place, looking back at the oldest posts to now I can see the healing. One day at a time...God is healing me and using me for his glory.
I do promise I have so much joy in my life and I will make a post about this so it doesn't seem like all I do is wallow in my sadness. My life is full of pure joy and I am blessed beyond all I could imagine. This is just a big part of my life that I openly like to share.
(May 2015)
Mother's Day was yesterday, and it was a very nice day. Just time spent with family, but a piece of my heart was in heaven.
As I sat nursing my youngest last night, I thought of how he reminds me of Branson in a pulling at my heart, longing kind of way. He looks like him and acts like him and is just more like him than I am willing to admit. Austin was easier it seems, he didn't remind me as much of Branson, so it seemed easier to separate his life from Branson's tragedy. But Hudson, oh how he reminds me of him. As you can imagine this is hard for me on a daily basis. I fear losing him daily and every moment I am with him in my arms I stare and try to soak it in to remember every second of it in case it is my last, in case it is a memory I must cling to for a lifetime. And every second he is not with me I worry that I will get THAT call or THAT text again.
(2016)
(Spring) This June, Branson has been gone four years, I have been healing for four years. I heal a little and then something, some bending or changing in my life, causes the wound to open up again and it starts bleeding again. It starts hurting and throbbing with pain. It hurts so deep down to my core that I feel like the wound is fresh and sometimes it seems to get worse. Then it heals up again, as before, only to be broken open again and again which each little bump or scrap. Many times I would protect the wound with a band aid or I would put ointment on it to help heal it more quickly. The band aid did very little other than stop the pain from being so strong when a bump would happen. The ointment on the other hand, it soothed my wound and allowed it to heal more quickly. As my band aid for my wounds I have placed walls up and although I let them down again and again, if something hits me a little too hard and causes a burst of pain I throw those walls back up to protect me. I close myself in and fight off anyone or anything who tries to enter. These moments have happened less and less over time, but I can still shut down when I am feeling vulnerable about my pain. Then comes my ointment, reading scripture and prayer. Only when I search out God and pray for him to hold me and guide me do I feel the pain slowly dissipate.
(Fall) I have had to confront many emotions lately. So much has happened to me in the past 3 to 4 years and although I processed my feelings as each event occurred I continued to push each feeling down as I knew I needed to push forward and take care of my kids. I was their constant, they needed me to be strong and show them how to make it through. Now years later I realize that not facing my pains, hurts and needs have caused me shame, or guilt...or both. I have always been hard on myself, wanting to be perfect in all things, but as a wife in my previous marriage I felt like I was never good enough. This was exacerbated by many traumatic things along the way, but all it did was continue to make me feel less than. I had convinced myself that I was not good enough for anyone or anything. I was unworthy of love. I was so ashamed that I could not fix the problems.
(September 2021)
Tonight I sat on my bathroom floor and cried. I wept and couldn't stop. No matter how hard I cried I felt like I wasn't crying hard enough. I felt like it was just so built up in me and I couldn't cry hard enough to let out everything I had in me to cry out about. I cried and I couldn't stop crying, wave after wave of the ugly cry came. I cried out to God in my weeping and I asked "Why is this so hard?" Then I answered myself before I gave him the chance to answer. We do seem to do this don't we, trying to have control of the answers God gives us about the questions we ask him. My answer to myself was "This isn't that hard, there is so much you have to be thankful for and so much God has given you, stop complaining!" Then God's voice, although quiet, came through with a gentleness but firmness and answered, "You are healing my child". I stopped crying and where the tears once fell no more would come. Healing? It sounds good, but why does it hurt to heal? Then I saw this wound I have had on my finger that has been trying to heal for a few weeks but because it was right on my knuckle, it kept breaking open when I would bend my finger. When it would break open it would hurt again. Reflecting on this (while still sitting on my bathroom floor) I began to understand how truly ugly healing is. It's not a smudge of dirt on your hand you can wipe away and never think of again. It's a gapping hole that is constantly exposed to the elements of life and going untreated can consume your thoughts and begin to infect your entire soul. One thing is true, I will never be the same as I was before, I have scars and wounds that are still healing. In this moment of reflection I accepted a part of my healing that I had been holding back. I began to let go of feelings of regret and fault for anything that has happened. You see, no matter how much I know that every trauma that has happened in my life recently isn't my fault, I still have that feeling that I could have changed everything. This isn't just about Branson's life either, it is about so many things.
(June 2022)
June 12, 2012 my life shifted and began down an alternate route. It's as if I was driving at night on a dark country road, but a familiar road, that I would drive every day. I knew the twists and turns, and could drive this road with such ease little thought was needed to drive in the dark. It's one of those familiar roads that I could drive down blasting my favorite song and sing it at the top of my lungs, just enjoying life. But this time, suddenly something looks different ahead, I almost don't catch it since I am lost in the song, but I see something, a road block? a cow in the road? and as I approach can see that the road that used to be there is now being torn apart and is no longer there. This familiar road that I knew so well was gone. I have to slam on my brakes to avoid the closure. I have no other choice but to follow the detour and turn down a side road. This road is far less familiar and is a dirt road that has formed dips in the road that are bigger than I think my car can manage, but there is no turning back, the road behind me is closed. I cannot go back. So I forge forward hitting some bumps and holes while trying to avoid bigger ones. The further I go down the road it begins to smooth out at times, but it becomes bumpy again. No longer a familiar road, I cannot see ahead and I do not know what is coming.
This has been my life for a decade, although the bumps aren't as big and the road seems smoother, I still cannot see what is coming. Grief is this road I travel now. I can only see the moment in front of me and fear of the unknown is a constant in my mind. I often think of the day Branson passed. How it was such a beautiful day, I had joy heading to work, a little perk in my step knowing I would get off work early and get to see my kids right after lunch. The image of Branson smiling up at me as I left him that morning is burned in my memory. I left work grabbed some food and was singing at the top of my lungs when a phone call changed everything. After that phone call I sped down the road praying and begging with God to not make it true, to make it a dream.
(September 2024)
There are days lately that I am just so lost in my grief again. I keep having flashbacks and vividly remember these moments that are moments I don't want to forget, but are not moments I want to relive. Instead of push them away I live in the moment, because it is a memory of Branson and I want to always remember these. I am constantly feeling him everywhere lately. I see things that make me think of him, hear songs or see places and objects that immediately bring him to me. So many things, I feel as if there is something he is trying to say to me, but I can't grasp it completely yet. I keep remembering the moment he was carried in from the ambulance to the room in the hospital and the last moments I held him at the hospital as well as at the funeral home the morning of his memorial. My heart aches every time I flashback to these moments, It is just a memory, yet I can feel myself holding him. I can feel the pain I felt in that moment and the despair and loss I felt. It has ripped my grief wound open again. This causes me to want to shut down and pull away, be alone and mourn.
I'm not sure how long this wound will take to heal, or if it will heal at all in my life time. I know that God is working in me and has placed people in my life to truly help me heal, and to those people I say...thank you, without you I would be lost.
If you made it this far I appreciate you in my life. Reading all my thoughts shows your true care for me. Continue to pray for me as I heal and let me be open to God speaking through me to help others that may struggle with healing as well.
Britni
