Sorrow has overflowed my soul…Bare with me as I journal my grief…I’m trying to find healing…I’m trying to find hope…
Welcome to my mind.
Find my previous entry here: #103: The Silence that Screams
What was it? 3 days…4 days…Maybe 5 since he died? Days were beginning to blur. Screaming sessions, involuntary moments of weeping had taken up much of my energy. Sleep was the only true escape that I had. Surprisingly, I could actually find reprieve…
I found comfort in the darkness.
I took the four hour drive back to Hayesville for the third time in less than 4 days. The only difference was that my best friend, my grandfather, for the first time in my entire life, wouldn’t be there.
It wasn’t that he had gone on a trip. He wasn’t fishing. He hadn’t slipped away to run a few errands for my grandmother. None of that.
He was gone.
The horrific emptiness of the house screamed incessantly the moment I walked in the door. The irony was that it was full of people.
This wasn’t the kind of family reunion I was looking for.
I stood in the kitchen the morning of his funeral waiting for him to leisurely stroll out of the bedroom with his white undershirt tucked into his bootcut blue jeans.
I sat on the floor in front of his chair, hoping to turn around to see his rugged and worn, yet soft face beaming back at me.
Empty.
I didn’t dare sit in it. That was his chair.
My mother, my sister, and I opened up the doors to his closet to sort through his belongings. We only stood and cried.
A nightmare. Such sadness had never been seen inside of those walls. He would have been angry that we were crying, but to hell with it. We needed to let go.
We were the first to arrive at the church…The funeral home had carefully prepared his body for viewing…Casket wide open.
I stepped foot into the church auditorium and lost my breath. The sorrow was tangible in that room. Memories of Christmas Eve services…Sunday morning church…washed over my heart. Fishing trips…Vacations in Orlando…Trips to Wal-Mart…
And then I saw him for the first time since he had passed. The funeral home had glossed him over with makeup…We joked because he would have hated it…Laughter turned to tears…
The sound of Gospel Quartets echoed in the background…Little did I know that it was his Gospel Quartet. He had a beautiful voice…Distinct. You could pull it out of a choir…
The morning was a blur…Even as I sit writing I’m having a hard time piecing it all together…Repressed? Too emotional?
All I remember thinking during the service was, “Where’s Papa?”
My Grandmother and Mother sat directly in front of me…Typically, Papa would have been directly to her right…He was, but this time he was in a casket.
I wept that morning like I had never wept. I’m supposed to be strong right? Supposed to have it together?
I had never lost such a large piece of my heart before. I thought I knew sorrow.
Some glad morning, when this life is o’er
I’ll fly away
To a home on God’s celestial shore,
I’ll fly away
On a technical scale, the service was beautiful. My father gave an incredible eulogy, the choir sung gloriously, and his memory was honored.
We sang, we prayed, we cried.
I watched from a distance as they delivered his casket to the hearse, slammed the door, and drove away.
It was the last time I’d ever see him again.
Oh, that heaven would come soon.
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