Will you carry someone else's load?

What a weekend! This was a great weekend for basketball in Tuscola. They needed something to brighten their spirits. Makaley will be having tonsils out and Kauy scared me to death with a tonsil trying to abscess. I did 5 loads of laundry and loaded up a trash can with "junk" and then filled 5 big bags with dead leaves. We all needed spirits lifted and because I can't win at basketball, I do yard work to lift my spirts. Maybe the 5 load of laundry cleaned my soul too. Who knows, but I got after it!
I don't often dwell on the fact that I lost my husband (age 36) in an accident 7 1/2 years ago. I try not to go on and on. This past week, I wrestled with those "old feeling" of true loss. One of the ladies in my "game night" group lost her husband very suddenly this past Tuesday night. I don't know of a more helpless feeling than to just sit and watch someone who was up and going days earlier (in my case hours earlier) lay there and you know you can do nothing but hold on to hope.........whatever that might be at the moment. We say "till death do us part" on a day that we are so in love, on a day that is so perfect, and in a way that is so....just a part of some words we repeat because we just want to be one with this person now! We never imagine that those words could come before we are 75...85....and beyond. But at some point that will happen to one of the two standing there holding hands. My heart has been heavy for the past two weeks. One woman in Tuscola is standing there expecting a son while her husband drifted into the arms of God. My friend Julie stood there in the hospital where she works and watched her husband drift into God's arms too and in both cases, my heart cracked again and again. I understand the hurt, the feel of being lost, the frustration, the short changed life, the dreams that fled out the window, but at the same time, I understand the feeling of God's arms around you....arms that only you feel. I understand the peace (true peace) in knowing that there are so many things your loved one will never have to go through later down the line because they have found the greatest peace of all. I understand the feeling that if you see ham or chicken again, you might throw it at someone......the tears of spring..........the tears of winter. I understand the times you just want to talk about all the fun you had with the one you loved. I understand the hanging onto everything that smells like him, was him, and will be him. Yet in all of this "understanding" I am unable to help! I can not compare my loss to theirs nor can they to mine. Even though they are similar, they are different. I want to help, but I remember being the one who didn't want to tell others who had been there how I felt right then. And I remembered hearing the word "widow" in the Bible so much that I didn't want that to be my new name. I didn't want them to say...."when I became a widow....".
My description of death to my children is the locust. You see, it leaves it shell on the solid ground. It cracks through the "shell" to fly as a new creature! We love summer so that we can look at the "shells" and hear the locust in the trees. Maybe I am ready for summer. Just so that I can be assured that all of us will fly free one day.
This is not meant to get you down. This is meant to remind readers that right now...right when you are ready to "be there" for someone maybe not be the time. It will be weeks, maybe months down the line. But, the one thing I know you can do that will truly matter is to pray. I remember being carried in prayer because I just couldn't find the words to do it myself. So, pray for the Knox family and for my friend Julie. Lift them and carry them daily because some days, they won't have the strength to do it themselves but will make it because you lifted them up! Will you take that load for them?