10 Years Later ...

10 years ago, I was sitting on my sister’s back porch calling family and friends and writing a blog post here to let everyone know my sister’s battle with cancer was over. I did not want my parents to have to make those calls. I remember feeling incredibly alone, and fiercely protective of my parents and their grief. And overwhelmed of how I would ever get them through this.

Over the past few weeks, God has put me in front of two beautiful women who lost their siblings and are now at the beginning of their grief journey. I told them both the same thing. You may not be the person who gets your parents through this, and that’s ok. As much as I felt like it was my job, and as much as I wanted to, it was never my burden to carry. God put other people in their lives for that purpose. I remember about 6 months into our grief journey feeling angry that I had lost my close family that always leaned on each other, and I was certain we would never be like that again. And on the 1-year anniversary, I felt the same way. Then at 18 months I read a book about a family who had lost a child. It said that losing a child is an incredibly different grief journey because you cannot lean on those closest to you, your family. You can’t put your needs on them because they are just trying to survive too. You have to allow outside people to become your support system. And as you start to heal individually, your family is healed, and then you find your way back to each other. Sitting on an airplane, those words soaked into my soul. And suddenly I could see it and the healing and what could be again.

10 years later, we are a close family again. If fact a lot of people probably look at us and think, too close :) I’m sitting on my back porch from which I can see my parents front porch. We eat almost every dinner together. We server at church together. We vacation together. I don’t say it enough, but my husband is amazing and loves my parents endlessly and even tolerates them borrowing his tools :) Thank you Jeremy! And now when one of us gets hit by a wave a grief, we can support and pick each other up.

There has been a lot of grieving, healing, growing, grieving, healing, growing, on repeat over the last 10 years. And as I type these words today, I’ll be honest, my eyes are puffy from tears. I miss her. Not a single day goes by that I don’t think of her. I’m sad that my girls only know her through stories and pictures. I miss her laugh. I miss her put-on-your-big-girl-pants talks. I miss her gravitational pull that sucked everyone in. I miss her always.

Over the last two weeks I’ve had a new revelation. I’ve been cycling through the memories of those weeks leading up to and after her passing. I’ve struggled with the last year feeling like there is some part of the grief of losing Tish that I haven’t dealt with. But I’m not sure it's grief, I think its trauma. That feels weird to type, but I think its accurate. When my mind goes back to that time, I feel those same emotions of fear and anxiety and being overwhelmed. I had a one-year-old to care for, my parents were at their lowest point in life, my husband was grieving the loss of his sister too. And I think it left behind some trauma that I need to deal with. It’s not overwhelming, and most days it has no effect. But some days it feels like it has just scabbed over instead of scarred. And when that scab falls off a little and that pain comes back, it really hurts and keeps me from being my best. So, I’ve scheduled an appointment with my therapist, because mental health is important.

But here is the good news. 10 years later we are SO GOOD. Truly. We laugh, for real. We have true joy. We are a strong, tight and whole family. And God is SO good! Ultimately it is God who has loved me back to whole. It is God who put the right outside people into our worlds to heal us. It is God who gives my hope. Tish is with God, and that means I see her again someday. God is good, God is faithful. God is enough.

To all the people who God put in our lives to show his love and help carry us out of the valley of grief, thank you. For me specifically, Amanda Cain, I love you forever. Mike Miller, you are a true shepherd and pastor. To Aunt Susan, thank you for being a mom through those times. To Jim and Staci, thank you for stepping up big time and filling a huge hole in my kids’ and Jeremy and my lives. To Tony and Jeff and Breanne and Wayne and Cindy, thank you for loving me when I put my family first. To my Simple Family, thank you for letting me talk about my journey and my sister and loving me endlessly now. To my husband, thank you for always giving me the space to grieve. And to my parents, thank you for fighting back to whole. It would have been easier to stay in the valley but you fight for us. Below is what I read at my sister’s memorial service, barefoot and with dirty hair because I slept for the first time in a week and didn’t have time to shower :)   

 

For those of you who don’t know me, I am Metisha’s sister Regan.  And if you noticed I walked onto stage without shoes on, it’s because Metisha was the athlete and I was the nerd which means I can fall going up stairs and didn’t want to risk becoming the entertainment portion today. 

I was visiting with a friend, April, from work yesterday and she told me a story that I wanted to pass along to you.  My company is in Tulsa and they wanted to send me flowers but were not sure where to call or where to send them.  But April told our CFO that based on my stories of Fairview, she thought she could figure it out.  So she Googled Fairview and found the flower shop phone number.  A lady answered the phone and April said, “I want to send flowers to a friend from work whose sister just passed away.”  And the lady immediately responded, “Oh, you want to send flowers to Regan.  Do you want to send them to her home in Tulsa or her parent’s house here?”  April told me the story and then said, “Now that’s customer service!”  But I told her, “No, that’s community.”  

I wanted to tell you this story because all of you have been a part of this community of people who have supported us, regardless of whether you drove 2 minutes, 2.5 hours from Tulsa, 4 hours from Ft Worth. 12 hours from Colorado or flew halfway across the country to get here today.  And it has been that support that has sustained us through the last four years. 

Look to your right.  You will see the arms of God that have held us.  Look to your left.  You will see the tears of God that have both rejoiced and mourned with us.  Your words of encouragement, compassion and joy and sorrow have been God’s love to us.  And we cannot say thank you enough for allowing God to use you to minister to us during this journey.  You have invested in our lives and have made an impact beyond measure.  

Thank you just doesn’t seem like enough.  But we pray that in return, you will be blessed tenfold.