When someone blogs they can track readership ...how many hits. You don't see 'who' or the time ...just a general sense of how many people are perusing your words. But, if someone has a blog and they link yours on theirs ...I can see that. I've learned some great things and went to places and spaces I would not have otherwise. Last night I stumbled on one that was upsetting ...because it linked to mine saying it was all lies. I found that really sad. Honestly, it made me a bit dizzy, but as I gained balance ...it just leaves me sad and aware of the loneliness pervading the teenage culture.
I have found the act of writing in this format to be tremendously beneficial to me. So if no one read ....I would likely still write ...even with the risks involved in being 'out there.' I write for me, from my heart, from my perspective, often from a cluttered, chaotic, foggy mind. I write to make sense, compartmentalize, work through ...to remember ...always to remember Phoebe. But I don't write or share so much of Phoebe personally. ...Or anyone else in my family. This is my space ...to share my struggle to quite literally survive ...to keep living ...to keep wanting to live. This is my space to look at black on white and see what emerges ....a lantern, a guidepost ....a street sign ....something that keeps me moving. I am a strong woman ...raised by an extraordinarily intelligent and strong mother ....and mother to an extraordinarily intelligent and force of a girl. Both my mother and my daughter are gone. I had complicated relationships with both. Complicated doesn't mean bad, unhealthy. They both pushed me ....both always expected more of me than I ever thought I could give ...unrelenting. They championed me like no one else ever could or can. They are both gone.
I'm simply telling my story ...there are no lies here ...just the story of a mother fighting for her life ...in a life absent of one of the most extraordinary people, I believe God ever created ....my Phoebe. Of course, all my other children are exceptional gifts ....of course the loss of them would be devastating ...as emptying of me as this one. As a friend shared recently, it is difficult to paint a portrait of Phoebe for someone who never met her. It sounds like the usual platitudes, compliments. You could not know this girl, get a sense of her, without having met her and spent time around her. Phoebe was life itself. But Phoebe was a teenager, of course she had angst, struggles ...many she had overcome. All teenagers do struggle to some extent as they come into their own, define who they are, make their way ...they're homesteaders in a world that leaves very little land left to claim. Phoebe's personal life is not mine to share ...to divulge her particular struggles ...well, would be wrong and unfair. The portrait would be false because it was such a small part of who she was. Most of the people who knew her, were part of her life, knew her for a long time ....since she was small. The small Phoebe went with the big. If you only knew her in the big ...in only a few aspects of her life ...there is simply no way you knew her ...couldn't have. Like a tiny tree she grew through the weeds, extended her branches, sank down her roots ....she scrambled to the sunshine and soared above the other saplings in ways that broke the mold. Her limbs are the ones that embraced the hurricane winds and danced, bending ...extending.
She welcomed the rain to shine her leaves as she kissed each drop. She didn't hover, hold back ...wait for the other saplings to make the first move ...show her the way. Phoebe led. Ask anyone who really knew her ...all of her. Her final act was the most devastating ...the worst way to lead. But it was not ...is not, her last word. There is no honor in her suicide ...no glory, no heroism. If I were to think only of her suicide ...and rest there ...it would be an assault, a false witness to her ...who she really is.
So if someone is looking for a morbid exposure of the darkness that gripped Phoebe in the last moments ...and I mean moments as in seconds, minutes ...you will not find it here, from me. If the lie I am accused of here is this ...this failure to expose something that was so deadly ...yet so brief ...as the essence of my girl ...then please don't read here. Please don't make a mockery of my daughter's life.
If the lie is that God is real ...merciful ...just ...the source of all life, joy, trustworthy ...the ONLY answer ..then please don't read here if what you seek to do is destroy and malign His goodness ...His healing hand, his grace, his power for a woman who's lost her daughter. I'm trying to live ...to survive ...to mend the brokenness that came to me on Oct. 9, when my precious girl ended her life. I will pray for those who do not know or believe in Him, accept Him ...and I will believe He will transform you ...heal your own hardness, fill you with His grace ... if you open your heart. I will pray for that ...for you. And I will ask Phoebe to as well.
Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in Peace. Amen.
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