Inevitably etched by grief

i’ll humbly confess & most importantly i’ll wholeheartedly apologize

that im not always the easiest person to get in touch with & i hope you can forgive me for stirring up even an ounce of worry & confusion.. for making you ever wonder if you’ve done anything to push me away - you aren’t to blame for my mistakes & i am so sad that i’ve let you feel that way.. that i’ve let our connection fade in anyway

i have this terrible habit of hurting others when i am trying to find healing

& i know it hurts – it hurts you & it hurts me too & i am truly so sorry

i don’t want to behave this way.. i don’t want to always run away

it breaks my heart.. when i shut you away, someone i love so deeply

i know it doesn’t make sense, i’ve spent twenty six years trying to understand it

the way that i seem to inevitably hurt the ones that give me so much grace

the ones that have stood with me in some of life’s toughest storms

time & time again.. you have always been such a wonderful friend

you have seen me at my worst & reassured me that i’m not too much

but if i’m being honest.. with myself & with you too

all of the solitude is immensely healing.. yet immensely overwhelming

it comes with long periods of emptiness when i least expect it

the seclusion becomes my state of being & my closest friend

it’s a hate love relationship that i became too familiar with after Levi’s death

it’s wanting to connect with no energy to make connections

& without fail it always sneaks up on me ever so quickly

no warning & here i am again.. wrapped into a deep state of isolation

& unfortunately the parts of me that’s hurting whispers that this is okay

but i know it’s not.. it’s not acceptable or what i desire but somehow it just happens

i don’t want to quietly slip away from the love that surrounds me

from your love & loyalty to our friendship that’s such a gift to me

& time after time here i am wrapping my mind around all the ways i will make it up to you..

the flowers i’ll send, the letters i’ll write, the time i’ll make to graciously give

asking for your forgiveness & praying i won’t do it again

i tell myself that once i’ve put together the pieces that the pattern won’t repeat

in the next season surely i will be complete & won’t fall apart at the seams

it’s difficult to write these words.. to try & paint you a picture of it all

to try & make sense of what feels like my very own process of unraveling

i feel fine until my pain becomes too much & disassociation is my companion

i’m aware of how sad this all may sound.. but i’m not sad, i’m just embedded with this way of processing

or it it may seem like i’m wanting your sympathy..

that i’m this alienated victim but.. i must assure you that i know i’m neither

i am not sad nor am i a victim.. i don’t buy into those lies the way i once did

what i know now is this all simply stems from my life experiences

at one point in my life this route of healing & the silence was what saved me

it was all i knew how to do.. it felt like my only option & that’s because it was

forever etched into my brain is the years my family spent living in this total isolation

my mom & I barely holding onto one another for dear life after we lost our sweet Levi — who will always be the other half of each of us

i’m telling you this to tell you that it is so much deeper than what meets the surface when you don’t hear from me, when i slip into this familiar place of quieting all the noise from the world & coming face to face with whatever it is that’s consuming me.. i want to call my brother but i can’t so i pull out the piece of paper & i write to him, i call my mom so i can dig deeper into what Levi would do or say

and most importantly i pray to God because He is equipped to calm my spirit 

so this isolation i’m telling you about.. these reasons why i am the way i am & & why i dwell in my aloneness.. friend i know it is a lot to ask of you, to deal with this & to be okay with the silence but i want you to know that it isn’t sadness & it’s certainly not me being a victim to life’s realness

it’s the comfort that is home to me..

it’s the place i’m most acquainted with because i’ve spent the last six years, six months & twenty six days settling in

it looks like turning my phone off for long periods of time.. it’s grabbing my journal & favorite pen.. it’s putting on that one Chris Stapleton song hoping & praying to God i can still hear Levis voice singing it, it’s confiding in my mom if i can find the courage to pick up the phone, it’s looking to Jesus for clarity that only He can give me..

my journaling, wrapping myself in his memory, my momma & the Lord is what saved me when i had abandoned the idea that i could keep going

when it feels like life is swallowing me whole.. when my brother, my best friend who all my life was the first persons arms I ran to with problems that needed solving.. when he was the first male figure in my life who fully accepted me & never ran away from all my big feelings.. when he took his last breath in an instant my life become the madison I’d always know & the madison that was foreign to me.. there was a life i lived with my big brother intertwined into every second I had existed & there was now this vast empty version of myself that I had no interest in discovering.. her new life freighted me & i did not want to accept that it belonged to me

i didn’t want to stop staring at the wall where on the other side my brother drew his very last breath in that hospital bed

a life i once knew is still sitting there in that waiting room

the girl before the doctor came in and so clearly spoke the words i am so sorry, we did everything we could. the girl that was full of terror when the door handle turned & I was facing a pair of deep blue scrubs & a man who held the trajectory of my future in one sentence.. she’s still there, she’s staring at her mom before the doctor touched the door handle praying to God that he could save her one & only son

telling myself to focus on her heart beat because you were terrified you were moments away from her death too, a voice in my head saying if he dies she’s going with him because he is her reason for living. praying to God that she would find it in herself to stay here with me knowing that the only momma I have ever known is soon to be gone.. & this deep realization that if she doesn’t leave me physically I’ll never see her smile again, the laugh that was there for my first steps & the way she cheerfully clapped at all of my accomplishments & how she would listen to me talk for hours with no other place she’d rather be had simply vanished when his heart stopped beating.. and it clicked when the doctor turned his back to us & the door knob turned once again.. that I just lost the three people closet to me.. my brother, my mother & the only version I ever knew of myself

I wanted to stay there forever.. glued to the cold white & grey tile floor. frozen in time, how the hell was i supposed to get up? how could i leave? i was stuck curled up in a ball waiting to wake up & saying over & over this is a only bad dream Maddie, you know this is only a dream

leaving that hospital without brother was a version of hell that i couldn’t have convinced myself

i didn’t know what I was supposed to do.. how to I began to move my legs, how do I pass by your room & walk out of here without you?

but I did, I got up & I ran as fast as I could possibly run without collapsing

all alone I closed my tear filled eyes as tight as I could before my parents could even move & I ran past you, I left you there because I had no choice

I ran out of those hospital doors to a life I wanted no part in, curling up next to my best friend in that cold hospital bed & waiting for this nightmare to end was the only way I thought I could keep breathing

if you were going, I wanted to go with you

I needed to be with you, I had never lived a day without you in it & I was never going to be ready for that reality to set in.. so I found myself curled up again, in a ball waiting for you to walk out of the doors I sprinted through.. repeating over & over again Maddie it isn’t real

I never knew denial until your death

I didn’t know there could be such depth to denying something that was so very real.. denying that moments ago I had kissed your cold forehead & heard the doctor announce your time of death, that I had told you goodbye & promised you we’d meet again in the next life, holding your pale beyond understanding hands waiting for your beautiful eyes to open again, I thought I had made peace with the fact that could be the very last time I’d see your heart beating on the monitor screen.. I denied that any of it was now our last memory

sitting outside of those hospital doors, I waited for you anxiously.. come on bubba walk out here & hold me

im scared & you are the only one who can help me, you’re the only one who has ever comforted me after a bad dream.. don’t do this to me please I pleaded

& now, i look back six years, six months & twenty six days later & can see you sitting there beside me, saying come on sissy it’s time to leave.. you have to go home now, you will learn how to live without me. you have to take care of mom, she needs you & Jason does too

you’ll find God one day & you’ll know you had the strength to leave this ball you’re curled up in because He was holding your hand & I was always right there giving you a sign when curling up in a ball became your home

i’ll send you butterfly’s when you miss me

i’ll visit you in your dreams when the memories start to fade

& that one song will play when you wish I was there holding your hand

one day you’ll learn that you can go on without me & it won’t be so full of pain - one day you’ll find purpose in this tragedy

“I never left you & I was running with you right past my hospital room, I was with mom when she ran past me too.. sissy you have to know I will never leave the two of you, I’ve only slipped away for a little while & I’m watching, patiently waiting for the day you & momma make your way home to me but until then we are forever etched with beautiful memories & you can rest in knowing our love will never fade.”

you will learn what really matters in this fallen world & that is falling in love with Jesus

hold on to knowing that when your time comes, you will part ways with all this grief & be surrounded by peace only Heaven can guarantee

so go now & worship Him wholeheartedly in all of life’s storms & uncertainties, allow your new life to come to you the way God always intended it to

& i’ll be here patiently waiting for you

i love you