Letting Go - Day 157

Dear Mamas journal

Well, it's been 157 days since the boys have been gone. I can clearly remember writing the first leting go journal entry and I would love to say that I am healed!! but I can't ;-) I have figured that letting go is actually going to take as long as I thought and more......

Some of the things that have been 'let go':

1. Anxiousness that something terrible is going to happen.
2. The Deep bawling cry has gone
3. The Need to count down.
4. Painful Grief and
5. Sense of loss.

The things that have been added unto me:

Where once was anxiousness, now stands peace and calmness. The kind of peace I have is hard to describe. It's a feeling that envelopes me and I am without fear that something is going to happen to my sons. I am grateful for the peace that resides in my life. 

 

Where once I was anxious and worried that the boys would get sick and I wasn't there to care for them has dissipated. in fact I remain calm. For example, both boys have both been struck by a mosquito borne disease that is hitting the Carribean and yet I am calm. My son has just written a letter home telling me that he lives next to where gangsters hang out and a church where the leader casts out devils at night time - and still this calmness is with me. Maybe I am in denial but I am grateful for it!

 

The gut-wrenching crying sessions have now been reduced to what I call "sprinkles" or little "leaks" .... I can't control them - my eyes just sprinkle and leak all the time! Having said that I have had big cries but so would you if you were looking at my beautiful baby boys happy and serving the Lord ;-) I don't mind sprinkling and little leaks because it reminds me that I am a missionary mama - and it is not easy but I am doing it ;-)

 

What has not gone away is the need to count. I no longer wait until the sun goes up before I can cross out another day (like I used to do!) .... instead after 157 days, I now have the control and can wait the whole seven days before crossing off a week and I have trained myself not to lament because I have so much more to go - but just tick or stick (I use stickers) away quietly, without fanfare and carry on. I can say watching the numbers come down are healing though..... that I cannot deny ;-)

 

In the place of painful grief I have prayer and what a revelation this has been.... I have prayed all of my life but I have found my prayers have changed. They are more meaningful and heartfelt. I feel like I am having an adult conversation with a loving Heavenly Father who is listening patiently ready to give me advice on what I need to do. More than once, I have been specific and detailed and what I asked for - technology to be clear so that communication between son and his parents is seamless in an area known for powercuts and poor technology - and it has been granted.

I have found prayer has united Mr and I. I find myself listening to a missionary father praying for his sons and I am touched by his sensitivity to our sons' service.

I also know that my sons are also praying which helps me to realise that all these reverent conversations are connecting my little family together while we are so far apart - see - there they goes - my eyes are sprinkling again ;-) I am grateful for prayer - and so happy to have a renewed my testimony in the power of prayer.

 

My sense of loss has not gone. The boys are still everything I have in this world - and they are not here with me. My life is empty without them and I am half of a partnership that sit at the top of a great big EMPTY nest ;-) but this deep sense of loss has been filled. I have recently been called to work in the temple. This amazing calling has brought me closer to my children than any single thing I have done before. It focusses me every week and I am grateful for yet another connection to my sons. The words that are spoken in the temple are some of the most beautiful that I have ever heard, and to learn those has been a privilege.... As I serve week after week my emptiness is being filled - with love that I have not experienced before and I am more grateful today than I was yesterday.

 

For me, on day 157, I have to say that the greatest healer for me have been my missionary boys!! They are my inspiration. Their positive attitudes, their healing words and love extended to their mother who they know struggles without them has been balm to my motherly wounds. Their strengthening testimonies have been beautiful to read and I am becoming grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary mama to the point where I can almost say it without wincing ;-)

 

This journey is not travelled alone and I continue to be grateful for the support of thousands of other missionary mommas through facebook and hundreds of others in my Missionary Mamas and Missionary Moms email groups... I would hate to think what my life would be like without these!!

 

So Day 157 is coming to a close - and life isn't too bad. The house is quiet. We haven't started Spanish lessons yet or the diet either for that matter - but it's all coming along....

 

Here's to another 43 -then it's my Second Hundred Party - WOOHOOO!!!

 

Mxo