Put Action to Your Grief

Put Action to Your Grief

  

Just recently we had a meeting to plan the Roderick Rempel Street Hockey Tournament for this year and Sheila made the expression it helps to put action to grief, which stuck with me.  I remembered how in the past putting action to grief had helped and since hearing that it has helped me when things get hard to put some action to grief.

   Not long after the accident Angeline was having a rough week.  She missed Roderick and had a hard time overcoming.  I was wondering what I could do for her.  The following morning during my devotions it hit me, I need to take Angeline to the cemetery.  When I think of Roderick I never think of him, as being at the cemetery so it took me a while to realize that going to the cemetery would help.  That morning I told Angeline that after school we would go to Roderick’s grave, we’d first buy some flowers to bring Roderick and then we’d go.  Her face lit up, she could do something about her grief. 

   Before Christmas I was thinking about whether we should do something at Christmas in memory of Roderick but everything I could think of seemed to just be too painful.  Until I talked to the hairdresser as I mentioned in a previous post and so we ordered some wristbands that said, “we miss you Roderick, Merry Christmas” to hand out at the gatherings as a small way to include Roderick.

   Getting ready for Christmas was hard.  It seemed everything we did was a reminder of Roderick.  Not being able to buy him gifts and having to leave him out of the lists was hard.     Then on the 27^th Christmas was over, now it should become easier but it seemed now the whole weight of the season came bearing down on me and I just sensed I needed to go to the grave.  I needed to do something, I could not continue like this.  So I went to the cemetery by myself and just cried my heart out. 

   A friend has posted a beautiful poem about heaven on Facebook and I thought that we should have read something like that in memory of Roderick but I knew that would have been just to much pain although it would have probably still been soothing after.  I think to myself, how can I be so weak now at Christmas when I had so much strength during Roderick’s funeral service.  I know God still gives me strength and I know He will heal us.  Maybe next year I can read a poem but this year part of my action to grief was just forcing myself to control my thoughts and not allow them to go to Roderick too often so that I could at last most of the time keep it together.

   I feel this is not the most encouraging post but I guess part of being real is also coming out with my weaknesses.  I do feel a lot better already then what I did a week ago.

First Christmas

Christmas 2015

Christmas 2005

First Christmas

   Well the first Christmas since Roderick left us has come and gone.  What do I write now; I’m still sitting here with tears streaming down my face.  I had not expected Christmas to be so difficult.  I pray that we will be able to use this valley as another step toward complete healing.  One of the things I have started to pray for is that we as a family, all four of us, will experience complete healing.  I hear so many mothers saying that the pain never stops you just get used to it, or something similar.  My sister talked to one mother who lost her son five years ago and she said the Lord had been so gracious to them, their son was always with them but they were no longer grieving, that encourages me.  Healing is possible.  I know it will take time but I believe there is healing with the Lord, I believe He can and will heal us.  I don’t believe it is His will for us to endure pain for the rest of our lives.  We will always have the scar and we will always have a part of our family not physically with us but we can heal and we can have a happy life and experience a happy Christmas again.  My prayer is also that we will use this experience to build stronger relationships and tighter bonds between the four of us and also with friends surrounding us.  That is part of the beauty that God can make out of tragedy, the trash that can turn into gold.  The devil, who’s to blame for all the tragedy in this world by bringing sin into it, will also do his utmost to use this for his benefit and turn us against each other and against God in any way he can by filling our minds with lies.

   I want to thank all the many friends and family who have taken the time to remember us in your celebrations and sent us messages of encouragement.  Every one of them has meant a lot.  Two of Roderick’s friends stopped by with a gift, two more have promised to stop by and one of them sent an email.  I feel so special when Roderick’s friends miss him and will go the extra step of letting us know.  Thank-you for allowing God to use you to send us comfort and strength to keep going.  Never think those actions are in vain.  God bless You all and Happy New Year to All.

Last Christmas

Roderick admiring the fish tank he got for Christmas last year

The steak knives I received
from Roderick last year

   Last Christmas

Last Christmas Roderick spent all his money on Christmas gifts even his savings account which was suppose to stay there for a car, not that it was a whole lot.  Jake and I were a little concerned and we questioned him a couple times on whether he was sure he wanted to spend so much, he was having so much fun buying gifts for his friends and family though that we could hardly say much but one time I got an email with an order he had made that was over a hundred dollars.  I knew he had already bought a gift for his girlfriend and presumed it was a gift for Stanton.  I thought he only had a hundred dollars left and knew he had a few more people on his list so this time I questioned him.  “Roderick” I said, “are you sure you want to buy such an expensive gift for one person?  You still have more people left on you list”.

   “I still have more money, mom.  I can buy them gifts yet,” he said.  That was it, he said nothing else, when he got up to go downstairs I repeated one more time, “Roderick, you could still cancel the order and buy a cheaper gift”.   He turns to me and says, “you just don’t want me to spend money on you because you saw those were kitchen knives for you”.  I felt so bad for having checked up on him when he had wanted to surprise me with a gift.  He did not cancel that order and last Christmas I got a set of steak knives with wooden handles and every one of the six knives was made out of a different kind of wood.  Jake received an ornamental golf bag with clubs that Roderick got his own message engraved on.  None of our kids had ever got us Christmas gifts before. 

   The other day I was thinking back to last Christmas, how Roderick spent all his money and how after Christmas he would often mention how he needed to get a job and that he had literally no money.  On his birthday his cousin Stanton gave him this funny card that said, “to the guy that has everything” on the front and Roderick joked yea I have everything except no money.  I never felt that Roderick regretted giving gifts that Christmas but I know that he realized keeping money in the bank would take effort on his part.  Just two weeks before the accident I sold his dogs for him and he finally had some money in the bank. 

   Now looking back, those gifts he bought for his loved ones are a much bigger treasure then that money in the bank would have been after he left.

   As I’m reflecting on last Christmas my thoughts go to heaven.  What is Roderick doing this Christmas?  Is he not just enjoying his favourite music but also a part of it playing percussion which was always his dream but the amount of practice it would require kept him from it, now he can play without learning.  Is he playing hockey on some beautiful Chrystal clear frozen lake that is frozen without cold temperatures and there is beautiful green grass surrounding it or is he surrounded by dancing children all wanting to sit on his lap teaching them to make funny faces?  Does he ever have time to look down on his family and friends here on earth?  One day we will join him, one day we will know until that day we will continue on in faith.

   I wanted to share another Christmas memory from last year.  My youngest brother had the Christmas gathering at his house on the farm in Riverton last year.  His boys had made a back yard skating rink.  The cousins were kind of divided into two groups.  There were seven older cousins who spent their time chatting and playing table games and then there were eight younger cousins who kept the house feeling like a zoo, with two cousins kind of in between, one of whom would romp around with the younger ones and the other one wherever he so desired, at times with the older ones and at times with the younger ones.  Most of the younger ones put on their skates and went outside to skate, some with hockey sticks and a puck some just skating around.  Us parents would enjoy watching them through the window enjoying a little less noise in the house.  It didn’t take long until we saw Roderick out their with the little ones making a fool of himself, trying to play hockey with the little guys, slipping and sliding and falling in his shoes. 

   The door opened and I heard “Mom?” 

   I recognized the voice of my oldest son, so among all the moms I was the one that was meant.  “Yes?” I called back.

   “Did you bring my skates?”

   “Yes I did.  They’re in the back on the Acadia.” I answered

   “Oh good, I didn’t think I had skates.”  He replied.  (How I wish I could hear that voice-calling mom again.)

   Soon he was out there on his skates, being the only older cousin playing hockey with his younger cousins.  That is a memory his younger cousins and this proud mother will not soon forget.

Christmas without Roderick, or Not?

  “Are you doing anything special for Roderick this Christmas?”  The Hairdresser asked me today.

   “I don’t know,” I answered “I’ve been thinking about it but would there be anything wrong with just not doing anything?  Doing something just brings to much pain”.

   “There’s no right or wrong,” she said “but you could do something as simple as giving a donation in Roderick’s honour”.

   Then she proceeded to tell me how they had gone to scatter her brother-in-law’s ashes and her brother had asked her sister and nephew if they wanted to go shoot some golf balls.  Her sister and nephew had said they didn’t feel like it but it had been a beautiful day so my hair dresser had said, she would like to shoot some golf balls and for an hour they had spent time just leisurely shooting golf balls.  Later her sister and nephew had thanked her for making them shoot golf balls and it hit me, ‘how true”.  So often we have to force ourselves to do something and later feel so grateful that we did even when we did not feel like it.

   Even though this first Christmas season is tough without Roderick and I can’t say that it’s exciting or fun I still want it to be one to look back on and know that it’s been meaningful and we want to go through it in such a way that we can continue on in our journey gratefully.

   So I’ve got a plan on what we will do to include Roderick in our Christmas but I can’t say because after all it’s Christmas and Christmas is full of surprises.

   We have so much to be grateful for and God has given us so many wonderful promises and that is what we will focus on.  I will share a couple paragraphs from my devotions this morning.

  So…how come it doesn’t happen?  Why do we lose loved ones? Why do situations sometimes go badly even after we’ve prayed?

   I can’t tell you why in every case, but we have a choice to make.  We can't stop believing God’s Word just because our circumstances don’t always match up with what it says.  We need to choose to believe.

   This planet has its share of trouble and sometimes bad things happen but our God will never let us down.  If something doesn’t work out the way you had hoped, you may not know why…but you can be sure it isn’t because God wanted it to go badly.  God is good all the time!

  

Roderick checking out his Christmas stocking two years ago