Painful Blessings

I’ve wanted to write, but life has been quite painful. At first the tears would not come, now I can’t keep them away. It feels like a sports injury (sorry for this analogy, but I’m an athlete at heart). I’m reminded of a time I was shooting a three in a basketball game (too many years ago), and the defender boxed me out by undercutting me. I came down and turned my ankle. In the adrenaline of a close game, I played on. After the game my foot swelled up and by the next morning I couldn’t even walk. It wasn’t broken and later on in the day I started walking on it. By that night’s game, with enough tape, I was able to play through the pain. When the game was close I felt nothing, but when I was resting on the bench, it was pretty painful. My life feels like I’m playing through an injury.

The pain of Madi’s death first set in when the whirlwind of the funeral, the cruise, and the holidays all came to an end. It was New Year’s Eve and I was taking down Christmas decorations (someone once told me that it is bad luck to have your tree up after the New Year). It all seemed over. Really over. Taking down those Christmas decorations felt like an ending I was desperate to avoid. The thought of a New Year was worse. The problem is I love New Year’s Eve/Day. It is my favorite holiday. I love making goals, starting fresh, new motivation, fancy dresses, parties, staying up late, late night breakfast, and college football all day. Some how, this year, starting fresh seemed like the worse thing in the world. Moving into a New Year where Madi didn’t exist is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I managed to take down most of the decorations. There were two things I couldn’t bear to take down. One was the nativity set in the living room. It would stay up three more weeks. Thinking of the Savior had given me so much strength that I did not want to lose such a beautiful reminder of His love and sacrifice that makes seeing Madi again possible. The other decoration was Madi’s Angel Tree. It is still up.

For those who don’t know, Madi’s Angel Tree was given to me at the funeral by her preschool, Wynnton Methodist. Many families from the school and from all over have sent me angels to put on the tree to remind me of the love and support they have for our family during this time. The angels are as priceless as the friendships that they symbolize. Some are homemade angels by Madi’s friends, some are things that remind us of Madi (Belle, a girl in a purple dress, a bottle of nail polish, and Cindy Lou Who), Some are so exquisite that Derek (my 18 month old) is bound to lose a hand if he gets any closer, some are filled with so much meaning they bring me to tears, and all are filled with the love and support that sustained me through last year and continues to sustain me now.

There is one particular angel story that I must share. I received a box in the mail from the mother of one of my best friends growing up. In the box were five antique-looking angels. I thought how interesting they were. Then I read the note and realized that interesting will never be used to describe them. They are the five angels that have hung on her tree for some 30 years to represent each of her five children. I am honored that she would entrust them to me.

As you can see, the idea of taking down this tree seemed an impossible task. I still need that tree. In fact, I think I need it now more than ever. I had planned on putting the tree up every year on November 8^th, to honor Madi, and leaving it up through Christmas, but I couldn’t take it down. In desperation I called my super OCD friend. We all have one of these friends. Her house is amazing, beautifully decorated and always immaculate. The Christmas decorations are up a few days before Thanksgiving and come down the day after Christmas without fail. Her shocking advice was to leave the tree up. I said, “You would never do that.” And she responded that she would if she had something that beautiful.

Needless to say, the tree is still up and the lights come on every night at 6:30. I often wonder what the neighbors think, the ones that don’t know the meaning of the tree. Why did they take down their house lights and reindeer but leave their tree up? They should at least turn off the timer so no one knows they still have their tree up. There is one thing that gives me comfort when I think of these people. There is a little boy, William, who lives down the street. He was in Madi’s preschool class for two years. His mom told me that every time they pass my house at night William says, “There’s Madi’s Christmas Tree!”



William giving Madi purple flowers when he found out she was sick.



While the tree helps, the pain is still there, and we are learning to live with it. Since I live with it daily, I have thought a lot about my pain, mostly about the purpose of my pain. Why is this so painful? Feeling pain is a very important part of our physical survival. There is actually a serious medical condition called congenital analgesia (after countless episodes of ER, Grey’s Anatomy, and House, I’m practically a doctor), where the patient cannot feel pain. They often suffer from eye infections, because they can’t tell when something is hurting their eye, or damage to their mouth from unknowingly biting their tongue or lip. They often have bone fractures but aren’t aware, and if they have any internal problems they seek no medical attention because they are not alerted by the pain.

My pain has followed a similar path as physical pain does. Often in serious injuries, the body goes into shock and no pain is felt until later. My friend was on a first date with a guy when they were involved in an attempted car jacking. He was driving away when he was shot in the side. He calmly told her he was shot, asked her to call his brother, and drove himself to the hospital, where the pain set in with a vengeance. When Madi first passed away I was very much at peace. I felt very calm and peaceful when I thought of her. I could not cry. I worried that I was not being honest with myself and that I would crash soon, but that did not happen. I truly felt at peace. A friend, who recently lost her mother, warned me that a difficult time lay ahead. She said that two months after her mother passed, the people went away, the tasks were all done, and the pain set in. I’m thankful for her wisdom that helped me prepare myself for this time.

The pain has definitely set in, but my pain does not feel physical but rather seems spiritual in nature.  There is nothing wrong with my body, but Madi’s separation from me hurts me to my soul. So is there a purpose to spiritual pain that is as important as our physical pain is to our survival? I have a friend who lost her two year old boy suddenly in an accident. She recalls feeling the same peace at first. She reasoned that the Holy Ghost must step in and help you cope with such unbearable pain. She described it as being enveloped with bubble wrap. She said that eventually the feeling went away and her pain set in similar to mine. She felt that such a strong presence from the Holy Ghost all the time was not sustainable. I wondered why? I am continually drawn to the thought that there must be something to learn from this pain; it must have a purpose.

So I start with trying to find answers to what causes my pain and what would fix it. It seems that my separation from Madi is causing it and being with her again would fix it. So maybe the pain is turning our focus to an afterlife, filling us with hope of an afterlife with our loved ones. Living with this pain all the time is a constant reminder of something more to live for. Having someone we have loved on the other side pulls us like a magnet toward that life that extends beyond this one. It moves us to seek answers to questions. Is there life after death? Does everyone go to the same place? Does what I’m doing now determine the place I will go? When we have a loved one there, we are motivated to learn more giving this life new meaning and purpose.

I am grateful for the answers I have learned through religion. In fact, about 60% of the world, billions of people, have answers to these questions. Christianity and Islam, the top world religions, believe in a resurrection and a heaven where we are reunited with our loved ones. They each detail a process to get there. If so many of us believe in these things, why is there so much pain and grief associated with death and loss? I know that my own beliefs have brought much needed peace; and yet, the pain, while mitigated, is still palpable.

So I have been wondering if there is more to be learned from the pain, more growth to be had. Recently, a new idea has offered a possible answer that also coincides with a previous religious question of mine. My personal understanding is that we lived with our Heavenly Father before we came to earth, and we can return to Him through Christ our Savior. If we cannot return to Him then we will experience a separation from Him which we will consider “hell.” We will be in a Heaven, far better than this Earth, but the hell we will experience will be that we can no longer be in the presence of our Heavenly Father.

I have been trying to understand the concept of being separated from our Heavenly Father. Because we don’t remember Him, we have to rely on our spiritual senses to relearn the nature of our relationship with Him. I have struggled with the fact that I have felt more distraught over being separated from a boyfriend than from my Father in Heaven. I have tried to nurture and strengthen the relationship with my Father in Heaven so that I have a desire and a motivation to return to Him.

I believe that dealing with Madi’s death has helped teach me more about what that separation could feel like. Maybe that is why we feel such bonds between family members and such pain at their passing. The pain we feel might be teaching us what Heaven might be like without being reunited with our Father in Heaven. I am happy here on Earth, and I have so many blessings to be thankful for, including two other beautiful children. But I am always saddened when I think of Madi (which is several times a day) and the void left by her death. Being without her really is hell; even with all the good in my life, this is not how I would like life to remain for eternity.

We all must deal with death, either of a loved one or our own death. Our Heavenly Father loves each of us very much and desires for each of us to return to Him. It would be very painful for Him to lose just one of us. He wants us to learn how to return to Him and all our loved ones. It should be our most important endeavor. It will bring us the most happiness. Isn't that really what we all want? Happiness?!