Find Me Tomorrow?

You seem very far away, this weekend, up on that cross, Jesus.

Or in the tomb.

Or whatever.

I am unable to access the emotions that defined 37 years of Easter Weekends.

This was the holiday he chose to introduce me to his family.

This was the time of hope, life, all bursting out and up.

I feel numb.

I am shaking a fist at you, in my heart.

Why are you doing this? Is it for a perfect forever after? The eternal to come?

Because F*** that, I scream at you,

I want heaven HERE.

It is less depression this year, and more grief.

Do you know what it is LIKE?

ALL MY SIBLINGS… their spouses, my parents. 13, 14 people? Just gone from my life? My husband. The people who should have had my back NO MATTER WHAT. The people who had pledged to love and care for me… Gone.

Forsaken?

Maybe God forsook you, Jesus, but your mom was still there.

What if they had all died in a plane crash, I ask you. What if I was the only one who survived? The grief of that would be enough to kill the average girl. This feels worse. They are dead to me but alive and I don’t know how to grieve the living.

Jesus-on-that-cross. I don’t know how to connect with you. I feel the loss of the old ways, the steady in my tracks normal ways of doing these religious days. I believe you to be real, but all that gives me is a numb sort of peace, today.

I vomit the fear and the worry and the anger out at my friend. She served you too, overseas. We served you SO DAMN HARD. We loved you and it was all for you… and this being forsaken and left alone still happened to us.

What are we supposed to feel? We ask the question of each other, and don’t mind that the other doesn’t have an answer.

I shared a joke on my facebook wall today… about the women at the tomb.

It was funny, and ironic, and it started sinking into my grief-logged brain this afternoon.

I AM these women.

You’re dead and gone and I am lost, forsaken, alone.

Religion kept me from pouring out my love and grief in the days right after your death, so I have finally come today.

I have no hope for resurrection, but with every beat of my heart, I am screaming at God to give me something, anything, to hold on to.

Tonight I wash dishes. (notice how much deep thinking is happening over my sink?)

I imagine myself, walking with the women I love through the garden, toward your tomb. I imagine what I would be feeling, what I would be thinking. I imagine the weight of the grief may feel somewhat similar to the grief I have felt all day as I think of my family.

I want to be first to the tomb. I want to lay my head on your chest, and let the tears fall. I want to beat you with my fist and scream out my anger and fear. I don’t know where you went, but I want you to come back.

I want you to hold me, and tell me the pain was worth it.

I want you to wipe away the blood and the tears.

I want you to wash away the sweat and the exhaustion.

I want heaven HERE, dammit.

I want to the behold the resurrection and the life. I do not want to sit in the darkness of sorrow.