What Happened In Italy

(Matera, Italy)

Just a warning that this isn't the most pleasant reading you'll do all day. I'm honestly not even sure if this is appropriate to publish but then on the other hand, it's honest, it's the way it was and the way I felt two years ago. To anyone reading, please understand that this was a phase of grief, a first genuine shocking jolt from an otherwise happy and comfortable life. I can't excuse how I felt at the time but I can assure you that it's been almost two years since this time and what I feel now is not even close to what I felt then.

Even though I feel at peace with where I'm at in life today, there are things it hurts me very much to remember.

The initial, slightly frenzied feeling of panic in the doctor's office on a warm August day two years ago as he said such quiet, simple, life changing words; the shaky, almost defiant disbelief in the car on the way home, stumbling blindly out of the car and into the house together and yet, so very alone in the numbness of grief; crawling into bed at 3 in the afternoon sobbing, thinking God, this, of all things, can not be true.
And this defiance, pain and incomprehensible despair and great sense of loss of everything all meshed together in my soul to create a temporary chaos in the midst of the bland routine of everyday life.

I started a new job, worked for several weeks until one morning I woke up, began to get dressed and simply couldn't. Take anymore. I began an elaborate quitting process. Not just the quitting of my job, but the quitting of everything. The shutting down of the soul. I began to dread taking the dog for a walk in case I would see anybody and have to say hello. (Anyone who knows me knows how uncharacteristic this is.) I would wake up, find Per already gone to work and slowly get out of bed, trun off all the lights in the house, close all the blinds, lock the doors and sit inside in darkness planning to be silent and still if anybody happened to come to the door. It was desperate self preservation. I began to dread going to mass. I would sit there biting my lips, my jaw tight, my eyes burning with tears the entire hour, my hands shaking in my lap with an anger too strong for me. Vast, stretching confusion at being so betrayed. And in all that empty space inside myself, I nourished an idea that I fed myself again and again, day in and day out. An explanation, a mantra of sorts: "I am worthless. I shouldn't live. God must hate me, worse than hate, he must despise me, think I'm sickening and disgusting, and if not even God loves me then there really is no hope at all for me." And these words broke my heart.

There is immense anguish in such words. I think the echoes of everything I said in grief are still there inside me, they mark the soul, they damage it. Not irreparably though, they just make their mark like everything else and then eventually heal over and as a song by Sara Groves says " In your hands, the pain and hurt look less like scars and more like character." ("Your" being God.) That line always struck me as being, in some situations, perhaps the best we can strive for.

By this point you're probably wondering what happened in Italy. Well...grace happened. Spending Christmas roaming around the elaborate, beautiful streets, museums, churches of Rome, Naples and Matera was the most healing thing we could have done. Grace is beautiful, a delicate gift. It came unexpectedly. One day I was sitting on a bright red chair in a square in Matera, eyes closed against the cool December light and the thought came unbidden into my head that I wished I could die. And then I wondered if wishing was like praying. And then hoped it wasn't becase I really didn't want to die when I actually considered it. And then...it never happened again. Instead, peace and grace happened. A quiet flooding and filling of the soul until now I could cry with happiness at the change in my life. The curtain has been lifted. Beauty bubbles up, spilling over into my life again, calling out to me. I follow because I have always loved beauty. You know, very good things are coming our way...

Light streaming in through windows in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, December 2008