God Knew

God knew.
He must have known…
See, the back story is this. I have been a regular poster on a fitness message board for years. Every month, I posted my running/walking mileage, tried to meet my stated goal, commiserated with follow posters who missed their goals, congratulated those who met goals….We were a tight knit group.

When Steve our son died just before the cancer fundraising 5k that he and I were organizing, the message board members joined in the virtual portion of the run, participating at the same time all around the world, and adding to the $22,000 that we raised.

When one of our members suddenly died, a group of us organized another round-the-world memorial run, including a couple who came here to Hawaii to join me in a 30 mile uphill relay as part of it.

But it became a job…run/record/post/read the other posts/run/record/post/read the other posts….and as the anniversary of Steve’s death approached this year, I was overwhelmed by it all: life and work and running and posting and reading…and I stopped posting, but I continue to “lurk,” keeping up with what they are all up to.

Yesterday one of the long-term members, a nurse, posted about how she was traveling to a celebration-of-life ceremony for her sister’s son, who died in an auto accident in April. “And they’re STILL grieving! I wonder if they need some grief counseling?” April. 2019. In case you missed it…April was barely ONE MONTH AGO. My son, my only child died two years ago. There isn’t a day that I don’t think of him. There isn’t a moment when I pass by his picture on the table and not choke back a sob. We are not wallowing in our grief…we work, play music, sing in the choir, go to the beach, hang out with friends. But the grief is a daily, ever-present entity…
….and yeah, those who know me may not be surprised that I came a bit unglued. I was appalled that 1. someone should question how a parent could still be grieving a WHOLE month after their child died, 2. that that someone is a health professional and 3. that that same someone would be clueless enough to publicly post such a thought.

And I realize that God knew that if I were still regularly posting, I would have been unable to stop myself from ripping that poster a new okole (um, that’s butthole for you non-Hawaiians), but since I have been absent for so long, I can continue to lurk (and stew) in silence.

Yep, God knew!