When I got home that Wednesday night, my sister was still at my parents’ house. We all sat around in the living room, the four of us, chatting and talking and catching up. I remember telling my family about stuff at work, my small group at church, other stuff. We talked about our Thanksgiving dinner plans for the next day: who was coming and what still needed to be done. We talked for a couple of hours before we called it a night. We all said our goodnights, then my sister headed to her house, my Mom went to bed, I went upstairs to read and my Dad stayed up to read.

“I’m headed to bed. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”

Those would be the last words I remember hearing from my Mom. I can’t remember telling her I loved her. She knew, though, right? Surely she knew. I have replayed this scene over and over in my head. I’ve tortured myself with it (and sometimes, I still do) and I can’t remember telling her I loved her. It was all so mind-numbingly normal that I simply can’t remember.

I think I read about three pages of the book I brought home before I abandoned it for fitful sleep. I haven’t touched it since. That book, When Life and Beliefs Collide, might have been exactly what I needed, but I have to admit that I absolutely felt abandoned by God that next morning and for much of the four years since. My life and my beliefs were absolutely colliding and I needed my God to show up and be God (in the form of the ultimate fixer/miracle worker), to make this un-happen, to make this nightmare not my reality. I still don’t understand why she’s dead and I’ll tell anyone who asks that I want her back. My faith is not so great that I’m ready to say “Okay, Lord. Not my will, but yours. This is not what I would have chosen, but I trust you.” Not on this issue, not yet.

I long to get to that place of peace…being mad at God is hard. It’s exhausting and I know that I can’t get to where I want to be spiritually with this chip on my shoulder. Tears are streaming down my face as I write this because I know the Lord is calling me to surrender to him on this issue, again and completely, but I can’t do it on my own. I don’t know how and I’m not even sure I want to.

After suffering loss in her own life, my friend M told me that she’s let go of the need to know why. For her own sanity, she had to let that need go. She said there will never be anything that anyone could say, not even God, that would make her losses justified. Writing that now, it sounds so arrogant, but I get what she meant.

I don’t know where I was going with this post when I started it, but I can unequivocally tell you this as I wrap it up: I miss my mother. I miss her every single day, not just today, the anniversary of her death. When I left the admissions office and took a new job, I wrote that her death expands to fill the new spaces in our lives. For a long time, I allowed her death to define me because it was somehow easier. I don’t want to do that anymore, but I am terrified of moving forward without her. I don’t want to forget the sound of her voice or the way it felt to be in her embrace. How do I walk that line, to remember her and honor her without living in the past? I’m not sure. Looking at her death in a new way is a little like starting over.

Maybe it’s time to pick up that book again.