I get an "F"

Yesterday was pretty much a complete failure for me. I tried to go to church. I tried to be "normal." I failed. As soon as I got there, a well-intentioned person mentioned my daughter, and though I made it through worship (barely--all of those songs about Heaven? Not cool. Some days it's just not a comfort, you know?!?), I was ready to leave....and then the same well-intentioned person stopped me mid-flight, and oops--there went the embarrassing ugly-cry.
I give up.
I have no intentions of going to church on Mother's Day ever, ever again. I don't like feeling like I have a target on my head...like, even if there's really not a spotlight, and no one else really thinks about what my husband and I have been through, all it takes is one person, and I'm in the weeds. I just don't want to feel like a spectacle, and since I seem unable to do that, I'm just DONE with church on Mother's Day. FOR. GET. IT.
That being said, in the midst of my flight out of the church (and subsequent ugly-cry/sob/bah!), I neglected to have conversations with two very special people that I simply wanted to hug.  I GET the whole "I don't really want to talk about it" thing. I don't want to talk about it unless it's on my terms. I'll start the conversation if/when I want to; you just don't know how fragile someone can be until you hit them with that subject right out of the gate, and watch them crumble. I was keeping it together for the sake of my own dignity, for the sake of my husband...I really didn't want to talk about my daughter yesterday. I have days like that. It's incredibly intimate, regardless of how many times I've blogged about Hannah-girl. So, for the two people I was thinking of, I just wanted to hug them in silence.
I appreciate silence.
Please don't laugh...if you laugh at that sentence, you don't know me very well.
There is such a deep, deep unpredictable tenderness with grief...10 years now, and I am still so fragile certain days of the year.  This was my 10th Mother's Day without my daughter...I can't put my feelings into words, and if I can't, why would someone else try?
I can't.
David and I have walked such a searing path...we understand the timing of the discussion between ourselves, as we are the only ones who went through Hannah's loss in the ways that we as parents went through it. He asked me yesterday why I wanted to leave church, and I got aggravated--"Do I have to freaking explain?!?!?" He didn't know I'd been "triggered;" he also had the sense to not question me any further. He did what he does...he took me to a park.
That man takes a lot of crap for being thick-headed sometimes, but darn it if he doesn't GET me so incredibly well...Sitting outside while he played with Jericho was what my heart needed...sitting at home, drinking a margarita, eating barbecue and binge-watching The Office? Perfect.
He makes me feel as normal as any post-loss-anxiety-struggling-post-thyroidectomy-stuck-with-stupid-cancer-loon-of-a-wife can feel.
It's very easy, post-embarrassing ugly cry, to beat myself up for not being able to keep it together.
I really shouldn't care.
I cried. Big Deal.
Yep--10 years later, it still hurts. Last night, I had a phone call with my bestie from elementary school, where we basically told Hallmark to suck it, because Mother's Day is an atrocious stick in an open wound that makes us want to drink. That's such an awful thing to say, because as a daughter, I want to honor my awesome Mama (we celebrated her on Thursday due to logistics). But as a mother, MD makes me want to scream at the universe for all of the questions that are answerless...and as a Christian, I guess I'm supposed to be okay with that.
I'm not.
Neither is my friend, who lost her Mama and her Grandma...who never conceived, and who will never conceive, in spite of the fact that she and her husband would be AMAZING parents. Or my other friend, who lost her mother as she was becoming a mother herself...Or my other friend, who has spent the better half of a decade trying to conceive, only to hit one obstacle after another, and has a whole new series of appointments looming....Or my other friend, who just had her second failed attempt at IVF...
Why do we go through these things?
What is God thinking?
Do I trust Him enough...do I love Him enough...to set my questions aside and keep going?
I do....
That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, and that doesn't mean I have to wall off that hurt. Do that, and watch your life be over as you know it.
Mother's Day is so, so hard...so many unanswered questions, so much heartache, for so many people that I know, that I love...for myself, for my family...
I love my friend at church that mentioned my daughter, that had the best of intentions...she couldn't have known that I was just hoping to survive the day. She couldn't have known that she knocked on the door of a glass house...because normally, I don't consider myself to BE a glass house. I can normally discuss my daughter and keep it together.
Well, I didn't yesterday, and rather than apologize for it, I'm just gonna own it and start over, today...
And give up on it for next year.
Next Mother's Day, I'm sleeping in and watching Netflix.
(BTW, the best part about Mother's Day, besides barbecue? Rico-Bean--who never saw me cry; it's important to me that he not, at this point--tried to "kiss my freckles off." I thought that was the sweetest thing in history, and gave me much-needed warm fuzzies.) :) 
For every heart out there that struggled this weekend...who dreaded another Mother's Day full of confusion, secret hurt, public hurt...who dealt with a tender heart, or even a broken heart...
I am so, so sorry you're hurting...
There is no perfect way to grieve, and no one can tell you how you're supposed to feel. If they try, they're not your friend.
I will not slap a churchy-answer-band-aid on your hemorrhaging heart and feel like I've done my Christian duty...You are allowed to grieve your loss, your missing piece, any way you need to. Give yourself permission to hurt. Don't clean yourself up to approach the God you're questioning, the Jesus you don't understand. He gets it. He gets YOU, and He knows how it is to hurt and feel like the heavens are silent...He will love you in the dredges of sadness or in the sidelines of grief.
Please don't feel like you have to "church up" in the process of grief, regardless of where you are in the process...I struggle with that.
You are loved, I am loved, even when we don't understand or have the answers, or when the answers just plain suck. We are loved, even when we ugly-cry and leave church or accidentally cause a scene, or stand in our backyard and yell, "SUCK IT, HALLMARK!!!!" with our bestie over the phone.
So, yeah...
That was my Mother's Day.
Ugly-cry-missed-conversation-fleeing-church-sitting-at-a-park-post-ugly-cry-nap-barbecue-margarita-The-Office-freckle-kissing-yelling-at-Hallmark
And waking up the next day, pouring my heart out to God in my morning commute, and getting reminded once again that where I am in this process, this never-ending process, is where I am supposed to be...that I don't need to explain myself to Him, or rationalize myself to Him...that He hears me as I am, and He hears you as you are, and He Loves Us, even when we're ugly-crying over things society tells us we should be over. GOD NEVER TELLS US TO GET OVER IT. He says "Let Me help you through this."
He never tells us we're stupid or silly for feeling the way we do; He honors our hearts, because He created them.
Jesus gets me...He gets my husband and my son, and for that, He GETS me for eternity...and I get Him...
I remind myself of eternity on a daily basis...
And I remind myself that there is no "right" or "wrong" way to navigate this process...the only thing we have to do is to trust Him (which is sometimes the hardest thing of all).
One foot in front of the other, y'all...
Just keep swimming...
Even on Mother's Day...