Mondays Stink

11.25.13

      Mondays in general are rough. I don't know why, but there hasn't been a Monday since I went back to work that I felt good about.
      This Monday was no different. I went to my home hospital and did some training for a new product we have coming out, but I still felt down in general. Kate had emailed me that morning and said that her schedule had gotten all messed up and she needed me to come in early. I hung around as long as possible at work, and then headed out to Kate's office.
      I got there and she had another client in her office. Her office is kind of like a townhome that had been renovated to make offices. Hers is upstairs and there is a little waiting room across from her office. I sat down and started skimming over some of her magazines. When she came to get me, I picked my stuff up and headed over towards her couch.
      "How are you today?" She asked. "Bad", I replied. "Yeah, I can tell." She said softly. I just started crying again. "I am so tired. I am tired of being sad. I am tired of missing Kaitlyn. I want to hold my daughter again." I sat there and just sobbed for the first few minutes as Kate listened. I told her about the stories of not letting what other people went through to affect how I was feeling, and how over the last week I had been consciously NOT working on everyone else's issues. She nodded as I recounted stories from the last week of feeling down and missing Kaitlyn really badly.

       When I had finished, she said, "You may not feel like you have made any progress in your grieving this week, but I promise you, you have. You have slowed down enough to feel things again. For a while there, I was concerned that you were going to get so busy with everything that you would not slow down and really feel what has happened. This week, you slowed down so you kind of had a delayed response to going back to work. When you look back on this week in the coming weeks you will see how much progress you made." I just shrugged at her and said, "I'm still tired of being sad. I'm not a sad person, but I can't control how I feel about everything." Again she nodded and said, "This will get better. You're always going to miss Kaitlyn, but that sharp stabbing pain of missing her is going to fade into a dull throb over time."
   
        After we finished talking, I was exhausted. I went home and took a nap to try to function for the rest of the day before I went to bed. I woke up and decided that I was going to return a phone call from Jan (the lady who gave me the bracelet I wear every day that has Kaitlyn's name engraved on the inside).
        Jan picked up the phone and told me she had been busy all day putting up her Christmas decorations. She asked how I was doing and I was honest with her about just feeling down. She told me that she missed her son, Chris, every day and that nothing was ever going to make that missing go away until she is reunited with him in heaven.
        She also told me something that has really helped her keep positive in her every day life. She said that for every little thing that she does, if something comes easy, she claims it as the favor of God. "I live in the favor of God. " she said passionately. "If I am looking for something and I find it, its the favor. If I get a really great parking spot at the store, its the favor. I claim God's favor over my life and it really had helped me be aware of all the things I have to be thankful for."
        Have I mentioned how much I love this lady? I really wish I could figure out how to put a sound clip of her talking on here because her voice and tone are just so fun to listen to. Its almost like a sing-song voice.
         I promised Jan I would start looking for the little things to try to be thankful for, and that I was going to take the phrase "I live in the favor of God" and say it over my life.