No Quick Fix

Do you have a friend that's always there? One that you grew up with, made mistakes with, learned lessons with, laughed with, cried with, fought with and through it all you only got closer with. The one, that when life got in the way and you lost touch, you could still call after months of not talking and pick right back up where you left off. I have a few of those. Two of them are my buddies, Jennifer and Anna. We met when we were "grown ups" of thirteen years because our moms worked together. We became fast friends and were inseparable for the next several years. Then came weddings and school and jobs and kids-- and like it sometimes does, life pulled us apart. But through it all, we stayed in touch.

Yesterday, my phone rang and it was Jennifer. See, they lost their dad, Albert, about three months ago to (what started as) prostate cancer. It's been very hard on them because Albert was a wonderful person with a larger than life personality. We made small talk for a bit, then she broke down. "Nikki, it's just been the worst week. I miss him so much. I pick up the phone to call him, then I remember he's not there. It's just so hard.", she sobbed. I listened as she spoke. To make matters more painful, Yesterday her job in the medical field, (she sometimes floats from clinic to clinic) had landed her working an 8 hr shift in the very same oncology clinic where she sat with her dad just weeks earlier. She immediately got teary walking in the clinic. She said she could see him in every room... The vivid memories washed over her and suddenly she was listening as the dr recommended Hospice, with her sweet daddy sitting by her side-- full of hope and refusing to accept "no" for an answer. I continued to listen as she cried. My heart ached for her. She just kept asking "Why do I keep going down memory lane?", and it was killing me that I couldn't answer that question for her. She is hurting so badly. I am very, very worried about her.

Today, her little sister (and my other buddy), Anna, and I were texting. She is handling things a lot differently than her sister. Anna admitted that she refuses to let herself feel the loss of her dad. She has been keeping as busy as possible and is refusing to think or process what has happened. She, too, forgets he's gone and when the urge to call him or visit him invades her heart, she tricks herself into thinking he's sleeping or working. I read her words and I hurt for her. I worry that what she is doing isn't healthy and that she needs to grieve so that the healing process can begin. She said she is "scared" to face it. That breaks my heart. I am very, very worried about her too.



After talking with my sweet friends, I knew I had to come up with something to help them.

So I brainstormed ideas of how I could fix this:

I could send some scripture, after all, a little bit of Jesus makes everything better, right?

I could schedule a girls night to distract them.

I could take some donuts and we could all eat our feelings away.

I thought and thought and thought... But nothing I came up with seemed like enough.


Two sisters.

One significant loss.

Nothing I can do to help them.

Then I started thinking back to those first days without my mom. Much like Jennifer, I would have moments where the memory of my mom was so vivid that I could practically reach out and touch her. Restaurants and stores and familiar routes were filled with her in such a real way... and I, too, traveled up and down memory lane until it was paved with my teardrops. And similar to Anna, I would trick myself into forgetting she was gone. I would turn down her road refusing to accept reality. I would purposefully look for her sitting in that old rocking chair that we got her for Mother's Day. In my mind I was picking her up for some "great adventure" (that was actually just a trip to Wal-Mart or to Taylorsville).... In that moment, the sad reality was altered to something brighter. There was no new norm... She was still here and I was still me. And it felt good. Like both sisters, I wanted her back so badly. I would whirl into her yard and walk into her closet and bury my face in her clothes and breathe her in... and like the girls I, too, was in so much pain... and angry... and scared.. and confused...

And then it hit me..

Nobody ever fixed it for me.

They couldn't.

And I didn't expect them to.

But it sure was nice when they listened to me tell the same story about her for the hundredth time... and when they let me text at midnight because I was overwhelmed with memories... and when they called me on her birthday... and when they sent me flowers on the first Mother's Day without her...  and when they let me cry 1,2,3,4 years later and squeezed me tight and prayed for me....


There is no set way to handle a loss.
There is no timeline to meet certain healing milestones.
There is no 12-step program to heal your heart.

Simply put, there is no quick fix.

We just have to lean on God and wait for time to do it's thing.

I can't fix this for Jennifer and Anna...
I can't take their pain away....
I can't offer some guaranteed comfort in the form of advice...

But I can be there.

And you know what? A girls night filled with donuts, scripture, tears, laughs, listening ears and offering up a shoulder made specifically for crying on-- might do just fine in the mean time.