Taking Time to Grieve

I worked for Nautica for 16 years. The slow roll to Christmas would start around September, by the time Christmas Day arrived I had worked countless hours, driven even more miles and was always exhausted. The rhythm of life never failed, the minute Christmas Day hit all of that stopped. I would have a week off, making up for all of the six day work weeks. The day after Christmas was always a huge let down, everything that could be done to make sales had been done, it was what it was. Now we just waited with bated breath to see if we had jobs come January. In the meantime, I was always exhausted, typically ended up sick and in massive need of a reboot. That is exactly how I feel now.

Life has changed in the past five years, the rhythm of my life has changed drastically. Now summer is my busy work season, teaching tennis outdoors, you have to teach when you have the weather. This summer in particular was extremely hard. I taught tennis camps for five weeks for York County, as well as our own classes for Hampton Roads Tennis Academy (HRTA). I maintained my dog walking business, and took two classes for my Masters. All of that is over now, and I feel deflated and exhausted. As a result, I spent yesterday hibernating from the world, resting. And grieving.

Tomorrow will be five years since we lost Cody boy from the Minick family. He died as a result of his juvenile diabetes. When we pull out of here tomorrow it will be at the approximate time we learned of his passing on that fateful day. My heart hurts thinking about it, it doesn’t seem right I get to go on this huge adventure that Cody would of loved. Or maybe not, I don’t know. Cody and I used to love having adventures together, when he was growing up. To say I miss him is the understatement of the year. Our journey begins here in OBX because Cody loved it here. We’re all gathered here to remember him, to celebrate the life he lived and the lives he touched.

C.S. Lewis explains how I feel well:

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” 

“The death of a beloved is an amputation.” 
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I’m feeling the weight of the amputation that occurred when Cody died. We all feel it, we all miss him, we all know there is nothing we can do to bring him back. But we can live our lives well for him. Thank God, we will see him again one day. But until then, every now and then, we take time to grieve our loss before we get back on the road of life.

To you Cody, I will always miss you. You will be with me everywhere we go, every mile we drive, every step we take. I’m grieving you, I’m grieving the loss of life, the loss of summer. In grief, we find life. Some days, it’s harder than others to get the motor running again, to start back on the journey. But that is what we have to do. I’m feeling your hug from heaven. I’m working on getting my motor running again, but for now, I’m going to sit here with you, just for another moment. I love you.