The Broken Road

By Linda Halfpop – Guest Writer

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

How do you get over the death of your child? You don’t. It’s a sharp gravel road you walk on with bare feet every day, it’s a long road and it always hurts. Eventually, the rocks that cut you like knives become worn down, they don’t cut you as much but they impede your movements. A part of you feels lost and dead, it’s love with no place to go anymore. You don’t seem to be able to live, you feel like your camping in the world not living anymore.

On what or who can you cling to so that you don’t go under?

I have learned that when someone dear to you is experiencing this pain you must listen to their heart when they want to talk and unload things. Let them speak. Their world has spun out of control, don’t vacate them, their world has stopped and they can’t understand why the rest of the world keeps going on as usual. Stay behind with them.

I am not writing this to bring the reader down, my purpose is to put something into perspective that has never happened to me but is now being experienced by a dear friend of mine.

Bea lives in Florida in the same town we were stationed at together as young Air Force wives over forty years ago. Her two sons and my two daughters played together as children. When we met, we discovered that our fathers had been friends in Trenton, NJ. To this day we remain best friends even though we have not seen each other for well onto forty years now.

Last week, Bea called to tell me her oldest son Tony had died of a heart attack. He was only fifty five years old. He left a wife and four children. It wasn’t the same Bea on the other end of that phone line, she was without expression, without color to her voice. I listened in my own state of shock, trying to digest what she was telling me, but as she spoke, it was like she was giving dictation. What could I do? Nothing.

I call and leave messages stating that I was calling just to talk, I will send weekly letters and notes to her, I will even send a care package packed with things she likes or even lotions and scents to create a sense of serenity. That’s all I can seem to think of to do for her pain. I won’t vacate, I’ll keep the dialog moving between us.

I don’t know when her wounded feet will be able to move on the road without that slicing pain, I just know I will not vacate.

Today you will be blessed with this piece by guest author Linda Halfpop. Please encourage her!