Five years ago, April 17, 2019, was the last day I hugged my little sister. I sat in a rocking chair at my parents' house and she bent down to hug me then she ran out the door. I began writing this book over a year later. I didn't know if it would be published, I didn't really know what to do with it, I just knew I needed to write because when I write, I heal. So, I let the words pour out and I wrote. Most of what I've written has floated in the cloud of the internet for the last three years. It turns out, most people don't like to read about grief, and many people who do grieve find great comfort in writing about it. The only way this book could ever be published, I was told by a publisher, is if I made it some sort of guide for dealing with grief. How do you turn something that isn't linear into a guide? How do I take my experience of loss and suffering and tell people how to apply it to their own grief? I can't. I have learned that we should never tell a grieving person "I know how you feel"...because we don't. Every loss, every relationship, every person is unique and different and we genuinely have no idea how people feel. But I want people who grieve to know they're not alone. That's why I'm sharing the completed chapters of this book with you. Because we'll all be grievers one day, if we haven't been already, and we need to know that we're not alone. August 2020
I’ve known I needed to write this for a long time. I felt it somewhere in my soul, and there, almost as if this book had a soul itself or a life of its own, it began to turn and grow. I never felt ready because my grief seemed to never end. A few days ago, I knew it was finally time. Time to actually put a body to the soul of the book I’ve been wrestling with for a long time. I was getting ready to go away for the weekend with a group of friends. We were going to a wedding just three hours away in Springfield (Missouri. I have to specify because there’s a Springfield in just about every state it seems), but decided months ago that we were going to make a weekend of it. We rented an AirBnB, my parents watched my girls, and I actually bought some new clothes for this event. I’m a huge fan of thrifting and second-hand clothes, so when I actually buy new, it feels pretty extravagant. Keeping with my thrifting nature, I checked out a local thrift store to see if I could find anything that might work for the rehearsal dinner or just for the weekend. I was brave and bought a jumpsuit that could be edgy, could be classy, could be totally-not-going-to-work, but I wanted to try it out. It was navy blue and sleeveless except for these little sleeves that cuffed right below my shoulder. All of the edges were scalloped and I love a good scallop (both the food and the pattern), but the catchy part was that the legs flared at the bottom, giving it that retro-look mixed with a modern neckline and scallops. Like I said, could be amazing, could be a disaster. I also bought mustard yellow heels. Mustard yellow and chartreuse are two of my favorite colors but I don’t own much of anything that would demonstrate that because I prefer wearing neutral colors. However, I was feeling brave! So I snagged those up, too. When I got to the register, I asked the cashier if they were taking returns. It was the summer of 2020, and we all know how 2020 was (may she rest in peace that she stole from us), so many stores didn’t have fitting rooms open - including this one, so I was planning to do what I had done the entire day I’d been shopping - I would take the clothes home to try on and bring back anything that didn’t work. The cashier said they were accepting returns within 14 days of the purchase with the receipt and the tag still on the items. So, I purchased the jumpsuit and the shoes. Now this particular thrift store can be rather pricey and I don’t shop there often, but I was willing to fork over the extra money if this jumpsuit worked. When I got to my mom’s house to show her my purchases and pick up my girls, she told me that most thrift stores only do returns for store credit. For all of my years of thrifting, I’ve never actually returned anything, so I didn’t know this common practice. My heart sank and anxiety began to creep in. I’m a single mama to three little girls. I would have never purchased items that I could only return for store credit because I would want to use that money at another store, not a thrift store where I *might* find something that I actually love and want to wear. I returned to the thrift store immediately (after finding out the jumpsuit was a totally-not-going-to-work and I couldn’t stand in the shoes longer than five minutes). My mom was in tow to stay in the car with my girls, and I went into the store to plead my case. Let’s just say that it didn’t go very well. In my entire life, I had never been treated so poorly or unkindly by a store’s employees and manager and it completely caught me off guard. I’m not a cryer. I used to be, but I haven’t been much of a cryer for about six years, only giving into the occasional cry every several months or so. Even then, I don’t like to cry in front of people. I don’t like people to see me as vulnerable and I certainly don’t want people trying to hug me while I cry. But, as I stared at this store employee and the manager’s back (he’d walked away from me moments before), the tears sprang to my eyes. I looked into the eyes of this employee, just willing her to see me. She stared back, not even knowing that I was actually showing her a glimpse of my soul. This store employee was seeing a piece of me that very few people had ever seen. But she didn’t treasure it. She just stared back, cold and unmoving. So, I grabbed my items and left. I hadn’t really expected to get my money back, but I did expect to be treated with dignity. I had shared that I’m a single mom and money is tight, but my heart didn’t just fall on deaf ears, it fell on apathetic ears. That almost hurts worse than not even being heard. I walked to my van, where my mom was with my girls, and tried to explain what happened, but the tears fell uncontrollably. My mom took the items inside, where she managed to get my money back, but it wasn’t getting the money back that made this such a defining moment that I’m actually writing about it. Honestly, writing about it feels rather silly and dramatic and while I can be incredibly silly, I’m not dramatic (not in the, stirring up drama sort of way). The reason I’m even writing about this is because of the moment I was alone in the van (I mean, as alone as I can be with three little girls and “The Sound of Music” playing on the van’s DVD player). As I wept, I told myself, “Feel this moment, Kendra. Feel the tears.” And I wept not just for my hurt feelings, but for the grief that even brought me to this place. I wept because I’m a single mom and it is hard. I never imagined my life turning out the way it has, and I wept for my broken dreams and expectations. I wept because I would have probably been shopping with my sister, and she should have been here. I wept because this weekend trip was going to be a blessing and fun, but grief was still sitting at my heart, waiting to pounce at any moment and I felt that exponentially. I allowed myself to just be in the moment, to feel, to hurt and to allow the hurt to well into hot, burning tears that poured onto my cheeks and down my face then trickled onto my neck and the top of my shirt. When my mom came out to the car, the clothes replaced with cash, I looked at her and with awe said, “You know how I can tell I’m healing? I’m able to cry again.” She’d watched me cry three days earlier, too. It was a rare sighting. But maybe not so rare any more. I’m healing. That doesn’t mean the grief has stopped or is going to stop. I’m pretty sure that when I met grief for the first time in 2016, even though it was an unpleasant meeting, and I really don’t care much for it, it came to stay. From that moment on, the Kendra you would be meeting is the Kendra with grief. You probably won’t always see it or recognize that it's the grief that causes me to move a little slower and with more intention; it’s the grief that causes me to laugh a little louder and hug a little tighter; it’s the grief that causes me to see every person through a different lens and the grief that causes me to stand up for the outcast more vocally than I would have in the past. Grief has shaped me and changed me. And as my mom told me to take deep breaths and held me while the weeping subdued, I knew that it was time. Time to actually sit and limb by limb, piece together this book… on grief.
2 Comments
Mary Ann Henry
4/18/2024 12:54:13 pm
Well that made me cry for sure.
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Grace Campbell
4/19/2024 09:57:44 am
Thank you for sharing your heart and thoughts. I'm 17 months into grieving for my husband. Hardest thing ever.
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Hi, Friend.I'm Kendra LeeAnne and I'm so thankful you're here. I hope Jesus meets you somewhere in the midst of my sprawling words and pondering heart. If you're looking for previous Bible studies I've written, click here to find them.
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