Undone by Bedsheets

Not too long ago, I showed up at Dad's for lunch and found him standing, hands on hips, looking at a wrinkled pile of bed sheets on the dining table with a disgusted look on his face.  Frustration spilled out as he grabbed a corner of the clean white sheets and tried, unsuccessfully to fold them into a neat stack.

"How did Mom ever fold these things?"  the words wavered between exasperation and a grief that bubbled up unexpectedly this sunny summer day.

How is it that 6 months have come and gone and our hearts are pierced with grief over bedsheets? Of all things?

We miss her in the kitchen...around the the dining room table...lounging in her favorite recliner...giving hugs...smiling at our birthday parties...picking up the phone for daily chats...in the scent of her perfume wafting off the dresser...

But bedsheets?  Really, they're just pieces of linen.  They've been washed a dozen times since she's slept between their silken softness. 

On this Grief Journey, we are finding that somedays it doesn't take much to trigger the missing...

Over these past months, Pat, mom's dear friend, has made it her mission to come every other week and help Dad wash and change the sheets.  None of us realized what a gift that was.  Until she was out of town traveling and Dad attempted the chore solo.  I arrived on the tail end of his endeavor...

And it was either laugh or cry.  Dad was effectively rolling the sheets into a ball of rumpled wrinkles with each twist of his hand. 

So, we stopped.  And we agreed mom was a saint.  Our smiles tremble.  Hands, not steady reach for the corners, one more time.  And then together we managed to fold the monstrous King-Size sheets into a pile that even Martha Stewart could be proud of!

And as we trip over each other and twist the sheets first one way, then the other, our smiles get real.

"Mom would be laughing at us." he says.  I nod.  Then I snicker when my end is even and his is too long.  He smiles bigger.  And my heart pain eases.   We can do this...

We proudly carry the neat stack to the linen closet and...

set it beside the pile of tan sheets that look like someone rolled them into a rumpled, wrinkly ball.

I look at Dad, he shrugs his shoulders and said,  "Maybe Pat needs to take some lessons from us..."

Somehow, we're making it through one day, one chore, one heartache at a time.  Missing Mom is a daily valley we are learning to navigate.  Some days we find that the shadow valley is filled with the sunshine of her memories, and other times the shadows darken the beauty and leave us clinging to Grace only by Faith...

And still, the Promise holds true:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."  Psalm 23:4

I always thought that this verse was meant to be a comfort for the one nearing death.  I'm learning anew thru this grief journey, this heart-aching missing, that we are walking thru that valley of the shadow of her death.   And yet, He is here with us.  His rod protects.  His staff guides.  His Presence comforts.

Bringing the Sonshine of Beauty into the Shadow Valley. 

And we can smile.

That's Grace for Today, Bedsheets and All... Jane