Faith, Feelings, and My F-150 episode 6 transcript
When Your World Caves In
NARRATOR: Alex was now halfway through Lauren’s audiobook. It surprised him that in the next chapter, Lauren shared of her own story than anywhere else. Alex figured a writer would tell more of their own journey in the beginning, to build a connection with the readers. Regardless of why she included more of her story at this point, Alex learned a lot by listening to her experiences.
Up until I was twelve years old, I lived a pretty cushy life. We had a beautiful house with a pool in California (and an epic zipline that allowed us to fly over and drop into the pool). I had great friends and loving parents. I’d imagine that my Grief Tower up until that point had maybe four blocks on it – certainly not many.
Just before I turned thirteen, my parents announced to my younger brother and me that we would be moving to Africa. At that moment we took on a new life as a missionary family. It was in direct correlation to our new life as a missionary family that my Grief Tower stacked tall and fast. Between the stress that spun our home life into chaos to the traumatic experiences that never seemed to stop, it was a perfect storm for growing grief with little support to process it all well.
This is how my tower stacked:
Block #1: At 13 years old we moved from California, U.S.A., to Tanzania, East Africa, saying goodbyes to the friends, family, places, and potential memories we were giving
up with those people in that place.
Block #2: During our first week in Tanzania, I watched from a taxi window as a thief was dragged into an angry crowd, a gasoline-soaked tire was thrown over him, and both were lit on fire. He was burned to death to pay for his crime as I looked on, unsure whether to stare or squeeze my eyes shut.
Block #3: I started attending an international school, but unlike many international school contexts, I was the first “new kid” to enter my class in several years. The others had been together since preschool. I was also the only American. While my peers weren’t blatantly unkind to me, I felt incredibly out of place and alone. Most days that year I ate lunch by myself behind the school.
Block #4: We went back to the U.S. for a summer, and I realized how much I had been changed by Africa. I realized that although I still felt like a foreigner in Africa, I also felt like I didn’t fit back in America either. I felt stupid when I didn’t understand the references girls my age made, and I was laughed at for my naivete. I grieved the fact that I didn’t fit in completely in either place. I didn’t know if I ever would.
Block #5: Back in Africa, we took a boy named Samuel into our home who was dying of HIV/AIDS. He was my age and had been kicked out of his home because of the diagnosis. After living with us for months, eating flying termites out of the air because he thought it was funny to watch me gag, running around the house with my brother
and me, and learning how to do the “worm” dance on our green-tile living room floor, he died a horrible death in a dingy African hospital.
Block #6: In true Maasai tribe style, the grieving over his death involved screaming and wailing throughout the village for days. The memory of that sound still gives me chills.
Block #7: My two closest friends moved away within two weeks of each other. I felt incredibly alone.
Block #8: Only a couple of weeks later, a neighbor came to our door and told me that a Tanzanian friend of mine had died in her sleep. I couldn’t believe it and ran to her house, only to discover that he was telling the truth. Her father told me she had lain down to take a nap and had never woken up. More wailing rang out through the
neighborhood.
Block #9: The next month, a tumultuous election took place in Kenya. Expatriate refugees descended on us, coming to stay until things settled down. Around that time, we were told we needed to move back to the U.S. immediately. We left with only a few days’ notice, leaving our life in Africa without the closure of goodbyes.
Block #10 (and probably more): I started my sophomore year at a public high school in California. For me, this was the toughest transition by far as I struggled to make friends and quietly carried the unprocessed grief of our years in Africa. Thinking each month that we were going back to Tanzania the next, we lived in temporary housing, eventually totaling 18 houses that year.
It’s no wonder those years felt so hard. My Grief Tower crashed during my sophomore year of university. I had not processed any of what had happened during the years when my tower was stacking. When I did let myself think about the hard things, I felt numb, as if those memories were emotionally off limits.
That year, I began having horrible nightmares. They often took place in Africa, and I always woke up yelling, sweaty, and panting. Around the same time, I discovered an unexplained, quarter-sized bald spot on my head. I was battling never-ending cold sores on my lips and had constant stomach aches. I had no idea these were symptoms of a crashed Grief Tower. I went to the doctor and was told that all my bloodwork looked normal; that I should take vitamins and try changing my diet. I cut out dairy and trudged on. At some point in all of that I got engaged, so wedding planning got thrown into the mix.
After my Grief Tower crashed, life kept going. Our first year of marriage included an ectopic pregnancy. We thought I was 10 weeks pregnant and by that point had spent months talking about names and dreams for our baby. On Mother’s Day weekend we discovered that the egg was never in the right place. I cried for a moment, pulled myself up, and said I was fine.
Three months later, we moved across the country from Indiana to Oregon, starting a life from scratch. I began a job at a law firm where roll was taken at 8 am every morning.
If you were late, you were fired on the spot. Each morning involved a spiel about how replaceable we all were. Once I made a typo on a form, and a lady charged down from the second floor to berate me in front of the entire staff, yelling, “How are you this stupid!?” and shouting that I wouldn’t amount to anything in life.
My last week working at that law firm (and just a couple of days after my birthday), I experienced labor pains for the first time as I contracted in the dark staff bathroom and pushed out a teeny tiny 8-week-old baby. I’d had another miscarriage. I vividly remember trying to decide what to do with the tiny little almost-body.
Flushing it seemed so wrong, but also, what was I supposed to do with it? I shook and sobbed in every kind of pain until I could pull myself together, exit back out into the office, and tell my boss I needed a sick day.
That week I told my husband that I needed to go to counseling. I wasn’t doing well, and I knew I hadn’t been since sophomore year of college. My body was carrying every hard thing that had happened.
My wonderful therapist specialized in trauma, and as I unpacked my life in Africa and my life since then, she explained how trauma resides in the body, described what that looks like, and gave words to everything I had experienced up to that point. After finding language for what I had been experiencing – Complex-PTSD – I began a long healing journey of finally looking back so that I could move forward into a healthier future.
NARRATOR: Wow! Alex was overwhelmed hearing about all the losses Lauren experienced as a teen and young adult. He could totally understand why that miscarriage at the law firm’s office pushed her to the breaking point. She had to be amazingly tough to go through all the things that brought her to that place.
By comparison, Alex felt like he hadn’t gone through as much loss as Lauren. Sure, he had plenty to talk about. But he felt like his story didn’t begin to compare to hers.
Alex only had a few minutes left until his drive from Bloomington was over, and he arrived at home. As he turned left onto their residential street, he noticed their porch light was on. That was unusual. As he came nearer, he saw Natasha standing outside the door. As he pulled into the driveway, she stood there waiting for him.
Alex knew something was up. Usually Natasha waited for him inside, and was quick to welcome him with a hug as he arrived home. But today she quietly stood outside the door, not making any gestures, just looking Alex in the eye as he walked up to her.
“What’s up?” Alex asked.
Tears welled up in Natasha’s eyes. “…It’s your mom... When I stopped over this afternoon, I found her on the floor….I called 911, and they came right away. The doctors say she had an aneurysm”.
“Well, is she okay?” Alex asked.
Natasha paused for a moment. Then she quietly managed to choke out the words “…She’s gone.”
Alex stood still, frozen in shock. It had only been a few weeks since his dad’s funeral. Now that he was gone, Alex had so many plans of what he could do to make life better for his mom. He wanted her retirement years to be full of more peace and safety than she had known before.
Now all those hopes were gone. Their newly-remodeled basement apartment would go empty. All the vacation plans with grandma and the kids wouldn’t happen. Worst of all, his mom wouldn’t experience the tranquil life Alex wanted for her so deeply.
The next few hours were a blur. Alex felt numb at first. Everything felt so surreal.
The reality of the pain hit Alex after he went to bed. That wasn’t unusual. Often when Alex was awake, he was a task-focused doer. Doing things with his hands took his mind off what was happening around him. But when he was in bed, his mind and body relaxed. That’s when feelings surrounding the events of the day caught up with him.
Alex got mad. When his dad was sick earlier, Alex was mad at him. His father’s illness was brought about through years of alcohol abuse. Alex figured he got what he deserved.
But not his mom. This was not her fault. An aneurysm can come out of nowhere, and happen to anybody. Her life was suddenly taken from her.
Alex was mad. But not at his dad or his mom. Alex realized that who he was really mad at was God. God was the one who let him be born into an alcoholic, abusive family. God let him and his mom and siblings live in fear for years. And now, just when things could get better for his mom for the first time, God suddenly took her away.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
Alex didn’t know what to do next. At his father’s funeral, everyone understood that his was an evil man who drank himself to death. But what could they say at his mom’s funeral? That God let her down? That he didn’t protect her? That it doesn’t make any difference whether you do the right thing?
Alex didn’t sleep much that night. He was torn between his love for God and his anger about the pain God allowed. He didn’t know it at the time, but finally experiencing the depth of pain over his losses was exactly what he needed to bring him to a place of healing.
