Grief

I know these pictures are small but since I don't have a scanner I had to bootleg them off of Summer's blog. The first one I think just describes Matt more perfectly than any words could and the second one is Matt with some of his best friends from GCS. From left to right, Adam (who was killed in Iraq a few years ago), Matt, Blake Hunter, Mike Johnson, and Matt Malone in front.

I am well aware that I haven't blogged in a month and can't even remember the last time I read a blog. There are a lot of things that I have not had time to blog about in the past month, my birthday, Dirt's birthday, my vacation, Mom and Dad's anniversary, and going back to work at Faulkner. And, I will eventually. But right now I have got to blog about how I am feeling because, thank God, the feeling fades into something different very quickly.

I believe that grief is kind of like child birth. God made us to where we can't REALLY remember grief because we would never be able to go through it more than once if we could. You forget the the way you hurt so badly that you can't concentrate on anything else. You forget how you feel like someone is in your head screaming "WHY?" making the rest of the world sound like Charlie Brown's teacher as they try to carry on conversation with you. And how you even have to remind yourself to breathe. You can't remember that you can drive four hours and make seven turns and never remember any of them. Or that you can drive by yourself for two hours in the middle of a hot summer day in south Georgia before you realize that you haven't turned on the radio or even the air conditioner. I also believe you can never pray like you do when you are consumed with grief. And I believe that even when I look back and read this and try to remember how I really felt I won't be able to understand my use of the word 'consumed'. I thank God that the feelings fade and that the memory of them fade.

After I worked at Faulkner yesterday I drove down to Valdosta and buried my friend Matt today before driving home to work tonight at 911. Matt is the second classmate that I have buried and I just can't believe it. My school wasn't like other schools. There were only about 100 people in the high school. If you weren't a part of it you can't understand that it is less like schoolmates and more like family. Of the 100ish people that were in school with Matt some 10 years ago, probably about 50 were there to bury him today.

I have been to some very hard funerals and, the reality is, I will probably be to some more in my life. None have been, and I can't imagine any being, any sadder than this one because of the facts. The most important of those facts being that Matt leaves behind three little boys fatherless, ranging in age between 7 weeks and 6 years old. If you have read this please say a quick prayer for my friends family and especially those little boys. This family has more healing to do than I can fathom, I can only be grateful that God is in charge of that healing.