I have talked in previous posts about feeling a bit broken, lost, and wanting to be whole, but yet being a bit afraid of it. (Never Rock Alone Post) Well, I have a story to share.
I have always believed in healing. I have been functioning fine for quite some time now. Healing and grace must be at work in my life, I concluded. I know things can't go back to how they were before. And maybe they would never be that good again, but I could still heal.Though I believed it, I have had quite the difficult time feeling it. Since the year of death in 2013, I have felt a piece of me was lost most of the time, except for some flickers here and there. Most of the time, though, I have simply had to have faith that they were near, because it was so hard and rare to actually feel it. I didn't really feel homeless. It felt like having a home, but having lost a member of it. I felt like I put up “missing” posters on every street corner, hoping that part of me was still out there and would come back. I clung to a picture of that missing part for years, “Have you seen this girl?” I asked everyone. Once in a while, I would find a trace of myself (like a nine one thousand hug at the storytelling festival and being rocked during my Thrival) and it would renew my hope that I was still out there. Then I moved to Logan where no one knew that girl or that dog at all. There began to be more times when I wondered if that part of me that loved like I did and felt like I did was actually gone forever, that this loss was simply part of growing up. I even took down a few of the “missing” posters.
Accordingly, I was pretty unfeeling
and neutral when my parents told me that my Dad had quit his job and gotten a
new one in SLC and they were moving. In fact, I felt that I would maybe be okay
if I never went back. I haven't been home in two years, not since around the
time Gar died, and the two days I flew home to be there when Harmboy died. And
one day I was there in Feb to drive to Kentucky for an interview. Going home
has meant loss, and “missing” the past two years. A part of me got lost in
Tennessee under the dirt, but every time I went there looking for her, she wasn’t
there, or at least I couldn’t get her out, and digging had become exhausting. My
parents’ moving meant even less frequent returns, so I felt no choice but to
let go. I flew home to help my mom pack and say goodbye, finally
accepting that part of me was gone, but that somehow, it would be alright someday,
even if not until heaven. I couldn’t keep digging for that part of me. I even found
that my favorite color had changed from “golden Gar fur” color to a “new leaf
green,” but I couldn’t explain it, and I struggled to accept it for a while
until moving to Logan.
Then, something happened when I got
off the plane. Something I could not have expected. When I got off the plane,
something hit me besides the humidity. It was me. I felt home without any
effort. I felt alive just from breathing in and out. I went to Harm's and Gar's
graves and you know what? It felt different. It didn't feel like being trapped
under the ground or being in a jail, or “missing.” It felt much more like a
"waiting together" or "sitting with" or “visiting.” It was
liberating!
I went to the high school
Homecoming (how appropriate right?!) football game and I felt more like I was
home than I ever let myself feel there. I teased the old fogie club who
welcomed me in like I never left. Lampley shared his famous Utah Mormon joke he
made up my sophomore year, one more time. I sat with Mama Amy and told her everything. I borrowed my dad's bike and went
for a ride on my favorite winding narrow roads on a Sunday morning. I nodded at
people out in their fields and yards and wondered why they were all smiling so
big when they saw me. I checked my own face. I was smiling so big, my eyes were
all squinty, that's why they smiled back so genuinely! I was so happy that I
laughed out loud down the hills with my hands in the air like wings and the
fall wind in my hair, I laughed until I cried. I've not been that happy in
years. I heard my own inner voice saying with joy, "I'm Back! I'm
Back!" I missed me. At church, my little branch family wrapped me up in
hugs and gave us a picture of the branch family all together in a frame and I
cried. They said we’d always have a home there. Yep. I always will. It is so
strange that letting go allowed me actually to feel closer! 
I found that part of myself! I know I lost myself beneath the dirt, but I didn't find myself there! That
part of me had simply been swallowed by my anguish and fear of its loss, waiting
for me to let it go and realize it was still there. This last trip forced me to
find closure and healing that I've been afraid of. Afraid, because closure felt
like betrayal. Letting go had meant “not as important.” But when I least
expected it, the closure was more an experience of Loyalty, Love, and Reuniting.
I was able to step away enough to really see clearly, instead of holding so tight
that I lost sight of it. I still have downs and ups of course; that hasn’t
changed. I still have times I feel alone and miss Gar and others; that has not changed either. What has
changed in me is that, through grace I believe, I have been able to let go of
Gar and Tennessee just enough to see them and feel them better.
When I was absorbed in them, I could not feel them in my
arms. The part of me I thought was missing was right under my nose!
The missing part of me has been freed.
When driving back to Logan, a song came on my phone and it
was just way too perfect. Have you ever heard "The House That Built
Me" by Miranda Lambert? That song was pretty much my
experience of going home. Go ahead and give it a listen.
It's good to be found!
