I shouldn’t have talked about her. I shouldn’t have talked about him. I shouldn’t have gone. I shouldn’t have spoken. I shouldn’t have written that. I shouldn’t have laughed at that. I shouldn’t have committed to that. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have thought that. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.
I should have been nice. I should have smiled. I should have called. I should have gone. I should have spoken. I should have written that. I should have read that. I should have committed to that. I should have said that. I should have thought that. I should have done that. I should. I should. I should.
My biggest regret is the last conversation I had with my mother. The day before she died, we had a petty argument over the phone. I stood at my bathroom counter with the phone tightly squeezed between my palm, my forehead vein bulging, and I screamed at my mama. I screamed horrible things to her, and the last words I said before I slammed the phone down to my vanity were, “I’m done with you, Mama! I am done!”
My blood pressure at an all-time high, I continued to rant aloud to my image in the bathroom mirror as I applied eyeshadow and prepared to see Hall and Oates with Jason for our tenth wedding anniversary. I ranted and I raved and I tried to validate the malicious words I’d spoken just minutes before to my mother.
Mama and I—our bond, our relationship was so resilient, so beautiful, but so messy at times. We were identical—both bullheaded and stubborn. That’s why we argued that day. She didn’t agree with me, and she was too proud to admit her wrongs. I was too proud to admit mine. I was too proud to bite my tongue.
But we would make up tomorrow. We always did. And, of course, I wasn’t really “done” with my mother. She was my mother! She was my best friend. She was my spiritual mentor. She was my everything. My mother was everything to me.
As Jason and I ate dinner for our anniversary that night, I was still fuming over the argument that afternoon with Mama. Then I remembered the Bible verse I had received via text that very morning. Proverbs 15:1: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” As I cut my steak before the concert, I told Jason, “I should have followed the advice of Proverbs today. I should have kept calm with Mama. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have been so stubborn.”
I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.
I had every intention to make it right the next day. I had every intention to let things cool off and call Mama and apologize and forget it ever happened. We would tell each other how much we loved the other and talk about the concert and my kids and what kind of cream I should put on a weird rash on Bennett’s leg. I would make it right.
But my mother died the next day.
And the last words I spoke to her were, “I’m done with you, Mama.”
God, it still breaks my heart.
When I found out my mother was dead, the first cohesive sentence I put together was, “I told Mama I was done with her! I broke her heart! That’s what killed her, Jason! I broke her heart.” And I believed that for months after Mama passed away. My mother, who had raised me on her own for so many years and provided every need and prayed over me and for me and loved me unconditionally, surely died because I’d been so vicious to her. My words had worried her and distressed her to the point of cardiac arrest. Her baby girl, her everything, told her she didn’t want to have anything more to do with her. How that must have grieved her spirit.
That guilt trumps swiping a grocery store grape any day.
As the months passed, the shock of her death wore off, the deep sorrow was lessened, the mourning waned more than it waxed. But the regret remained. It ate me alive—that disgusting, painful, gnawing, cancerous regret. Thinking about it for only half a second took me to an abysmal, dark, dreaded place in my soul that was too painful to acknowledge. I got on my knees and begged God for forgiveness of that sin and my words more times than I can count. I often stood on my back patio and whispered up to the heavens on a clear night, “I’m so sorry, Mama. Please forgive me.”
My grief counselor told me I had to let it go. She told me Mama would have forgiven me had she lived long enough to get the chance. In fact, she probably forgave me as soon as I said it. Didn’t I immediately forgive my toddler when he told me I was the meanest mommy in the world because I didn’t let him ride his scooter in oncoming traffic? My grief counselor reminded me Mama isn’t in heaven worrying about the last words I spoke to her. She is spending her eternity in a place so real and pure and gorgeous, praising our Savior, and isn’t concerned with the matters of this earth. She feels no sorrow at my actions and words. She isn’t angry with me.
And I knew that. I really did know that, but like the good memories I clung to, the bad memories were still there. They attempted to gnaw and bite and rip away at my soul. Those spiteful words were always there, even as I cheered at my children’s ball games or made funny videos on Facebook. The regret was there.
Finally, utterly overwhelmed by the regret, the guilt, the blame, I truly surrendered it to God. I threw my hands in the air and declared I couldn’t live with that dark cloud hovering over me all the time. And He spoke to me, gently, I’ve already forgiven you of this. Why do you keep bringing it up?
“But, God . . .”
I’ve already forgiven you of this. Why do you keep bringing it up?
“But, God, please just tell Mama . . .”
This is already forgiven. Why do you keep bringing it up?
Conviction and condemnation aren’t the same thing. Conviction is a gentle nudge from the Holy Spirit that corrects us when we’ve done wrong. Conviction puts us back on the right path and encourages lessons to be learned. It leads to repentance. Conviction led me to ask both God and my mother for forgiveness of my harsh words. Condemnation, however, is not from the Holy Spirit. It is a constant reminder of our wrongs. We often cling to condemnation because we feel we deserve it. If we feel bad enough about something all the time, it will lessen what we did, right? It’s agonizing and relentless guilt on steroids, and I ain’t talkin’ Prednisone. I’m talking that stuff that makes testicles shrink down to the size of marbles.
We can’t live in peace when we are consumed by condemnation. I certainly can’t. I can’t be a good wife or mother or friend or Christian or person if I’m swallowed up in remorse and daily, hourly, minutely reminders of my countless mistakes.
Jesus hung on that old, rugged cross to save the world, not condemn it. He hung there, bloodied and beaten, for every sin I’ve committed. For every sin I will commit. For every harsh word I’ve spoken. For every wrong thing I’ve done. For every grape I’ve stolen.
I did what I did and it wasn’t right. I’m not a perfect wife or mother or friend or Christian or person 100 percent of the time. No one is. Maybe I’m the biggest disaster to walk on two legs—covered in stubble because I should have shaved and now I feel guilty that my husband gashed his hand open on my sharp knee. Three stitches, dear? Oh, bother. It’s all my fault.
But I’m letting go of the guilt. Jesus forgives me, so I’m forgiving myself.
This doesn’t mean that I’m going to start doing what I darn well please without worrying about the outcome or consequences. I’m not completely ridding myself of a guilty conscience. That guilty conscience is probably the only thing that has kept me from burning down the Chuck E. Cheese’s. (I shouldn’t have said that. If it actually burns down, I will be the first suspect.) But I have made the decision to quit being my own worst enemy.
We will make mistakes. It’s inevitable, and we can’t second-guess every word we speak or every decision we make, whether it regards our spouses, children, parents, finances, or hobbies. We can’t continue to go through life feeling like the bad guy. We can’t continue to hang our heads in shame and label ourselves as “World’s Worst _______.”
I can’t. You can’t.
(Unless you’re an ax murderer or something. Then you should feel incredibly guilty and turn yourself i
n to local authorities.)
But if you yelled at your kid for setting fire to the couch or you cheated on your diet with a bulk-sized vat of Nutella, then, well, don’t beat yourself up about it. If you’ve hurt the ones closest to you, repent of it and move on. If you’ve done something you don’t think can be washed away by the blood of Jesus, think again.
CHAPTER 17
Comfort Others and You Will Be Comforted
Grief is a tricky thing. It is deep and substantial. It is a void—an emptiness that is literally capable of taking your breath away. And when my mother died, I felt the need to share mine. I started with selfish motives. I was all riled up and had pent-up grief inside that had to be let out. So I shared it for my own good. For my own healing. But as I continued to write, the feedback I received changed everything.
I soon learned grief is a universal language. Everyone has lost someone they’ve loved. They’ve longed for the way things were, for their mother’s laugh, their grandfather’s stories. They’ve wished things could go back to the way they were a year, five years, ten years, thirty years ago. Death leaves a scar on hearts. Like all scars, they get easier to accept, but they remain.
As I read comments on my blog posts, my pain was no longer mine. Theirs was no longer theirs. It was ours. And I knew I was called to point people to the great Comforter.
Then on September 20, 2016, I drove to the shady country cemetery where both my parents are buried. September 20 is my father’s birthday, and it is also the day my mother was reunited with him in heaven. What a celebration that must’ve been. I’m sure it was much better than a trip to Red Lobster.
I sat in my car with two bouquets of flowers, and on a whim, I reached for my phone. I looked like I’d been through three wars and a goat roping. My face was swollen and red, and my eyes were bloodshot. I think I had a snot stain on my nose, but I followed the tugging on my heart and sat my phone on my dashboard as I had hundreds of times when making a funny video. I pressed record and just started rambling. I rambled and I cried and I reached for my Bible in the passenger seat desperate for answers. Desperate for comfort.
I had to stop the video to wipe my nose and collect myself. But, through the Holy Spirit, I received the strength I needed, and I pressed record again. Thankfully, I didn’t ramble quite as much the second video attempt. I got right to the point of why I was there—to place flowers on both my parents’ graves. And I addressed the questions I’d asked myself, asked God, for so many years.
Why did Mama have to die after I’d spoken such cruel words to her?
Why did Daddy have to die while I was home alone with him?
Why was I a thirty-four-year-old orphan?
Why couldn’t I get pregnant?
Why did I miscarry?
Why, God, why the loss and the pain?
And the Lord gave me the answer in 2 Corinthians 1:3–7, which I read aloud on the video:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
I posted the video and waited for the comments to roll in. I was nervous because I didn’t know how it would be received. I imagined comments like, “Who is this nut job crying in a cemetery?”
“Take a chill pill, lady!”
“Bless her heart. She needs some help.”
“Someone give her a wet wipe to remove that dollop of snot from her face!”
But instead, amazing things began to happen. My inbox was flooded with messages from people I’ll never meet this side of heaven—people who were suffering substantially and asking, “Why?” Good golly, that was a powerful moment in my life.
One comment that really stuck out to me was from a young woman who had contemplated suicide only moments before seeing the video. But, when she looked at all her life’s hardships in a new way, in the comforting way Paul described trials in 2 Corinthians, her burdens were lifted. She said she really felt the Lord come to her at that moment and let her see the point of it all. She finally had purpose in her pain. She knew she was being instructed not to take her own life, but to help someone else find theirs.
That video of me snotty-crying in a cemetery wasn’t for me. It wasn’t to say, “Hey, look at everything I’ve been through! Give me some pity, people! Help me feel better about it all!” That video was for God’s glory.
Reading those verses from 2 Corinthians became my lightbulb moment. That became my heartbeat, my life’s song. That became the basis for this entire book. That gave me clarity. That gave me answers. So, what’s the reason for the pain? For the loss? So I could, in turn, receive God’s comfort and comfort others.
After my daddy died, I leaned on the shoulders of Mr. Charles, my mama’s first husband. I’ve grown to admire Charles more and more over the years. He taught me that family isn’t defined by blood. He taught me that doing the right thing isn’t always easy.
In 1960, hundreds of students had gathered in the school auditorium to watch a play about Davy Crockett. The young actor playing the part of Crockett was a female—a voluptuous, well-endowed eighth grader. She bounced across the stage in a coonskin cap, and when she declared, “You will find me standing up to my rack, as the people’s faithful representative,” three students in the audience laughed uncontrollably and were sent to the principal’s office.
One of those students was my thirteen-year-old mother. She had no idea the two boys with her in the office would one day be her husbands.
Mama officially met one of those boys later in high school. Being from a small town, their parents knew one another, but they had never been friends. Charles was tall, handsome, and blond-headed, and he soon became Mama’s first steady boyfriend. Like my mother, he was incredibly fun and witty, and they went together like peas and carrots. He was the one who drove her home after school most days as they passed Betsy pretending to park her mother’s Chevrolet on the street.
Right out of high school, Charles went to work for the telephone company in town and my mother went to beauty school. Soon after, they married in an elegant wedding at First Methodist Church downtown Brownsville and situated in their first home, a small brick house near the railroad tracks.
My brother, Keith, was born first—a bouncy little baby boy with a head full of thick, dark hair and his parents’ quick wit. And three years later, my beautiful and kind-hearted sister, Carmen, came along with poker-straight blonde hair that I resent to this day. (Humidity is not her enemy as it is mine. One drop of water in the air and I look like I have fur.) Charles was with Mama when her father, Hilliard, finally lost his long battle with emphysema. He was with Mama when she received the phone call that her baby sister, Linda, had been killed by a drunk driver. They went through so much together and loved each other fiercely. They remained married for over a decade.
My father, Billy Brown, worked with Mr. Charles at the telephone company. All the soap-opera-esque details were withheld from me by my mother, but she left Charles for my father in 1979.
You guessed it. That other kid in the office for laughing at Davy Crockett’s rack was my daddy.
Mr. Charles had every reason in the world to be resentful and angry and bitter with both my mother and father. His wife left him for his friend and coworker. That’s Jerry Springer–type stuff. And yet he somehow forgave them both, and my mother and Charles successfully coparented my siblings. I was used to Mr. Charles being around to pick up Carmen or Keith from our house or even stopping to talk to Daddy while he mowed our yard. He still visited his ex-mother-in-law
, my grandmother Lucy, for a slice of her pecan pie or to drop off a batch of tomatoes. He was part of our family.
When my daddy died that cold November day, Mr. Charles was one of the first to arrive at my house. I will never forget standing in my driveway with sock feet on the frigid pavement and Mr. Charles pulling me close to him. I buried my head into his dark coat while he rubbed my back.
It was understood right then, I think, between the both of us, that he was going to step up to be my father figure. Although his high school sweetheart had left him for my father and I was conceived out of that matrimony, he was going to love me anyway.
And that’s exactly what he did.
After Daddy died, Mr. Charles came to every holiday meal my mother cooked and always brought the Honeybaked ham. He scooped the disgusting dead chicken from the Thanksgiving table that fateful day; he kept my dog, Peaches, when we went on vacation; and he let me borrow his truck to ride around town when I was fifteen.
We watched baseball together in his living room and ate pizza. Jason, Keith, my brother-in-law, Doug, and Mr. Charles stood around the grill on our patio and told jokes that sometimes had me covering my toddler’s ears. Mr. Charles kept us all laughing constantly, and one of my favorite things in life was being wrapped in his arms and engulfed in the scent of his cologne. He always smelled so good. He showered me with gifts and we talked on the phone for hours each week. On my wedding day, he walked me down the aisle. And when both my children were born, he stood outside the hospital room and waited to meet his grandchildren.
Can't Make This Stuff Up! Page 11