Dang. So, sometimes we get scarred. Sometimes, we think we’ve left our scars in the past. And then they come back to bite us like hidden vipers. Old wounds open up. Old pains ache. Memories come back to haunt us.

Well, when I was four years old, my mom died of breast cancer. I thought I was good. I thought I’d “gotten over” her death. I mean, you never “get over” stuff like that. But you think you’ve healed. You think you’ve moved on. And then something happens. Something re-opens those wounds.

A week or so ago, I was listening to a song by the band “Love and Death” called “By The Way.” I’m not sure the full context of the song, but it’s about losing someone. And somehow, it just hit me hard. I just started thinking about Mama again. And all those old wounds that I thought were healed and well, split wide open. I realized just how much I missed her. How much I ached to feel her hug me, to see her smile and me, to hear her voice calling me her “little bear” and her “little soldier.” I don’t have a lot of memories of my Mama. I was, after all, only four when she died. But I remember her teaching me how to write my letters. Singing songs with her. Doing cut and paste. I remember the cancer. I remember the night she died, after we got home from the treatment center in Germany, all hope of a cure gone (though I didn’t grasp that at the time.), and I remember hearing that my mama was home and running to her room to see her. And she was so broken down by the cancer and screaming in pain. And the agony of that still rings in my ears. The fear I felt… The pain… F**k. I didn’t know it hurt this much. It’s haunted me to this day.

Dang. I just want my mama back. You know? I just wanna be a happy little kid again. But I’m still that little four year old boy watching his mama die. And I didn’t realize it all this time. I didn’t know. I didn’t know I still hurt.

Would she be proud of me? Would she still recognize me as her little boy? Am I still her little bear? When you’re that little you’re mama is your world.

I remember at the funeral someone (I won’t name him because I know he was only trying to do a good thing) picked me up so I could see into the casket. And he asked, “is that your mama in there?” And I felt mocked. Because I knew I didn’t have a mama. And I knew that even though she looked like my mama, that wasn’t my Mama. And I couldn’t really grasped that she was really gone.

God has blessed me so much. I’ve got another mama now. And she’s great. I couldn’t ask for anything better. There’s nothing better to be had. And from that wonderful mother, who has stepped into the impossible role of replacement, I’ve got like a million more wonderful, beautiful siblings without whom I can’t imagine the world. But there is no replacement. And though I wouldn’t swap timelines, or change anything, the ache and the pain won’t go away. And it hurts. I honestly think this hurts far more than any of my self centered depression. Because I can’t numb it. I can’t kill the pain. It would be a dishonour to my Mama to do that.

But what do you do? You just gotta move on. You gotta keep moving forward. Continue seeking God.

But to all of you who’ve lost someone close… I know. I really can’t stop crying about it when I think of her. I know the pain. I know the loss. I don’t have any answers. There’s no easy way of approaching this. It hurts like… well, it just plain hurts. And I really just want my Mama back. All I can do is run to Jesus. Just run to Jesus.

I could say something here about seeing her one day in Heaven and all that, but it doesn’t really do anything. I don’t feel comforted by it. I know it’s true, but death is death. And it doesn’t change anything really. So just run to Jesus. He’ll hold you when the ache gets to bad to bear. He’ll bear it with you. He’ll weep with you. He knows too.

My throat aches from the lump that’s been lodged there ever since I started writing this about an hour ago. The occasional tear still slides down my face. I finally feel like I can breathe again. You know, I almost forgot about Jesus. And now that I remembered Him, the pain isn’t quite so bad. I feel a little bit stronger. And I have a little bit of joy in my pain.