When Life Topples

When Life Topples

Just when I thought a month couldn’t get any more difficult, it did.

Many of you know my dad died in August, the same month my daughter, Alisha, died thirty-six years ago. August already carried memories of the accident, the hospital, the funeral, and the day I left the cemetery without my nine-year-old daughter.

Then September arrived.

Now, I’m preparing for a funeral next week in Idaho. My siblings and I will gather to celebrate both our dad and our mom, who died last September. We’ll honor their lives together, almost exactly one year after Mom’s death and less than a month after Dad’s.

In the middle of those preparations came what would’ve been Alisha’s forty-sixth birthday.

Forty-six.

I haven’t seen her since she was nine.

Sometimes grief arrives one loss at a time. Other times, it stacks one sorrow on top of another until I can’t tell which one I’m crying about. Maybe I’m crying about all of them.

I pray many times a day. Some prayers have words. Others are little more than, “Lord, help me.”

I wonder what I’m supposed to do with all this emotional stuff. Where do I put the sadness, the memories, the decisions, and the responsibilities that won’t wait until I feel better?

As soon as I return from the funeral, I need to finish the October issue of my newspaper. Advertisements need to be designed. Articles need to be edited. Emails need to be answered. Life and work keep moving, even when part of me wants everything to stop for a while.

Life situations stack on top of each other, much like the piles on my desk. Papers, folders, notes, photographs, and unfinished lists accumulate until one wrong movement sends everything tumbling. If I’m not careful, a pile topples and spills my coffee across the keyboard.

That’s how life feels right now.

Everything has toppled, and the tears have spilled over the mess.

I know I’ve forgotten things. There are probably messages I haven’t returned and tasks I intended to complete. I’m learning to accept that my grieving brain can only hold so much.

Someone once told me, “What needs to get done will get done. The rest, well, hopefully there’s another day to do it. If not, it didn’t matter anyway.”

Those words feel especially true this week.

Today, I put the funeral arrangements at the top of my list. I printed photographs of both of my parents. I’m designing the funeral program and putting the finishing touches on what I’ll say during the service.

That’s all I can do right now.

Tomorrow will bring another list. Next week will bring a flight, a park shelter filled with family and friends, stories about two complicated and precious lives, and another painful goodbye.

But I don’t have to carry tomorrow today.

Jesus said, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:34 NLT).

Today’s trouble is enough. So is today’s grace.

For now, I’m putting the rest into God’s hands. I’m trusting Him to remind me of what truly matters and help me complete what must be done today.

The piles may still topple. The coffee may still spill. The tears certainly will.

But underneath all of it are the steady hands of God, holding what I can’t.