Echoes of Pain

Staring blankly at the screen, or out the window, coming back to myself with the realisation that the words are pounding through my head; "He's gone. He lied. Like all the others. And he's never coming back. He's gone. Forever." Biting down on my lip to escape the moan as the tears well up in my eyes again. I grab the mouse and click onto the next comment, head held proudly, not going to let the row of colleagues sitting facing me see my grief.
Too late.
The tears splash down my face, making sharp cracky sounds as they hit the paper I'm working from. Ash, my colleague next to me, laughs a bit uneasily. "You were crying yesterday. Isn't that enough now?" He's half teasing, I know.
I answer with a half smile, "For a broken heart? Na. I'll be crying for many days yet."
"Many days...?" He let his voice trail off.

Yeah, not many people are getting this. "It's just normal boy/girl stuff," they say. "Three years? He wasn't worth it." Yes, he was. He was the best guy I'd ever known and God told me to wait. That was enough. But it rooted it so, so deep.

I realise I'm crumpled on the desk, my arms held tightly around me, realising that no one can hug me knowing what's going on in my head again. "He'll never hug you again..."
Dawn in front of me is saying urgently, "Siân, do you want to take a little walk?"
I shake my head no, and sit up, clicking away on the comments, cleaning their grammar, punctuation and spelling as fastidiously as usual.

I'm working well today. The breakdowns come every two hours or so. Despite the little sleep last night, I'm not at all tired as I usually am. Sometimes, I can sit there and crack a joke with the guys, wondering at the numb deadness inside. Then it hits again. A random check-up on a company that has a base in his city.
"He's gone. Forever."

Control-Alt-Delete. Lock workstation. Toilet, quickly. Before I...
I'm doubled over before I even reach the toilet door. The floor. The hands clamped to my mouth so no one hears. At least, not so much. The sick, tight feeling in the pit of my stomach and I knew I was going to vomit, but I'd eaten nothing. Can't eat. Don't want to. Can't drink. Don't want to. Vomiting nothing...and the taste of cleaning fluid...and oh, God....will it ever stop?
I force a stop. Splash my face with cold water. Glare at my eyes in the mirror. Beg God to stop or dull the pain long enough for me to carry on working. And go back. Stepping firmly on the floor. The military walk that you keep your chin up when your insides are spilling out and no one's there to catch them.

They all care so much. My manager, Steve, sits with me for ten minutes and tells me it will pass, I will heal. Krissy takes me into a room and puts her arms around me and holds me, rubbing my back while I shake, near screams into her shoulder. Telling me about her own life. Stephen, my best mate at work, trying to touch my hand gingerly, but no, no. I need to be alone. Wounded animals don't want people around them. They need to hide. Need to be alone. I'm pushing back...don't want to talk to people. Don't want to hang out anywhere. At least I'm being honest with myself for now.
And soon I'm going to start that...weaving that web...that cave...so my heart can lie hidden and start to mend and people think I'm fine a lot sooner than I will be.

It hurts to breathe. So much. When the loudness of people around me shows up the silence so much. I realise there's this great pain inside and I stop breathing for a few seconds. It eases. Then I have to breathe again. Why do I have to breathe?
My scarf is supposed to keep my neck warm...instead, it's just soaking up my tears. Constant tears. They'll stop. That's what I'm scared of. The getting numb. I daren't look ahead more than the next day. The future is so black. So very, very black.


Today is the third day, considering he told me the morning of the first (5am). So I'm counting full days. I don't remember most of them. I doubt I will remember them in the future. The most painful times in my life are usually extremely blurry months.

The last two days have been the best. In the middle of the shock, the agony and the tears and vomiting and ceaseless breaking down? Yep. Because God at least enabled me to see the preparation He'd made for this.

Like the three-month break, without which I could never, ever have survived him being gone now...gone forever. I can't accept that yet. Some day, I will. I have to.

Like the fact that in the last eight months, I started to actually have ideas about what I wanted to do, and, in preparation in case something like this happened, although I prayed and cried and hoped it would not, I made a secondary back up plan of "career girl" so I wouldn't fall into hopeless despair.

Like the fact that, despite the agony this brings...and God alone knows, for He suffers it too, that it is one of the greatest pains in the universe - and I only have a small sample next to Him...that I am deeply thankful He has answered my prayers of three years. The waiting was literally killing me. I think that's why He chose to give me this. A sudden stab to the heart, as I said four years ago to him, is better than a knife being left, twisting, in the wound.


All that said and done, I have now to face the battles ahead. The despair and doubt I am sure will come. The attacks internally and externally as I try to figure out where God wants me now, and whether He still wants me to wait - on Him. Not to go around looking for another guy, but to continue to love and pray for him as long as He deems fit.
Mr C. won't come back. There aren't miracles that God can't do, but there are miracles God won't do.
I blame myself for it, but that's another story and I'm not willing to share the darker side of this here. Not yet. If ever.

I found this on Blogger yesterday as I started to write this post. It struck me as oddly amusing, because this was randomly sitting at the top of my blog list (which is ordered by date). And...it should technically have been towards the bottom or on the second page.

It is funny to sit here knowing that I am in for the greatest anguish in two weeks for tomorrow - that of seeing the man I love for the last time.
Why I'm torturing myself with the song I first listened to when I flew into - with so much hope, God alone knows.
I always knew this would . Could. Happen. I never dreamed it would. And now is the greatest test of my faith as God threatens to remove the dearest person in my life forever. Do I trust His wisdom this far?

And that is a question I have to ask myself over and over. I have to keep trusting Him. He lead me through the past three years for a reason...and in a way, I'm sorta glad...(NOT happy in the slightest, but peace-joy) that I had to face this. Though I wish, honestly wish, really wish...yeah. I won't say it because of the verbal chastisement many of you would give me that I wouldn't listen to anyway.
But because...if there was ONE THING that could have snapped my relationship with God, it was this. And that fear has been constantly with me over the past three years...because people claimed I idolised him. Though I constantly brought it before God with tears and prayers and received peace that I didn't, it was still nagging - are they right? Are they right?
And they aren't.
God is carrying me even now. And that is the only reason my faith is still in Him and I'm not blaming Him for the last and only stable thing in my life completely going under. Because it's not His fault; His will is perfect and His Hand is sure.
I love him. I pray for him. And I know God's still going to do His Work within him - and with me - because He promised that He Who began a good work within us will bring it to completion.


Walking down the road, tears spilling down my face and choking back sobs. Again. "Daddy..." but that name hurts too much. "Father...please. My heart. It's been broken. Again. Only You don't drop it. Only You don't find it worthless, when it comes down to it. Please hold it. Hold my bleeding heart with Your Hands that bled for me."
The glints of sunlight catch me in the face, piercing, peeking through the clouds. Tears that hang trembling on my lashes are suddenly turned into rainbows. I want to photograph it, catch the image, but I realise they're my rainbows. Only I can see them. The pain turned into beauty.
God never meant or wanted pain to happen. But He always turns it into a thing of beauty.
"Keep going, Siân. There's hope...only in God. But that's still hope."
The seconds of my life tick away as I scribble.

Seconds that bring me closer to Home. No more pain. No more tears. No more broken hearts. And I can curl up in that special place He's keeping right by His foot, and rest forever.

~Siân