Whether you're tuning into this word vomit of a blog or you've been with me since I've started, thanks for being here tonight. It means a lot that you'd take time to sit with me even for a moment.
So let's get real for a few moments...
Friday was the three year anniversary of Cameron's passing and I decided to take a trip for the weekend in memory of him and to get away and spend some time just me and him. I went down to a spot down on the coast we had been before and did a few things we said we were alway going to do, but never got a chance to. I had some wonderful time to sit and think and process and remember, it was truly wonderful. Then today I spent the day with his family whom I love dearly and that was wonderful as well. But I can't paint this all as wonderful and beautiful because it hasn't been all wonderful and beautiful.
I'm still trying to put all the pieces to the puzzle together on what's brewing inside this here crazy mind of mine, and I just feel the need to talk it out with you readers for a second. And that second I can feel is turning into a road map of other things that will be presented to you as well. But let's start here. This year leading up to the anniversary of Cameron's passing has been awful. Just an absolute nightmare and it hasn't been like that the past two years. Don't get me wrong, February 14th-21st the past few years have been really hard, but this year has comparatively has been worse and I think I'm coming to some conclusions on why. Except I hesitate to say conclusions because I'm no counselor or mental health professional, but these feel logical to me.
Over the past 9ish months I have seen a ridiculous amount of life change. I graduated seminary, finished a residency with a church that was not always the most easy or wonderful place to be, started a new job in a new vocational ministry setting, moved to a new city, and have tried to figure out what life is truly like as a young professional "adult". My last chapter, the one of school and work, seeing the same group of friends on a consistent basis, an extra challenging ministry setting, and much more was the chapter that also had written into it the three most terrible things I've ever been through. Those lines of my story were so interwoven with each other - the people, places, and things were all intimately acquainted with each other that from one group to another, my story was know. My church life knew Cameron, my school life knew Cameron, my home life knew Cameron and Brittany, and on and on you get the picture. I could talk to someone at CLUMC who knew I'd lost my boyfriend, best friend, and sweet niece in less than two years, then I could talk to someone at school who also knew, and by evening talk to friends at home who also knew. The comfort that comes in other people's intimate knowledge of your story is something I didn't even recognize or come close to appreciating until the page turned and that chapter came to an end.
A new chapter has started and with it brand new challenges navigating the waves of grief that I couldn't have even anticipated coming about. And for the past 9ish months I've done far more running from the challenges than I have facing them head on. But last week and this weekend I've been granted time to sit and process and really rip the bandage of grief off to expose a whole new rawness that isn't going to heal until it's allowed hit fresh air and breath. So where is where I find myself, at a terrifying new point of knowing it's time to start talking again about the things I both desperately ache to talk about but also shy so far away from. Let's talk about death, loss, grief, sorrow, and most of all where the cross is in it all.
So I'm going to try and break this up because I have a whole lot to say and it's not fair to limit any piece or any story. Over the next few weeks I want to share my experience of the past three years for two important reasons. The first is that the body of people around me is both old a new. My last chapters players are still here - my friends and family who walked with me through the actual events are still here and still so important to me. But now there's a new group of people who are becoming just as important and who I'm ready to invited into this ongoing narrative. So that's the first thing I'll talk about, the second thing is I've stopped talking consistently about the people I love, and that's caused some deep wounds that I didn't realize where even happening. My hope is by talking about this again, openly and publicly that maybe this pain and confusion can mean something more than just how I'm working to move forward towards a healthier me.
Before we move forward, I know there are those reading who haven't heard the stories yet, so let me introduce you to some people I love very dearly who are with Jesus now.
This is Cameron.
Cameron Murphy was my boyfriend, and I go so far as to say fiancé because we had decided we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, we just hadn't gotten to the proposal part yet. That's on me, he tried a couple of times but I told him I needed him to wait (y'all waiting for the perfect moment that fits all of these preconceived expectations and desires is stupid. If you love someone, tell them, tell the world. I'll talk more about that later). We met in June of 2016 the first day of VBS at Canyon Lake UMC, and if you want to read that story you can check out one of my earlier blogs. We were planning our lives together, figuring out what means and timeline of making that happen to honor ourselves, my crazy school/work schedule, our families, and ultimately God were when he passed away unexpectedly of an undiagnosed heart conditions. Cameron passed in his sleep February 21st 2017 and my life hasn't been the same since. I'm going to stop there for now but in the time after his passing I wrote down some stuff about him in the blog, you can go check it out if you want to know a little bit more.
This is Brittany.
Brittany Wood, and then Whittle was one of my best friends from my sophomore year in high school (2008) until her passing in December of 2017. Brittany also passed away peacefully in her sleep due to heart complications similar to Cameron's. Brittany was one of the most loving, selfless, goofy, real, enthusiastic, strong, spitfires of a person I have ever know. Brittany and I met in high school choir when I was a sophomore and she was a freshman, and it was basically our weirdness that brought us together. We had a decently normal high school experience, and there were many time Brittany fought much harder for our friendship than I did. Brittany has a rough home life, and I was fortunately someone who was invited into that story of hers, and looking back what an honor that was to be a safe space for her.
There's more to the story that I would love to share about Brittany right this second. I'm sure she would love for me to share all I would like to about what brought us even closer together, but in respect for other people who love her as much as I do I need to have a few conversations before I dive into those stories. What important to know is Brittany invited me into parts of her life not many people where, and I had the privilege of loving her through some very difficult life circumstance and struggles with her heath, and it's no surprise we were brought even closer together. By the time I started seminary and moved back south, we were much more than friends, we were more like sisters. Brittany was with me ever step of the way through the struggles of starting grad school. She was there through every ugly moment of losing Cameron. We were right there by each others sides fighting our personal dragons side by side until she went to be with Jesus. I miss Brittany every single day and still almost two and a half years later fight so many impulses to text, call, or post funny pictures of cats or cows on her facebook page.
This is Embree.
Embree was diagnosed at 7 months old with a extremely rare, genetic neurodegenerative disease called Sandhoffs Disease. I'm not great at explaining the details of Sandhoffs, but you should click the link to read more from NTSAD, National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases organization to read more about Sandhoffs and other regressive genetic diseases:
https://www.ntsad.org/index.php/the-diseases/sandhoff
Embree went to be with Jesus on September 17, 2018. There is less for me to say on Embree's passing simply because I do not think I have fully processed the whole experience. I loved that sweet baby as much as if we were actually related. I was there the day she was born, and I was there the day she went to be with Jesus, and I've been a part of mourning with her family since she's been gone. I want to say a lot more about Embree and my experiences with her parents and grandparents, and those words are coming.
Now that you've met or been reintroduced to three people I love dearly, let me talk a little bit about why I'm writing tonight. Like I said, I've got two motivations - new people in my life, and my own choice to stop talking about these people and events that make up the core of who I am.
Grief is weird in that you both want to talk all the time about what you're going through, but also find it incredible exhausting and sometimes that makes you want to avoid it at all cost. I love talking about these people, sharing memories and telling stories about them. I find it healing to talk about my experience losing them - once I get started talking about them it's hard to stop. But that the thing, starting to talk about them with anyone who wasn't already intimately a part of the situation (and sometimes those who where there!) is such a battle.
What if I start talking and I start crying?
What if I make who I'm talking to uncomfortable?
What if the other person thinks it's awkward I'm sharing this?
How can I sum this all up without oversharing?
Should I even be talking about this?
Why do I owe them any information about this?
Are they going to think I'm being over dramatic?
Are they going to make assumptions if I don't explain enough?
Am I going to trigger something within them that they don't want to think about?
These are just a few of the question that cross my mind whenever I bring up the losses I've been through in the past three years. When I say it's exhausting the talk about loss, it's not just the emotions that arise when I do finally open up about losing my people, it's like a mental marathon just getting to a point I feel comfortable even saying something! 9 times out of 10, it's far easier to find something else to talk about, or find a way around sharing my experiences, or giving the tiniest explanation followed by "but I don't really want to talk about it."
With this new chapter in life I've been faced with so many more decisions to talk about my losses than I've had in a while. And in the past 9 months I've chosen far more often to remain silent than to share who I am and what I have learned. Up until Christmas time I stopped writing, stopped sharing pictures, stopped talking about what I had been through.
It's been kind of like having a sink full of dirty dishes that need to be cleaned, the longer you leave it, the more of a problem it causes. For a little while it's just a visual mess, you can not look at it, walking by blissfully choosing to ignore it but knowing it's there. But the longer you do that the more problem arise. It starts to smell, bringing discomfort even when you're not right there looking at it. It also leaves you without the things you need for you kitchen to function, like plates to eat on or a clean sink to wash what you've cooked in. You start to dread fixing the problem, knowing it's getting nastier and nastier and that even pushes you to wait longer. You find every way to not deal with it, there's ways around not having dishes or a clean cooking space! But they're not really healthy alternatives...Eventually, it leaves your whole kitchen useless until you finally suck it up and wash those dishes. And obviously speaking from experience, I've always found what I built up in my head to be a terrible nasty experiences never ends up being that.
I have honestly fallen in love with Northern Hills UMC, and am so thankful that it's not only my places of employment but my church home. But I was holding onto my true self and stories about my past few years, keeping it from this new family I've found simply because it's such an exhausting process sharing my experience. Until Christmas, when I was asked to write a devotional for advent. I wrote about Cameron, about losing Cameron, and a brief glimpse of that experience. The wave of relief that washed over me when that email was sent to the entire congregation was so powerful and has started the cogs moving towards sharing more about my experiences. I want people to know, I want people to be invited into who I am and what I've experienced, and even more I know I have stories about God's goodness to share. It's time to stop avoiding the topic simply because it's exhausting to tell the stories.
Because these stories don't belong just to me. The stories belong to me, to Cameron, to Brittany, to Embree, and ultimately to God.
At a retreat during my last year of seminary I felt a huge conviction from the Lord to talk about my story. I spent some time in prayer, basically complaining and being mad at God that I had to carry this burden of loss and grief. I just wanted to be like everyone, everyone been through hard things yes but for someone at my age I've experienced an unusual amount of hardship and loss. I remember saying I just want to blend in, to have a story like everyone else not so that I had never suffered, but so I didn't have all this work of talking about what I had been through. I clearly heard from God in those moments of prayer"Why would you want to blend in when I have clearly made you to stand out." Oh boy. The Lord continued to show me pictures of a life spent telling stories about the human experiences and the complexity and joy of a relationship with our Creator in the midst of all this world could throw at us. I saw that this story of mine was very little to do with me, as much as I had focused on how I was experiencing it. What I had failed to see to that point was how many more words I had gained to talk about who God is and who we are and how much we needed the cross through what I have experienced. This doesn't subtract from just how painful my experiences were and continue to be, but when you're walking hand in hand with a God who wants to hold you through the suffering instead of watching you from above, it makes the process even more blessed and joy filled.
My story isn't about me, it's about God. But what I've lost sight of is it is also about the people who are with Jesus too. Remembering all that God's done requires remembering those people who brought about the whole conversations in the first place. Cameron, Brittany, and Embree all had an impact on me and on this world, and the significance in who they are in my life means an incredible amount in the words about how good God is. I remember better how good God is when I remember how much Cameron loved me, and why it hurt so much when he passed. I remember better how good God is when I remember every silly story about Brittany and how much more enjoyable and fun she made my life. I remember how good God is better when I remember the excitement of adding a new life to this family who chose me and who I to love so hard. You can't talk about how far you've come without talking about where you started - a journey must have a beginning even if you can't see the end.
I have to be honest, I really would like to become reacquainted with Cameron. I need to remember how having Brittany as a best friend made me the person I am today. We owe it to Embree that her 15 months means so much and will continue to impact the lives of others. I honor my people by talking about them, by setting myself and my anxieties aside and simply talking. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to talk, and write, and share about who they were and who I am as a result of knowing the. And even more, I'm going to talk about how great God is for creating all three of them, blessing me with their lives, and carrying me through what life is like without them. I don't fully know what the plan from here is, but I know it involves a lot of me telling stories and sharing about my experiences in grief and loss.
So Hi, my name is Katherine Reed. I'm 27 years old, a children's ministry director at a church in San Antonio, and have a lot to share about dealing with death and grief. I hope you'll join me in this conversation.
