The Longest Week

It has been six days since Nan passed away. Her funeral is tomorrow and I’ll be speaking on my memories of her. Please pray that God will grant me the strength to do this without crying.  I don't mean to sound like a cheesy Christian greeting card, but the Lord really has been my strength and comfort this week.

This week has crawled by. I constantly have to keep checking what day it is because I have never known such a slow week. I have been busy preparing the order of service for the funeral home to print, writing my speech for Saturday, and putting together a photo board of Nan for the wake which will be at my parents’ house.

I do feel mostly at peace, but I’m still not ready to see hoards of people yet. I’m imagining the wake will be quite difficult and I’ll have to leave the room occasionally just to stay sane. At the moment, the beach is proving to be a place of solace. Strangely enough, after struggling with fatigue recently, I suddenly have so much energy, I’m doing some kind of physical activity every day – walking and swimming mostly. In fact, I feel like I could walk all day. I wonder how long that will last.

But by far the hardest thing this week has been living in a house with people who are grieving for the same person. Mostly I’m content with my own silence. I don’t feel the need to talk about Nan all the time, but my Mum does so I’m needing extra doses of patience to deal with her incessant chattering. Even though I don’t feel the need to talk, I’m trying to be understanding with her way of dealing with things. But on Sunday night, she started yelling at me because I was struggling a bit, and I was told that she didn’t want to hear about how I was feeling. So basically I have to be there for her when she wants to talk, but otherwise maintain stoic silence and be there to help practically. It took a few days for her to realise that was unreasonable and apologise. I think I need someone who wasn’t as close to Nan to talk to when I do feel the need to talk – not someone who’s grieving themselves.

I really have to say that I have some fantastic friends. Thank you so much for all you’ve said and done. Of course, as with most sad occasions, you find out who your true friends are – the ones who go out of their way, instead of saying nothing.

If you’re the praying type, please chuck up a prayer for me tomorrow as I prepare to officially say goodbye.