I am patient when it comes to ministry endeavors. I am patient when someone abruptly cuts me off in (Atlanta) traffic. I am patient when a family of deer come inches from taking out my headlights (in NC). I am patient in helping others navigate their trials. I am patient as I lift prayers and climb through Scripture, literature, and biblical commentaries to exegete a text.  I can be very patient, but I’ve found that I lack patience in my grieving process.
 
It’s been six months since Mom passed and two months since Dad transitioned, yet there are still days when I experience the lowest of lows. It is the low points that leave me perplexed and distraught for surely, I should have learned how to cope with the loss by now, right?
 
As a self-proclaimed “over-achiever” I find the grieving process to be exhausting and time-consuming. I’m not fond of crying, so embracing my tears is a matter in and of itself (for another post). Furthermore, making sense of such great and traumatic loss isn’t something that comes over night for I am 29 years old and both of my parents are dead. That truth alone is a mouth-full; it is a truth that I still struggle to embrace some days. The truth of the matter is that I don't enjoy the grieving process (at all), yet when I seek God on the matter He always reminds me of His “grace.”
 
I once heard grace described as “unmerited favor from God.” However, I never considered it in terms of grief until a mentor sternly said, “Kiya, you must give yourself the grace to grieve!” I remember looking at her through tears as she continued, “…you must give yourself permission to feel the way you feel; to experience the fullness of this process.” As silly as it may sound, I’d never thought of grieving in that way. As mentioned in a previous post, I am Type-A, thus the idea of a “process” not having a chronological order didn't exactly bring me comfort. Yet, giving myself the grace to grieve has been the fuel to my everyday functionality.
 
Giving myself the grace to grieve isn’t always lingering on fond memories or holding the pearls Mom gifted me our last Christmas together. Instead, giving myself the grace to grieve is holding onto the uncertainty of each day; it is constantly telling Jesus how much I need Him on this journey; it’s crying to experience a God who wipes my tears; it's not "faking" energy when I really don't have it; it's being frustrated with God's will without feeling like a hypocrite;  it’s sitting quietly with no words to say, knowing that Jesus is interceding on my behalf. This type of grace gives me permission to be impatient with myself, yet the ability to forgive my impatience.
 
Giving myself the grace to grieve is an everyday process. Yet, in this process, I’m also learning to grace other areas of my life: the grace to forgive quicker, the grace to grow stronger, the grace to unapologetically “be”, and the grace to move forward without knowing every detail of God’s plan for my life. 

Mom had years of medical mistrust that stemmed from her uncle falling dead in a doctor’s office. That incident, mixed with her own experiences that she deemed “unfair” made her incredibly critical of any medical facility.
 
After being admitted into the hospital on August 16th, the fatal diagnosis came in and I was left trying to be strong. I tried not to cry as the doctor looked me in the eyes and said “This is serious! Do you understand how sick your mother is?” I tried to stay strong as the next doctor came in and said “I’d give her 6 months to live.” Wait, she can’t die or be that close to death, it’s my Mommy; it’s MY Mommy.
 
As warm tears streamed down my face Mommy looked at me and said “Kiya, don’t you worry about those doctors. Only God knows when I am going to go. Everything is going to be ok.” “But Mommy,” I cried, “You can’t die; I can’t make it without you.” “Yes you can, “she replied, “You are stronger than you think. This will make you a better pastor.”
 
Tears continued to fall as I excused myself from the room. Mom hated seeing me cry and I knew that listening to pessimistic reports would not ease my fear. I stood outside of the room for about 5 minutes after which I returned with a dry face, a smile to hide my fear and a bit of disbelief. In my book, Mommy knew everything so if she said “only God knew” her timing, surely the doctors were wrong.
 
As doctors filtered in and out to observe her symptoms the re-occurring question was, “Why did you not come sooner?” Though Mom found some reasoning to address the doctor’s inquiries, I knew deep in my heart that the reality was “Medical Mistrust.”

​Medical mistrust is threaded throughout the African American community, which is one of the very reasons I’ve chosen to write this blog. It is my hope that my reality encourages a mother somewhere to get a mammogram; that my reality encourages a woman to control her high blood pressure or live a more active lifestyle to avoid heart failure. My reality doesn’t have to be your reality, which is why I will continue giving a voice to health issues impacting our community.

​Praying for the living is something that’s always come natural to me. Perhaps it’s the “Now I lay me down to sleep” prayer that was a part of my nightly routine as a kid or maybe it’s the adult prayers for the prosperity and health of my loved ones. Whatever the root, praying for the living is easy or even exciting to me, which is why praying for my parents as they faced death felt like an oxymoron.
 
I vividly recall standing by my mother’s comatose body saying, “Mommy, it’s ok for you to go. Everything is going to be ok…but Mom if this is one of those times where God is going to completely heal you and bring you back, that would be great! I don’t want you to think I’m giving up on you.” Similarly, I prayed daily with Dad in his final weeks and I’d always include, “… this is what the doctors are saying…but we know You, God, can change this entire situation.”
 
Something about praying for my parents in their final hours made me feel as if I was doubting God. As I watched my father’s organs fail, was it pessimistic for me to pray for a smooth transition? Did I administer last rites too soon? Was it too optimistic or even unrealistic for me to pray for his healing? At what point do prayers for “healing” and “restoration” become prayers of “peace” and “understanding”?
 
I’m not sure there was a “right” or “wrong” answer for the questions posed above, but I knew I could not go wrong praying, “Thy will be done.” When I started praying for God’s will, I could better understand that God held the present and the future of my parents’; that He held their current life and their eternal life. For death, itself, was not a “finite” act but a transition.
 
Once I embraced this understanding, I prayed for my parents without the worry of being “right” or “wrong.” I asked God for guidance on how exactly to pray and in response He only required my heart. Thus, my prayers in their final hours became worship. I sang to mom (“When I lay my burdens down”) and I encouraged Dad (“Everything is going to be ok; you are ok”). During my weary time, I found worship. Though I was only 28 when Mom died and 29 when Dad passed, how awesome is it that I had the experiences that I did with my parents? How awesome is it that for 28+ years they poured into me, such that the overflow could hold me in the years I’d have to live without them physically being present? What a glorious God we serve who traded my prayers of uncertainty with blessed assurance.

​
As I tried to make sense of my mother’s fatal diagnosis, I called my boyfriend. We’d dated over a year and within that time he’d developed the most beautiful relationship with my parents. Mom used to joke and say, “Kiya, if you don’t let him take you down the aisle, I will take him myself.” He would send Mom flowers and say all the right things to make Dad feel secure in his ability to care for me. He was a gem for sure and I knew that he would know what to say in response to this devastating news... Only, he didn’t.

It was around 1:00am that I found myself on the phone with him. He was quiet. He was cold. “Did you not hear me? What in the world is wrong?” After responding a few minutes with “Nothing” he finally informed me that he no longer wanted to be celibate. For one moment, the tears stopped flowing down my face, my heart stopped racing, and my eyes locked with the cold tile floor of the hospital waiting room.

The moments that followed are a blur, but I remember laughing sarcastically and wishing him well; I remember not being able to embrace the pain of the breakup because I felt so numb. I remember him saying something about feeling distant; I remember literally feeling my heart break.

Hours later (at 4:05pm) mom took her last breath. And just like that, within a matter of hours, I lost my mother who embodied my entire world and my boyfriend who (I thought) embodied my future. I literally felt like my life was being ripped from me.

Since the night of that awful conversation, I’ve embraced the power of forgiveness and we've gone our separate ways. However, I’ve asked God a time or two about the terrible timing-- “God, why that night?” and “God why would you have me go through all of this alone?” In response to my questions I always get an overwhelming sense of peace and a reminder that I haven’t been alone one day on this journey; that God never left me. You see, the pain of the breakup paled in comparison to the loss of my Mom, thus in a weird-twisted-kind of way, the timing was perfect. During this time, I've had the most incredible opportunity to experience intimacy with God; to experience a true covenant relationship with the lover of my soul. Thus, when God does send my husband I will know what God-ordained love actually looks and feels like; I will know for it will reflect the love of God in my life.

I, like most adolescents, spent my youth thinking I was “grown.” I lived for dressing up, thinking for myself and being as independent as possible (under the guise of my Mommy, of course). As I matriculated through life, endless opportunities encouraged my independence and and led me to feel as if there was nothing that I could not achieve.

Throughout every season and experience that cultivated my life, my parents provided support and nourishment.  Yet, no matter how high my heels or numerous and titles, my parents had a way of releasing the little girl inside of me. Grocery shopping in their kitchen (their food tasted better), sitting on my mom’s lap (“Girl, you are going to break my legs” Mommy would say), and dreaming in the den with Mom, my world just made sense with my parents. With them, I didn’t have to be a day older than their “baby.”
 
Upon my parents’ death, all of that changed. Something as simple as being able to call Mom to discuss a challenging situation or having Dad fix something, went away. I’d lived my entire life with the excitement of being independent, just to come to a place where all I wanted was to depend on my parents. I wanted to have Dad tell me about the weather for the next 5 days and Mom to ask me if I’d been eating in the midst of my busy schedule; I wanted to hear my Dad ask if I was still “making A’s” and for Mom to tell me how proud she was of my newest blog project; I wanted Dad to tell me my heels were too high and for Mom to ask if I wanted to run with her to DSW because they were having a sale. For once in my life, I didn’t want to be "grown"... all I wanted was to be their “baby” again.

 Christmas and birthdays are my favorite times of the year. I literally plan for months to execute a 3-4 week celebration of life, culminating with friends and family gathered on my actual birthday (Oct. 22). My birthday gives me a reason to fellowship with friends and family that I don't get to see on a regular basis. However, as you can imagine, my 2016 birthday was a bit different.

The weeks prior to my birthday were spent taking care of family business, while balancing school, family and jobs. The days’ prior were spent mostly in tears as I dreaded this “first” birthday without my mother. I missed her calls asking “So what did you and your friends do to celebrate today” ; I missed hearing Mom laughing at how serious I took my celebration; I missed Mommy calling to clarify when I'd be coming home; I missed Mommy more than ever.
 
I remember telling Dad, “You know next week is my birthday,” to which he smiled and nodded his head. It was his solemn reply that reminded me that this birthday would be different. For once, this type-A planner didn’t plan a thing. I didn’t plan extravagant dinners, I didn’t have all my friends fly in, I didn’t rent or reserve anything. Everything was very last minute and more so  "I'm hungry, we should probably get food tonight" (I thank God for friends who didn't need much of a heads up and had a few things up their sleeve *see picture above at a restaurant in Atlanta*).
 
The face of my phone shattered the night before my birthday (I may have dropped it several times before that week, thus the  drop walking into the restaurant was the final straw), but I still woke up to back to back dings notifying me of birthday wishes on my phone. Unfortunately, instead of garnering the usual excitement, the noise made me incredibly anxious. You see, the last time I'd received back to back dings on my phone was the morning after Mom died. And just like that, I [mentally] went from being in my apartment back to the hospital room with Mom's lifeless body. Needless to say, my shattered phone immediately went on silent for the rest of the day.

Even after fixing my phone, I answered very few  calls on my birthday. In all honesty, I wasn't ready to hear the “I know this one is gonna be hard” or the awkward silence after “I know this is the first without…” I felt the gap and there was something about the thought of hearing loved ones on the other end of that dial that made me incredibly sad. Perhaps it was that their vocal presence maximized Mom's silence; perhaps talking on the phone that day made things too real. For no matter how many calls or text I received, I knew the most important one would be missing; for the first time in forever, “Mommy” would not pop up on my phone, there would be no special flower or Edible Arrangement delivery; there would be no “cake in a jar”…the only “gift” from Mom on my first birthday without her was life itself... but perhaps the gift of life was the greatest gift of all.

On June 1, 2014 at approximately 9:00pm I stood outside my family’s Chapel Hill home watching it burn to the ground in a fire. I remember feeling helpless; hopeless. Four days later I stood with Mom beside my beloved grandmother’s bed singing the old gospel hymn “When I Lay My Burdens Down” as she took her last breath at the age of 100. In four short days, my family experienced traumatic loss and I was left with an array of unanswered questions for God.

The morning after the fire, Mom wanted to go back to the place where our beautiful brick home once stood. As Dad scaled the premises, I began pouring my confusion out to Mom. “Mommy,” I began, “I can’t believe this happened. It just doesn’t seem fair. How could God allow this to happen?” With raised eyebrows and a soft smile, Mommy said, “Kiya, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. This fire may have taken our home, but it did not touch our souls.” It was that reminder that got us through the days and weeks that followed; the reminder that the God who’d provided the house 24 years earlier was the same God who would provide in the days, weeks, months and years to come; the reminder that we were no further from God simply because things didn’t seem fair or weren’t going our way. God was still very much with our family; God was still very much in control.

In the wake of my parents’ death, much of their rich wisdom resurfaced in my mind. Quotes, questions and challenges from my parents are among the headlines of my everyday thoughts. As I navigate my “new normal” and go deeper in my relationship with God, I am comforted by the truth that “The Lord Gives and the Lord Takes Away.”

In my mind, God’s love for me was [mostly] reflected in what He gave me- peace of mind, joy, a loving family, prosperous friendships, health, opportunities, spiritual gifts and talents. Yet, in the wake of losing my parents, I was faced with a very real question: How do experience love from God in the face of loss, agony, disappointment, abandonment and defeat? God answered this question by reminding me that I was making Him far too small if I only thought His love functioned in the realm of “giving.” God expanded this explanation by showing me a different kind of love…the kind of Godly love that didn’t just give, but that also took away. God showed me that His love was not predicated or gauged on my trial, for there was nothing I could do to make God love me anymore or any less than He already did. God was not punishing me by taking my parents; instead, God was taking me on a journey to discover true covenant relationship with Him.

Through this journey, I’ve met a God who’s never left me; a God who wipes my tears and holds me tight; a God who sustains and maintains me on every step of this journey; a God who raises up both the expected and unexpected to provide provision and comfort; a God who understands my language when my pain takes away my words; a God who provides wisdom and insight when I don't know which way to turn. This journey has taken me deeper in my faith as I've come to embrace the truth that “The Lord Gives & The Lord Takes Way.”