I wrote this for a friend whose going through a hard time. I hope it helps you too! ❤
Here goes...
Pocket Notebook in My Heart
By Andrea Tadpole-Broussard
When my granddaughter died I could not save her. I pleaded with God to take me and not her. When my other grandson died a couple of years later I could not save him either and God did not let me switch places. I am the caretaker in my family. I am the oldest and the one who is supposed to be able to fix it all. Well, at least that is what I tell myself.
The two most difficult losses I have ever endured were my grandkids. What I learned from this is that I am not God and I cannot choose who lives or dies, be it a person or an animal. By the way, in my world I see animals as people too, just in different forms. So, I understand the sorrow of not being able to save them all. I am going to try to explain to you how I deal with things that are what I call unanswerable questions, like why did my grandkids die, why could I not save all those puppies or birds (I am bird person), etc.?
I have been a sober member of AA for 30+ years. When I first got sober I had a sponsor who walked me through the 12 steps. In one part of it, the challenge was to develop a relationship with your Higher Power. I have always called mine God for lack of a better term. Anyway, one of the hardest things I went through in my early sobriety was the death of my grandmother. She died of cancer and fought a long, ugly, horrid fight to try to survive because she loved us all so much. After she died I was talking about her death and how it related to God with my sponsor. I kept saying WHY? I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHY?!
My sponsor gave me a tool to use visually in my mind. Being an artist, those kinds of things work real well for me. She said to imagine that I have a small pocket like one on the chest of your shirt, only this pocket is deep inside my heart. Inside this pocket is a small spiral flip notepad and pen. Written across the cover in huge, bold, black sharpie marker is the word WHY. Inside this notebook is all the questions about things in my life that cannot be answered on this earth. The answer will have to come from God.
She said every time something happens that there is no rhyme or reason to, no phathomable way to explain it, to open up my notebook and write it there. Some day when I die and I am standing before my Creator, Higher Power, God or whatever his name turns out to be, then I can pull my notebook out and tell him we need to talk. Believe me, I have many questions. One is why did my grandkids die? Why did He not take me instead? Why was I sexually abused as a child? Why did that one beautiful black kitten I had when I was in my 20s die? I tried so hard to save him. Why did my ex commit suicide? The list goes on and on ad nauseam.
Every time the questions and thoughts start dragging me down I pull my notebook out of my heart and in my mind's eye I read the questions and remind myself that some day I will get an answer when I am at the throne of God. For now, let it go, move on and trust God. Then I say a prayer and get up and do the next right thing in front of me, be it washing the dishes, calling a friend, working on a painting, playing with my grandkids, etc. I just keep doing the next right thing and get out of myself. After awhile I realize the doldrums have not overtaken me and I breathe again.
I suspect some day when I am at God's throne I will no longer need my pocket notebook. All my questions will be answered in the blink of an eye. Till then, I will keep it tucked safely and deeply inside my heart.
