This is scary but I will write it anyway.

For the whole of this summer, I have struggled.

I have struggled to grieve.

I have struggled to process.

I have struggled to write.

I don’t like struggling. I am sure you do not either. It is hard, it hurts, and answers are not forthcoming. I feel stuck, and that is definitely no fun. I have written. Pages. But when I look back at them, I cannot help but feel that they don’t actually say anything, that I am just babbling on paper. I have even asked myself,

“Am I even doing this right?”

Did you catch that? I was questioning whether or not I am grieving correctly. If you have been a Reader for long, then you know I am intimate friends (frenemies?) with uncertainty. I question myself on the regular and now I have found myself questioning if I am moving through my emotions, my grief, my disappointment, in the right way.

God bless for a husband who sometimes reads over my shoulder when I am scribbling madly. He reminded me not too long after I had scratched this down on during a worship service that there is no right way to grieve. No “right way” to process. Grief is hard, sometimes solitary, and often confusing work. I have seen death throughout my life but am honestly unsure as to how exactly I grieved in each case.

I have struggled all summer, it feels like. Struggled to rest, struggled to recover, struggled to enjoy. Now we are coming to the end, and I feel like I want to despair. I would love a do-over of this summer, but we are not given the benefit of time-travel, are we? I feel panicky as the summer days draw closer to an end, scrabbling to grasp the last of my free time before it disappears, and school with all of its responsibilities and stresses crowds in again. I do not want to carry this burden in August. But grief doesn’t exactly give us a timeline of operation, does it?

I do not have an answer for how to do all of this, I am sorry. All I know is that I am just trying every day and doing my best to give myself permission to feel hard feelings and to lean on my dear ones when I need it. To look for the light when it seems that there is none.

In this same vein and right on time, something unexpected happened yesterday. A dear friend sent me a beautiful Twitter thread by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg discussing Mr. Fred Rogers, his beliefs, and how he manifested those beliefs and ministry throughout his life and tenure on television. She discussed how he directly addressed some of the big issues and questions of the time, putting them into words and actions that children and adults alike could understand, demonstrating his love and care for all people who walk this mortal coil. Touched and inspired by the post, I retweeted it on my own Twitter page and then, seized by a heart-nudge, I screenshot every page of the thread, making sure I got everything, including Rabbi Ruttenberg’s name, and then posted the photos on this blog’s FB page, making sure to tag the original thread, as well as Rabbi Ruttenberg’s public FB page so that everyone who saw it could explore this wonderful woman of God’s posts and encouragements. These were not and are not my words, BUT I am privileged to be able to share them. Up to this point (2:49pm on 7/23/19), my post of the thread has had 3.4 thousand shares, and, in all its journeying, has reached over 139,600 people. I am agog at this, dear friends! Simply agog. But my aforementioned dear husband made a very poignant point.

“Is that really that surprising? People are looking for grace and goodness in their lives.”

I know that he is right, and I know that, for many of us, Mr. Rogers and his work were a formative influence in the development of that same grace and goodness, empathy and encouragement, in our lives. What I posted in that thread are not my words but those of a woman wise in life and faith who shares her heart, mind, and conviction with the world, in the hopes of “cultivating empathy, allowing for curiosity, and loving our neighbor has ourselves”. Those words are reaching, encouraging, and inspiring others beyond what I ever thought possible, and it’s amazing to watch.

I am so glad that I was able to share your words, Rabbi Ruttenberg, and thank you for the hope that they have given to this struggling woman. Thank you for reminding me that it’s okay to have hard feelings, and it’s even okay to struggle for a time.