The After

This is my previous post from February 8, 2023

There is no way to explain the before and after to anyone that has not experienced it. When we are living in the before, we have no idea that there could ever be an after. We are living our lives, making plans with confidence in them coming to fruition. In my “before” Mikael was clean for the past 6 months and I was so hopeful that he was going to make it this time. We were becoming even closer and I would hear from him regularly. He texted and called, we had lunch together, he would stop by the office, come out to visit, spend time with all of us as a family. He would often share his spiritual growth and experiences as he worked through his steps and faith in God. He asked my for my advice often and was interested in my faith journey and in sharing together. He had just been hired in a new job working with youth that he would have been amazing at.

I had gone to Thunder Bay to be with my mother who was having hip surgery. She has dementia and needed to have a family member with her to help with decisions and just be there with her. I was planning on meeting a friend for supper in Thunder Bay and then just like that, I was tumbled into the After. A phone call from Davis. Absolutely impossible words to accept or believe. The After. There is no returning from it. In my before, we had plans. Plans for a trip, plans for retirement, plans for dinner, plans. In my After, those plans seem fleeting, uncertain, not to be trusted.

We find our way through the After and learn how to live in it. It is the never-ending nightmare that each morning when we wake up, we have to realize again that it is our reality. It is another earthly realm that no one but God can help us traverse.

Each morning in my After, I wake up and think Mikael. Then the wave of reality, like a train. Then I plead, “Lord help me” and He answers every day; “Yes, I will. I am with you.”

January 27, 2024

I’m sitting here a year later and I’m thinking about how God has helped me find my way in the After. I can look back over the past 12 months and say with certainty that God has been with me every step. And I am so thankful because I would not have made it without him.

I still tend to see making plans as an uncertain thing and I do struggle somewhat with last minute changes to plans. When there is a last-minute change that I wasn’t expecting, it makes me feel momentarily anxious. This is a new thing; the old me would have just rolled with last minute changes. The new me doesn’t like last minute surprises. But, as always, God’s got me covered! He has shown me over and over in the past year that I can put all plans and needs in his hands and that he will guide my steps. I continue to ask him for help and he continues to answer “Yes I will. I am with you.”