Someone Really Does Understand

Near the end of last year, one of the staff members at the Senior Center gave me a couple of books to read. She felt that they might help me cope with everything going on with Joe. I laid the books on the ottoman in front of the couch and that's where they laid for many, many days. One day I finally got around to opening up one of them and read the page for that date and started bawling like a baby. I read...

"I hesitate to go to a regular gathering for prayer or worship even though the music and messages soothe my soul. It's comforting to be there, but I can't stay. In this safe and tender place, tremendous sadness, too long restrained, breaks loose. I can't hold back the tears. I slip out to my car and can barely see through the wetness to get home.

It's too much for me to stay and try to explain to everyone how tired I am, how much it hurts, how out of control everything seems. But I know it's good for me to go there from time to time. Even when I can't stay, I am cradled for a while by the sacred sounds and sights and silences. I feel the understanding, the hope, the eternal caring. The tears find release there and the grief pours out."

Some really does understand what I experience on a regular basis. Thank you. Many times I have been forced to not attend church because of how Joe was feeling and I was afraid to leave him at home along. Many times we have gone together but been unable to stay for very long because of some emergency which has happened. There have been times when he has had to be assisted by others to walk to the restroom or back out to the car.

On those occasions that I have left him at home tucked securely into bed, I have hurried to the chapel to either sit through Sacrament Meeting or to attend Relief Society. During those times, as I entered the chapel I have felt overwhelmed by a sense of peace and comfort. I knew that I was in a place where I could sit on the back pew or row and just let my tears flow. I knew that I was in a place where my brothers and sisters in the gospel loved me and comforted me. It was like coming home to a family reunion and feeling immeasurable love. I, too, have gone and sat in my car and cried because my heart felt so full and I felt some release from my daily life just listening to the music and sitting in the chapel.