When Mercy Meets The Missing

When my siblings and I were kids, we used to play a game we called “mercy.” It wasn’t a particularly gentle game. To play, we would grasp hands and then twist one another’s wrists, and fingers and arms as hard and as far as we could until one of us couldn’t stand the pain and cried out, “mercy!” Looking back, maybe it was the Christianized version of crying uncle.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do this,”

I managed to choke out as I lay crumpled on the floor of my closet. 

Mercy

The big. The heavy. The fear. The unknown. The panic. 

It had all culminated in one epic meltdown, landing me on the floor of my very messy closet. 

My husband’s strong arms literally had to pick me up and carry me away from panic’s grip. 

We were on the edge of something. The beginning. Of what, I wasn’t sure quite yet. 

It seemed as if the world was being swallowed whole. Schools had been shut. Events cancelled. Businesses closed. New phrases such as, “social distancing” were just beginning to buzz.

With a deafening roar, confusion and fear were surging in.  

On top of this, despite The Pentagon declaring a ban on military travel, my airman is stamped “essential” and would still deploy. 

My strong arms. My safest human place. He would no longer be there to scoop me up from the floor.

The panic attacked me in the closet on March 22nd. 

I remember the exact day, because it was the anniversary of my dad’s death. 

The Missing, as I have named my grief, moved in on March 22, 2013. It has lived with me (and I with it) ever since. 

On milestone days, such as March 22nd, It perches on my shoulders— allowing its full weight to push me harder into gravity.  

This is how I know what grief feels like. And this is what I was feeling on the floor of the closet. 

Undeniable grief that had been inflated in size and bloated into deformity by the loss of the normal. 

Pain and panic— “Mercy!” I cried.

And then, with another goodbye, and hollow words of “duty” and “country” we would be imposed on by another missing presence. Another missing that will touch every area of our already upside-down world.

A missing that would hurt my children, leaving me scrambling to fill voids that I can’t fit into.

There have been a couple of times in my life that I have looked around asked myself, “is this really my life?” When the too much is too much. And enough is enough. 

Is this really my life?

From the floor of my closet, I asked that question.

Mercy.

It— has become too much.

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But even in the midst of the too much, and the more-than-I-can-handle— my youngest has learned to say, “I love you.” Although it’s not super clear, mainly the three syllabic vowel sounds in toddler tone,  it’s unmistakable to a mother’s ear. 

It dawned on me, as she grabbed my face with sticky hands and spoke these words, that she doesn’t even know what she’s saying. She doesn’t understand the power of these words, nor the meaning behind them. 

Still, she says them. 

It is simply an echo response to the tenderness that usually accompanies that simple phrase when I say it. She loves me because I loved her first. But the full meaning has yet to unfold for her. 

Much in the same way, even as I am crying out “mercy,” I don’t actually know the fullness of that word. 

For maybe if I did know the scope and breadth of it, gratitude would come easier for me. I wouldn’t surrender to fear quite as often. The Missing wouldn’t feel so violent, and the too much wouldn’t siphon my air, sending me into panic.

I’m inclined to believe that it’s impossible to grasp the fullness of mercy this side of heaven. Our humanity is too… human.

It’s okay though, because mercy is being unearthed even as I beg for reprieve. 

Mercy shows up in a young boy’s reflexive giggle. Mercy blows in on a perfect windy day to fly a kite. Mercy is watching sisters play in their red Christmas dresses in April, while two cardinal brothers mimic them in the trees behind.

Mercy hides with me during a game of hide-and-seek where, with irony and redemption, the same closet floor provides a perfect hiding spot. 

Mercy is in take-out food, and high speed internet. It’s in video calls and doorstep deliveries. It’s in a steady monthly paycheck. It falls from the sky in Spring rain showers, and in moments of peace that come without having to pray for them. 

Yes, this is my life.

It is these pure, merciful moments, that are holding together the tattered and threadbare remnants. And it is these, that will be used to stitch together the new creation that will emerge on the the other side of the too much.

On the floor of my closet I wait. I wait for the strong arms to pick me up. To shrink The Missing back to manageable size, and to remind fear of the weakling that it is. To tell me that I don’t have to fill the voids, and to stop trying so hard. 

Mercy tells me meltdowns are okay, and so is the fact that despite the best intentions, my closet will likely remain a cluttered, disorganized mess for the duration of the too much. 

Mercy says that sometimes setting up camp in the wilderness of questions, is better than elbowing our way through the hordes of wrong answers. 

One thing I am learning in the closet of the too much, is that with every trepidatious step, and monotonous morning, new mercies rise.

“Flames” acrylic on canvas by Lydia Morris