Handling Grief: Part 1
How Grief Creates Promise Keepers
3 years had passed. 7 police reports. 2 protection orders. One 4 year criminal no contact order. 3 convictions for violations of the no contact order. 6 charges for contempt. Multiple legal attempts to take the kids…. And zero mental health therapy.
Yet, it was there that I found myself living in flashbacks of the life that was, the one I lived already, the one that could never exist again.
The life that was, mostly my life with AK, but some family walks on the Boise River in Eagle, Idaho. Moments where things were good, and he was okay. Moments where I still had hope that he would change and that the life I imagined would be not only possible but probable. Without any conscientious effort my mind would slip back to a reality where hope lived because truly that’s what it took. It took me 3 years to realize that all hope was truly gone. And the dream as I knew it then would never exist like that story I imagined. My life wouldn’t happen in the foothills of Boise, Idaho. It would never be with that man and my two adorable little ones would never have AK beside them throwing rocks in the Boise river, or have the chance to feed him food off the table…. They wouldn’t have a childhood with him.
It was a story that shattered, a promise of home that I watched and lived. And here I was 3 years later, watching not only the death of the promise but I watched myself fighting to live in the ruin for so long. By this point, most people looked on my life and thought I was doing well, I was financially stable, I rebuilt home and the kids were happy. What most people outside of my world didn’t realize was that its when survival finally stopped that I got the true death toll. And for me, it was massive.
I spent my whole life dreaming of my marriage and husband. I imagined the kids we would have and the home we would build together. I created a world in my mind for myself that I believed was God’s promise for my life, yet here I was. I was here in the ruin of the life I had created with him. I saw ever clearly how much damage one man can truly bring to a family. There’s no way to explain the injustice your heart feels when you have to fight the person who is supposed to be scripturally, morally and biologically programmed to protect you. It’s the role of the father, husband, protector, and it’s the man who fills that role that can be the biggest blessing or the greatest curse.
He is the one I dreamed about, the protector. But the man who filled that role, couldn’t become the man that was needed, and ultimately his failure created massive pain in those he was supposed to keep from harm.
He became the very threat that he was made to stand against. The promise of a lifetime with him, the promise of a beautiful story together, our little family…I had to let it go. I had to realize that the character of the man in my story was the reason it shattered. He would never be the man I went to bed with at night, he would never be my Saturday mornings, he would never be the one I planned retirement or travels with. To my heart, I left him in the brokenness he created. He would live in the grave, because there’s no place for the darkness he chose to partner with in the life I am now building. That darkness would stay in the grave, and as long as he chose to partner with it he would too. He would be the character who died with the dream.
I had to re-dream again.
AK would never be able to go for walks in the hillside with me, he would never be part of my solo mountain escapes. He would never again be able to give me that goofy look when he knew I needed something… But without him, I wouldn’t be here. And as I begin to re-dream, I realize the next story is as much his as it is mine. He is the reason I have the chance to write it. He was the shield to the darkness my husband brought into our home down to the last minute of his life. He was my warrior, my defender, my escape and my happy. He gave his life so Darian and Addie could live free, he gave the courts the proof that we needed of Daniel’s violence. He saved our lives that night that Daniel broke. He was the hero of my story, and he would be there for the next story. He would be there for the rewrite. He would be with me on mountain walks I take, every tear I cry. He would be by the kids as they grow, he would be the legacy that they hear of, he would be in every moment of the story ahead.
He is the reason I can re-dream. And his soul would stay with mine forever, in this story and the next.
Life is full of pain and darkness, and sometimes promises shatter. The darkness is heavy and the grave seems too deep to climb out of. The pages of your story are riddled with heartache and the hopelessness starts to seem like the only thing you can count on. It’s in these times that our faith is built in silence. Because with every moment you thought the demons were too many, you survived. And here, however long it took to get here, here you stand. Reading the pages you’ve written through the pain. Pages of you overcoming the darkness that tried to take you out of your own story. The demons that tried to get you to surrender your power. The whispers that tried to feed you lies that the story was made to be dark, but that it would be endless, like a reckless poison in your bones. A darkness that would never stop. Whispering the lie that maybe your life was meant to be lived here in this consuming pain.
I assure you, the darkness is not your story. What feels like your life is only destined to be a chapter. But it’s here you grieve, it’s here you see death, it’s here you see the pages slowly burn, pages of your life that you will never live and the chapters that won’t ever exist like you thought, you see them like bodies across a wasted battle ground, with no hope of revival.
You feel it. You breathe it in. You let your heart remember the loss, you let it feel the excruciating pain. You let it touch every cell of your being, you remember everything it was supposed to be before darkness consumed it. And you let yourself stand there, as it surrounds you and breathes on you, because it’s here that you grieve, and it’s here in this place of ruin and despair that the world that once was is overtaken by the strength within your soul.
The very existence of you becomes the light that rebirths hope again.
Breann Shannell
The promises as we saw them won’t ever exist earthside on this dimension of heaven but somewhere that promise still lives inside you, and somehow the souls that were meant to stay as part of our lives, exist in the life we rebuild. They still remain, because just like us, darkness could never destroy them. They live on from one promise to the next, and as we breathe, they breathe. As we live, they live. They are never forgotten in the stories we release because without them we wouldn’t be here. They became part of us, and as we move into the story ahead, they are ever present. They not only exist as we learn to dream again, but they are the hope that carries us on. They are the love that we feel as we walk out of the grave. They are the seeds of promise that begin to start breathing again. And as the promise starts to come alive, it’s as if they do too. They are in a way, our promise keepers. The ones God placed in our war to carry the flag to victory. The ones who went through the grave with us, to remind us of redemption. The very souls who death could never take, and from chapter to chapter they write their stories through ours. And with every chapter we build forward, every chapter we write and every word we speak, it’s their souls that we honor.