To The Mom I Don't Know

I don't know you, but I can't imagine I'll ever forget you. There's the buzz in the air, the ripples of grief making there way to strangers. I am a stranger.

I don't know you, but I've wept and wondered and prayed over you and your family and your loss.

Even from a distance.

I don't know you, but I can't drive anywhere without sensing a pulse of where you might be right now, what you are doing, how you are coping, what craze you might toe the edge of.

I don't know you, but I've gone there in my mind, and I've stared in the horror of your circumstance adopting it as my own. And I can't know what it feels like, not really. I can't know the pain, the despair, the shoes that you now walk in. I can't.

I can only imagine. And many might say they can't imagine. But, I've gone there and imagined, and I've shaken and cried to God. My dread courses through me as if I'm the one looking at the grief face on. My babies, my life I've poured into those children. And the abrupt end that could occur at any moment, at any unforeseen deed. Without a chance to say that next thing, to guide that next step, to hold that hand one more time.

And yet. I don't even know the depth of it. I can't even go there. I said I could. But I cannot really know your pain. Not all of it.

I am just at a distance.

I don't know you, and I weep for you and pray for you and hope for you. There's no judgement here. I see myself, day in and out, messing up, struggling, fighting, falling short of all the expectations I thought motherhood could be.

Even still. I pray that eyes of judgement never fall on me in such a time as your moment right now. I pray that you sense no judgement from anyone now. That God protects your heart and your sanity and reminds you He's there. Even when it is so absurd to think He's there. Where was He? Where, Lord? How can this happen...and I cry these things, and I curse this, and I don't even know you.

But I'm a mom too, and I have a mom's heart, and I weep with you at such a time as this.

Even from a distance.

Even if I'm a stranger.