I AM LIKE THE SUNSHINE THAT COMES OUT TO BRIGHTEN A CLOUDY DAY... I WILL SHINE AGAIN... SOON

I AM LIKE THE SUNSHINE THAT COMES OUT TO BRIGHTEN A CLOUDY DAY... I WILL SHINE AGAIN... SOON

BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES aka GRANNY GEE

I was driving down the highway this morning. I had just come from feeding the cats I feed each day. I was listening to the radio on station 100.7 ... Kitty Kenan show.

'Mama, I killed a man'..... the song had just came on, the man was singing these words. Instantly, it threw me back to 3 years ago when Tommy called me to say .... 'Mama, I just killed a man'... I began sobbing. It felt like yesterday... I could feel, remember the pain, shock, grief in my son's voice. I had just left 'here' and traveled back to a dark road in my memory.

He was speaking so low as if 'he was trying to speak from another world'. He was in another world... one that would affect the last year of his life, and would help to cause his death. Tommy could never cope with knowing he had killed a man, no matter .... if it wasn't his fault. Tommy was a kind, gentle, big guy... his mind couldn't bear what happened.

I remember feeling as if somehow 'I had done it, too'. This was when the man stepped out of his car, it was stopped in the center lane of 3 lanes of traffic, no breakdown lane........ on the Hernando De Soto Bridge. We never knew 'why' that man stepped out in front of Tommy's tractor trailer.

The bridge goes across the river from Tennessee into Arkansas. A bridge that Skip and I, also, knew well. We'd been across it so many times through the years. Alot of people have lost their lives on that bridge.

I felt such grief well up in my heart as I listened to that song... I remembered. I cried just as I did that day for my son. When I got home I felt so sad, and from crying... I felt weak, sleepy. I was also, cold... the weather has turned cooler again. I laid down on the bed and pulled my blankets up on me, went to sleep... crying softly inside. It just hurt so bad. I couldn't stand up with that pain, I didn't want to stay awake with that pain. I went to sleep 'to lose it, leave it there'...

I have just gotten up not long ago, wondering 'why' I don't feel the best. This is 'why'... I just remembered, I wanted to write about it.

No matter how much you think you 'have it all together', how you think you are coping so well with grief, how alright you feel you are going to be... 'this' happens. Something will unexpectedly reach into your heart, make you remember that pain... and you will feel it just as if it happened... again. You will sob just as I did. It really hurts so bad.

Not everyone has suffered grief yet in their lives. We have no way to escape it unless... we 'go first'. It's going to happen, it does no good to ask 'why'... there aren't any answers. I can tell you this... I have suffered grief so many times in a few short years in my life... it seems like I went most of my life never experiencing how it felt. It 'all began to happen at one time'... one by one, the very people 'I loved most' .... died. One by one..................

How can I describe grief? It's a 'trapped' feeling of panic of knowing deep inside the very person you love ... is forever gone. You can't imagine life without them, you cry your very heart out.... over and over, over again. No matter how much you cry, you hurt... they aren't going to come back. For me... it almost took my very life from me... I didn't think I could bear such pain... this was pain 'bigger than any I'd ever felt from anything in my life... I had enough pain in my life ...to make this comparison.

For a moment... think of your child being gone forever. Stop now... because it hurts so much 'to just think such a horrible thing'. My very heart prays that you never experience this pain in your entire life. This was only 'for a moment' to imagine. Can you imagine ... if it was forever?

Again... I tell myself for the 'millionth' time... it's all going to be alright. I'm going to be alright and while I do, tears stream down my face... oh God, the pain squeezing my heart.. please stop. No matter that it hurts so bad, soon I will be alright again..... I am like the sunshine that comes out to brighten a cloudy day... I will shine again ...soon.