I Am Not Strong

    I don't understand why people keep telling me this. I am not strong. Why would you think that just because I am standing here, after losing both my mom and one of my daughters within a month of each other, that I am strong?  

   I am not strong. I cry every day. While the death of my 92 year old mother was expected, the death of my 36 year daughter was not. She was ill, but we expected her to recover. I am not strong. I keep questioning God why.  Why did he not answer our prayers for her recovery? Why did he let both things horrible things happen at the same time?   I am not strong.

   What makes you think I am strong?  We had to plan two funerals within weeks of each other. My husband and I spent four weeks out of town in an Intensive Care Unit with our daughter, one week was in her room sleeping on the recliner and bench, the other three weeks in a hotel.  We cried, we held her hands, we talked and encouraged her, we cried, we were exhausted beyond words.  I am not strong. 

    I want to go to my mom and cry, cry over the loss of my daughter, but my mom is also gone. I want to cry over the loss of my mom with all my children, but one of them is missing. I am not strong. 

   My husband and our other two children have had to pack up and clean our daughter's apartment, take care of her funeral arrangements, distribute things we cannot keep, settle her accounts. This came just after we have been doing the same for my mother's things just weeks before.  I am not strong, I am exhausted, grieving, worn out from trying to figure out what we should have done differently to have kept our daughter from dying. Worn out from answering teams of doctors' questions.  Worn out trying to figure out why this happened.   I am not strong.

   It is ONLY  because of the love of our families that we are getting up each day. Both my husband's siblings and his dad, and my siblings and our nieces and nephews are we able to find a reason to get up each morning. I am not strong enough to get up every day and face the emptiness, the huge hole in my heart.  I am not strong. I must have their love and support and prayers to get through each and every day.  And sometimes, even that does not feel like enough. 

   So please do not tell me I am strong.  I am struggling. And I need prayers.