The last time I was in a church was for my husband’s funeral.
Growing up, I was a good kid. I was involved in extracurricular activities, stayed out of trouble, made good grades, and overall kept my parents’ stress levels in the normal range. I was also heavily involved in my church, from sitting in church every Sunday and Wednesday without fail for 15+ years to volunteering in the nursery, then in the kids’ ministry, and later in youth camps, first as a camper and then as a counselor; VBS, Mission Trips, Leadership retreats, etc. My faith was a foundational cornerstone of my life. College was much the same, with involvement in church, weekly Bible study, and summers spent working at a Christian summer camp. My faith has always been something I felt secure in, which is why, if back then, you would have told me at 35 I would be struggling to the point where I didn’t open my bible for two years, I never would have believed you, but here we are.
Anytime life got tough, I found peace in the idea that my best days were still to come and that God had a plan for me. I treated every heartbreak, every disappointment, every failed relationship as a stepping stone that would bring me that much closer to God’s plan for my life, specifically looking towards the future and the thing I had wanted my entire life: having a family of my own. I have wanted to be a mother since I was in kindergarten. To be specific, I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, just like my mom, because I thought it was the coolest job ever. At the time, I didn’t realize it wasn’t a paid gig, so then I went with saying my future career would be as a teacher because I would have the same days off as my kids. So, through every moment of doubt and fear, my mom would always say, “God wouldn’t have given me the heart that he gave me and the desires to be a wife and mother if he wasn’t going to provide that!” So I stayed the course, carefully going over each bump, and kept the faith because I knew it was bringing me closer to where I am meant to be.
So first comes love, then comes marriage, and then comes… fertility issues. When Coleman and I decided we were ready to start a family, it was around the time that I found out I had fertility issues. Unfortunately, mine stems from both genetics and lifestyle. The genetic part I couldn’t control, but I could control my lifestyle, so I began trying to lose weight and get healthy. My fertility doctor had a specific BMI she wanted me at before we could move forward with trying to conceive, and that became the new goal. The way my doctor put it is that it isn’t a “you’ll never be able to get pregnant” but more of a “we gotta use science to help you get you pregnant,” which meant IUI or IVF. During this time, Coleman and I also looked into fostering and adopting because both have always been heavy on my heart, and still are. My dream has always been to adopt a bunch of teens right before they age out because I feel that every single kid should have somewhere to call home and someone to call who will answer. But then life happened, both mine and his mental health took a deep dive, and the result was developing an even more unhealthy relationship with food that lasted for years. In 2023, we both recognized the need to prioritize our health, so he underwent surgery, and I adjusted my diet. We worked towards the same goal of being healthy so that we could do things like play with our kids in the backyard and be there for them for decades to come.
The night before I left for Disney, Coleman and I were talking about the next time we go to Disney together: it would be to take our future kids. We both felt 2024 would be the year we started a family, and I agreed. Our siblings were either expecting a child or had already had one, and we were excited about it being our turn. As someone who has always been a hopeless romantic, I spent most of my teenage and young adult years reading Nicholas Sparks books, watching Disney princess movies, creating Pinterest boards for future family plans, and jotting down baby names. I had faithfully walked with God for most of my life, believing that if I did what I was supposed to do, followed Him, and trusted Him, then one day He would grant my heart’s desires. So here I am, having a conversation with my husband on December 8th, 2023, in our home, the one we chose because you could see the backyard from the kitchen, allowing the kids to play outside and me to keep an eye on them. The same backyard where we had planned to install a swimming pool. The front guest room was going to be a little girl’s room because the closet is bigger.
We watched our house being built from the ground up and, together, dreamed of the life we would create. The walls and foundation of our home are covered in written prayers, bible verses, and affirmations over the children that would one day live in these rooms. So to go from that conversation to him dying two days later broke every ounce of me. That is why I say that the day he died, it felt like I lost everything I had ever dreamed of because I had. The Christmas traditions we planned to start, the names we would have them call our parents, the Saturdays spent driving them to games, and the Sundays spent at church. The late-night fights because one of the kids forgot to tell us they had a project due tomorrow. The sitting at the table trying to understand the homework because even though I am a teacher, I have absolutely no idea what this is. The giant island in the kitchen, where the kids would roll out sugar cookie dough to make Santa’s cookies. All of it died with him. It felt like I showed up to the starting line just to find out the race had been cancelled. And the part I didn’t understand the most is that I did all the right things. I stayed out of trouble, tried to be a good daughter, sister, aunt, and friend. I tried to be someone people knew was a Christian through my actions and love. I did all of it with the hope that God would allow me to have my heart’s greatest desire – a family of my own – only to find myself picking out funeral music and ordering death certificates.
I remember the night after Coleman died, talking to Randy, a minister I have known most of my life who also happened to be the minister at our wedding, and I told him I was so angry at God. Randy’s response to me has played on a loop in my head since that day. He said that he understood my anger, but to try to remember that the God I am angry at is the same God who sent his son to die for us so that we could spend eternity with him in heaven. So I spent the next 23 months fighting with God.
On any given day, I was raging on the inside, furious that I did all the right things, tried my best to trust in God’s will for my life and follow his word, and the result was that I still got abandoned. It was that heartbreaking, soul-crushing, can’t breathe agony that propelled me forward. It is what drove me not to take time off, but instead to continue attending grad school full-time. It was what motivated me to lose 115 pounds and to start working out. It is what pushed me as I spent my summer going through months of testing and appointments with my fertility doctor to see what my options are. Sitting in waiting rooms surrounded by people with their partners, and sitting in testing rooms with an empty seat where Coleman used to sit, was adding fuel to the flames. I was determined, headstrong, and no one was going to tell me what I could and couldn’t accomplish because I was going to do it all. That fire got me through the last 23 months, and then the flame went out.
Last week was a bad week for me. One of my worst in a long while, actually. We had my grandmother’s funeral on Monday, and from there, everything started to spiral. On Wednesday, I placed a photo of Coleman and Baylee on the ofrienda at my school for Dia de los Muertos, along with their favorite treats—a Hershey bar for Coleman and a dog bone for Baylee. As I took a step back, the reality that two years ago I was talking about expanding my family with the man in this photo, and now he is part of a Day of the Dead remembrance, hit me hard. The rest of the week proceeded similarly. I was struggling, I was having horrible spirals, spirals so bad that I wouldn’t even let my mom talk to me. I was numb and dissociating and trying to get through the day without falling apart. My family noticed. My coworkers noticed. Hell, I think even some of my students noticed. I wasn’t okay, and I wasn’t able to shake it. Every loss I had endured that stemmed from the original loss of Coleman just started piling up to the point where I woke up Sunday and told myself I need to be in a space that would sound like what I imagine heaven sounds like, so I got ready, tracked down my bible that I hadnt opened in two years and headed towards Potters’ House in Dallas.
In the Summer of 2005, I went with my youth group to New Orleans to spend a week working in the Lower 9th Ward, running VBS at one of the local churches, and participating in community projects that needed manpower. We spent a week pouring blood, sweat, and tears into a really special place that made us feel so welcomed and loved, and then we headed back to Dallas, and a little over a month later, Hurricane Katrina came through and destroyed everything. That trip stood out to me for many reasons, but one of the most impactful memories is from their Sunday morning service, when I sat there and thought, ‘This is what heaven must be like.’ The music, the emotion, the vulnerability, the love – I felt so raw and real, and I remember knowing in my soul that this was as close to heaven on earth as I was going to get. A few years later, I visited Potter’s House with people from my youth group, and again, that same feeling settled in: this is what I had pictured heaven to be like.
So as I head to Potter’s House, I realize I won’t make it in time for their service, but there was no way I was going to give up now. I had spent the morning putting one foot in front of the other, getting ready, and crying, only to need to redo my makeup so I could cry again. It wasn’t just that this was the first time I was setting foot in a church since his funeral, but this was the first time I was attending church by myself in years. So, I looked up a few more churches, found one that many people who had left Potter’s House now attended, and started driving. I pulled in the parking lot on the brink of a complete panic attack or mental breakdown, or both, and kept putting one foot in front of the other. I walked into the church, anger and fear battling for dominance in my heart, and sat down. I was angry that I was having to go to church on my own and also scared to be in a new place during such a vulnerable time. I am sure I looked calm and collected on the surface, but I was paddling like crazy beneath the surface to keep from drowning. Worship started, and my row began filling in. I started singing songs I hadn’t sung in years and tried to remind myself that somewhere in the middle of all this hurt, there is also healing. I started to cry at one point during the service, and I didn’t even realize I was crying until this sweet woman next to me handed me a Kleenex and patted my arm. The one-hour service ended up being three hours, which, honestly, I was okay with because everything being said was what I needed to hear, even if I wasn’t ready to receive it.
So where does that leave me? Well, for lack of a better word: stuck! On the good days, I’m able to fully believe that my best days are ahead of me and that all of this will have been for something. That, down the road, I’ll be able to look back on this time in my life and see how God was working even when I didn’t see it. I cling to the hope and promises of God and trust him to bring me my heart’s desires. But then reality sets in. The closet is overflowing with memories of a life gone too soon. The pictures on the wall are fading like the memories I have of him.. The empty bedrooms that should have been full of light and love. The dining room chairs that never move, and the closet light that burned out a year ago, but I can’t reach to replace. A future that two people dreamed up, but only one person is left to bring it to life. It is in those moments when the screaming silence pushes me too far, and I let the anger, the hurt, the fear take over, that I allow myself to consider the idea that maybe this is it. Maybe my best days have already happened. Perhaps I won’t get another chance. I try to look at everything I have, but I get stuck on what I don’t have. I want to be able to say that no matter the lot, it is well with my soul, but it is not. Nothing about this is well with my soul, and to be honest, I don’t know if it ever will be.
Love, Brittany