Grief

For those of you who haven't heard, Dan and I had a good friend pass away in a helicopter crash in Iraq a couple days ago. The details are still kind of blurry and we still aren't entirely sure what went down and what is currently going on, but I'm going to add some links at the end of this entry for those of you who want to know more. Karin and Phil Windorski were the first military couple Dan and I bonded with when we started dating and he had first joined the Army. Originally, Dan had wanted to fly Kiowa helicopters, which is what Phil flew. Dan met Karin through an online support forum for Kiowa pilots. While Karin is not a pilot, she used the forum as a way to meet the girlfriends and spouses of pilot's. She completely took me under her wing and I probably wouldn't have survived Dan being gone so much without her. She's so incredibly strong.. the difference she has made in the lives of others is staggering.. even now, despite being in immense pain, she in encouraging us not just to focus on her and her family, but on the families of the 3 other lost lives on board as well. I ask that you please keep her and her three children in your prayers... the Good Lord knows she's going to need all the comfort she can get.

This is a first for me.. losing someone so out of the blue. Grief is such a strange process.. at first, I went into complete shock. I had to reread the email 5 times because I kept thinking I was reading it wrong.. surely I was glazing over some word.. surely my friend Jill, the one who informed me, had simply mi sworded a sentence. But no.. there it was.. and I went into hysterics. I dropped my cell phone three times trying to call Dan. When I finally got through to him, I couldn't even form complete sentences that made any sense. The words "babbling" and "sputtering" come to mind. Telling him was awful.. he loves Karin and Phil and their family as much as I do. I didn't really sleep last night.. the Aviation community is fairly small, so when a helicopter goes down, it generally has a pretty big effect on all of us as a whole even if we don't personally know those involved. To have it be someone close rocks you to your core.. I mean, that could be any one of us wives. We are all very aware of the dangers our husbands face on a daily basis, though we try not to dwell on that fact in order to avoid turning into complete basket cases. My emotions are running the complete gammon.. one minute, I'm totally fine.. maybe still a little sad, but not about to burst into tears. The next minute, I DO burst into tears out of nowhere. The next thing I know, I'm needing to curl up in the fetal position to fight how nauseous I am. I go into complete trances for even up to 45 minutes at a time.. just staring at the wall.. and when I snap out of it, I have no idea what I was even thinking about and am confused by how much time has passed. The guilt eats you alive.. while you HATE how much your friend is hurting and it's actually almost physically painful to think of her broken heart, you also in the next breath can't help but thank God it wasn't your husband. Then I hit the exhaustion wall and completely pass out into crazy deep sleep for an hour or two. It's all so confusing and hard.

At this point, it's really just about trying to take things one moment at a time. I'm spending a lot of time on my knees in prayer.. I seriously don't understand how people who don't believe in God can cope when something like this happens.. where they find comfort if they have no reason to believe that their loved one is in a better place now. The only thing keeping me even remotely sane through everything that has been going on lately is the knowledge that God is faithful. He has shown me time and time again that He really does work everything out for the good of those who love Him. He is able to take even the most messed up of situations and somehow still spin them into gold. I pray that I never lose sight of just how in control He really is. Once again, He has made me perfect in weakness.

http://www.startribune.com/local/38404244.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-iraq-soldiers27-2009jan27,0,3479240.story