Another loss...

Upsettedness clearly is the greatest productivity in my life.  SIGH.

My step-mother unexpectedly sent me a bible that was my father's when he was young.  Not being in my father's will, being cut out of the family fortune, was really hard to take.  More so for the lack of mention of being his daughter than the money.  But knowing where the money came from, I do miss the help it could have been to me.

My brother and sister have actually received things of value from my stepmother, but I received this bible.  I found it ... upsetting.  Looking at it and seeing that he was once baptized was surprising and brought back all the confusing feelings from his funeral.  It was a day where, even being his daughter, I was largely ignored.  It was a day where I unknowingly participated in a church service that had false doctrine.  It was a day where I heard my father's best friend describe a man whom I never knew.

When the bible came, I was upset.  I had been keeping the notes from his friend's speech during the service, a photo nicked from a display that was of my father holding me that I had never seen before, and the bulletin from the service in the glove compartment of my car.  Thinking about those things upsets me.  Seeing them upsets me.

The bible was old and leather and had this zipper on the edges that made the bible closeable.  I put the photo, the speech, and the bulletin inside and gave it to my pastor, asking him if he would keep it until we could talk about the service, about the guilt and spiritual fear I battled over it.

Maybe you are thinking that is an odd thing to do.  Maybe you are thinking doing so was an error in judgement or selfish by putting passing the burden of keeping the bible onto him.  I am thinking that I was rather stupid to trust that anyone else would value the bible enough to keep it safe for me.

It is lost.
Maybe one day it will be found.
Now, it is lost.

I have been wailing again, as I did following my father's death.  Confused wailing.  Painful wailing.  Swallowed up and drowning in an agony I neither expected nor understand.

I asked for the bible's return after learning of my pastor's departure.  Each week that has passed has worried me.  The recent emails noting difficulty finding it have worried me more.  The last telling me that the only unaccountable bible in his office is not my father's felled me.

I wailed.
I smothered Amos.
I curled in a ball feeling stupid for asking for help, stupid for trusting, and stupid for thinking that the bible would be kept safe.

I wailed and wailed and wailed and wailed.  Then, as I continued wailing:

• I filed all the paperwork that has been sitting around since early fall.  I created 2015 file folders and put this year's documents away.  I also added two warranty packets and receipts to my warranties binder.
• I opened my electronic checking and savings register program and set up all the monthly savings transfers to my two new accounts: one for Amos repairs and one for house repairs.  I also updated my Over/Under spreadsheet for all my accounts.
• I updated my medical expenses spreadsheet for the year.
• I finished and electronically filed my federal tax return.  I set up an electronic transfer payment.  I set up the transfer from savings to checking for that payment.  I printed the return and created a 2015 tax file for my filing cabinet.  
• I finished and printed and signed my state tax return. I signed, dated, and created the mailing envelope.  I wrote out the check.  I set up the transfer from savings to checking for that payment.  I printed a copy of the return and added to the 2015 tax file.
• I backed up my entire computer.
• I did laundry.
• I cut Amos' hair and nails and pulled the curls from inside his ears.
• I swept the garage floor.
• I unpacked the shipment of granola bars I received last month, cut off and put in an envelope the school savings coupon, and flattened all the boxes.
• I collected all the trash about the house, took it out to the trash bin, and replaced the bag in the kitchen trash.
• I took all the recycling out to the recycling bin.
• And I packaged up the literacy books that I am sending to my nephew's tutor to help him with his studies.

It was a long, long, long night.

The wailing eventually ended as I worked through those tasks.  But the pain of the loss hurts.  Even now, I am overwhelmed writing this, tears falling and such pain.  It is like losing my father again.  I had wanted his brownie camera. I have a collection of old cameras and would have liked to have his in there.  I even asked for the last DVD we watched together ("The Gauntlet").  I didn't even know about the bible, nor would I have wanted it.  But it was the only thing that I have that was his ... well, I've had his baby shoes ever since my grandmother died.  But those were hers, if that makes sense.  I have nothing of his.

I honestly have no hope that the bible will be eventually found.  Were it given to me for safe keeping, I would have put it in a filing cabinet under my name or in a drawer with a note on top explaining what it was.  I cannot understand how it was lost.  But my church is rather large and who knows when it went missing or where it could be.  My dire self is most certain it was donated in some clear out or other organizing/reducing activities.

I could have maybe shoved the bible in the glove compartment.  Or perhaps found an obscure corner of the deacon's bench.  I'm sure I could have done a half dozen things better than asking someone to keep it for me until looking at it didn't distress me so much.

Mostly, right now, I am loathing just how weak I am and how that weakness led to the loss of those things of my father, of his life, for which there is no recreation or replacement.