To Cameroon, Africa and back

Here we are, on the trip that has taken me almost 40 years to get to do. Since I was 16, I have wanted to go to Africa-only to see the hopes get crushed a few times. The day we were to leave--June 18th, we got to the airport and found out that we still may not get to go as our plane was delayed by 2 hours and that would throw off the whole flights to Yaounde. The next flight there would not be able to be done till the following Tuesday, which would be one half way through the Health, Hygiene and Sanitation seminar we were doing with Carol and Mike Nowlin from Thirst Relief International. I was crushed, hopes gone...and then Rick asked what it would take to go through Douola Africa--which was 120+ miles from Yaounde. They could do that--so off we went. Of course this changed all things for Peter-our host...and Carol and Mike were still flying into Yaounde. Needless to say, we finally all met up and had an incredible journey...full of wonder, stresses physically as the roads were in bad shape for much of our journey as we were often far from any cities. We traveled alot-got to see many things we have never seen before, met people who were just beautiful inside and out.

I traveled with Sarah's ashes--as she also always wanted to go--so took a small amount with some sand from our beach. Often I felt her presence...somehow laughing and delighted that her mom was there---on her first wedding anniversary with the most wonderful husband...and then also on her mom's 57th birthday---almost as a gift...a treasure...

Always I was looking to see where to leave her ashes, and near the end of our trip, after all the workshops were done and we ended up in Limbe on the coast, the other side of the Altantic---was this spot. A set of stairs that led to the beach, a beach made up of volcanic rock and black sand---from Mt. Cameroon---which had erupted in the 90s the last time and sent ash and lava to the ocean. It was here we found these stairs that looked so like Manorola. As we climbed down the difficult and steep stairs, I felt your strong presence...Sarah and my dear Heavenly Father...

we were so quiet...Carol and Mike joined us...we just waited for the perfect wave...and released the sand and part of you...just then, a beautiful white crane with a black neck, flew solo right past us the full length of the beach....and Rick and I looked at each other and smiled through tears.

Who knows whether this is true or we make it true, it blessed both of our hearts and touched Mike and Carol...who never knew you.

I miss you...I am glad to have had you for the years we had. Such memories my sweet girl. We carried both of your packs on our back too throughout this trip and felt close too.

We are now in a new time, a new season. Christopher and Tiffany are now married and are beginning their journey. It is a new land. We will live well, we will remember you and also Rick's wife, Shyrl. We are all blessed to be living~not small but full. Embracing each day, each other...with fullness and joy. You, who have gone on now---have taught us so much and we will embrace the memories, yet live fully present.

love you...my sweet girl.

held close

love this picture, have used it before...somehow...I feel you next to me when I see it...and remember.

loved holding you...such a treasure to hold your child. i watch other mom's doing it now and want to say---do it for real...hold gently yet, intentionally...they aren't yours, just for a season...and you are given the privilege to have them for now.

i always had that in my heart...that you were not mine, just given as a gift to me to cherish and to raise...somehow, God let me know that from the very beginning, when I didn't even think I would carry you inside till birth...just a privilege.

blessed----I was blessed and am blessed with so much...so many memories.

today will probably be the last time I officially "move you". I was thinking of all the times I have moved you in my life this morning as I laid in bed...to different houses, to college and home each year...to mom's to live--to fairport and then to our house and then to your house with Christopher to get married...and now...we are moving the last of your stuff to their new homes...

i really think I can't understand this life. i don't know if i have the capacity to wrap my mind and heart around it...so will let it be today..and keep walking this out. slowly, gently, tenderly...remembering this is the land i have been given to walk...and God...you are close and will help. my heart knows deeply the sorrow of this land like no other can know. there are many moments of no words to speak...and that is just the way it is....and God, you know me...and search my heart and help. you are close to the broken and heal.

i am grateful...

life continues

I cheated---Karen challenged us in her blog that I visited to pick the 4th folder and the 4th picture---and I picked the 5th photo....the 4th only had Harry in it alone laying on the floor and the 5th had Sarah too---she was running in with school work to have a snack on the way to school. Only stayed long enough to say---"Mom, you only have condiments in your frig!!!" She was a hoot at times...would run by just to hug and eat. miss those times...

ah, living in today. i have had a few hard weeks. Today I am purposefully going to be in today---not in the sore past, nor in the fearful future of losing another. both of those places rob me of today.

i have been working overtime on my sorrow and i am tired. changes nothing...and hurts. so, just for today---i will....embrace the fresh wind and glorious blue sky, the brilliant sun shining on my face. i will enjoy the sound of Harry---my dear chocolate lab...snoring at my feet. i will savor the sound of Rick's quiet laugh as he reads his email on our WE day together. I will sip the mocha coffee next to me and enjoy the strong flavor of the good mix of beans.

i will look forward to visiting cameroon Africa next month...just 30 days from now---God willing to go...after wanting to go for the last 40 years of my life...and embrace this new journey I am on.

i will lift my hands to heaven and rejoice with the Father....for the wonderful life i have had...and the sweetness of memories...and leave my heart open to new ones to come.

grateful to all who have been praying and walking alongside of my sore mother's heart....thankyou... sometimes it is too much to bear...and today, i will leave it resting in my Father's strong hands...and keep the hope of heaven in mine.

mother's day year 2

year 2 of sarah gone on mother's day.

the days leading up to this day have been hard--hard to try to understand this long journey that i am on...

to lose your only child is like trying to learn a language that is not hardly ever spoken. i know no other personally that i can speak with in this language. i can speak with others who have lost a child, but none that have lost their only child. i know there are many who have, i just have not met one yet. the one's who have lost a child look at me with eyes of extreme somethingorother in their eyes---that i can't quite understand either...

i want to walk this journey well and see the other side of what lays beyond--and know that it was more than i could imagine. yet there are days on this side of the veil that tax my resources to the utter limits. i do know those feelings do pass...and my footing which feels like it will never stand when i have fallen...will come back.

it is in those dark and extreme places that words are beginning to fail me more and more. i write more now in my journal than before and less here...yet that doesn't mean the journey is less hard.

i fear sometimes of what my extreme words would say to someone reading these words. grief is just like the final print--the story has been printed and allows no corrections that can be done--it is what it is...no way to rewrite it, edit it, alter it...nothing to do be hold the letters and words in your hands and try to comprehend the weight of what they all mean.

i have learned more about secondary grief...the grief that brings new presents to an unsuspecting day--and moment--to bring a fresh wave of unexpected pain and sorrow...and again...your footing slips.

my dear sarah. how i have missed you these last few years. your spontaneous joy and laughter and unique comments on anything and everything....just are missed. not just by me, but by so many. your spot in this world is unfilled. never to be filled. doesn't mean i don't and others don't embrace and love and appreciate the one's around us. i don't ever want to do that---miss what is present and so beautiful in my life. just means that you were just you. i am glad to have savored every part every day---just glad i did.

the sting in my heart is still there. the ache that never leaves but joins each heart beat...sometimes less, sometimes more.

change.

so much has changed.

so many things of yours that have slipped into places in our homes and our lives...people who don't know they are your things that you made or loved will never know---just see them as belonging where they have been placed. i even have things from others who have gone on...that mix in the spaces of my home...

we do that---we take precious items from others and have them in our homes...and in special places that warm our hearts when we see them.

i wish i were more able to comprehend things i think about, make more sense of them...i sometimes ponder way too deep about all this stuff and it is like being on a merry go round till you are dizzy...and then need to get up and walk away till you stop spinning... that is what it is like some days.

i did find a card you were going to give to me in the midst of your card collection for mother's day and will place it in my journal for today. thanks sarah...for buying it and placing it there...you never knew it would touch me in the dearest way when you were no longer here. we never know what our acts will do...makes me try to live much more intentionally....with purpose and joy. trusting in the impulse to do.

everytime i visit here..it is sacred to me. like my fingers type away and my heart pours into them the words i feel.

i am grateful to have been a mom, i know many who have not been given the gift of bearing a child...and am thankful for the privilege of having her for the 28+ years. a gift. a treasure. a joy. help me my God to let that water my soul today. to rest in that. to stay there. to embrace the memories left.

i love my new ones you have also placed in my life--my new kids through rick...just are the best presents given to me. each of them is like a precious jewel that i haven't discovered the true value of yet, but will not miss exploring in the days to come. sarah would have loved knowing them and enjoying them. help me to stay present to the moment and sip the fresh glass of life you have placed before me---to not look back and live in what was...but to stay present. i will never forget, but do not want to miss today either. what a workout somedays. i need you to help me to walk this new life out well.

the day is ahead of me....things to do, write, read...quietness in my heart today. a still place to be. gentle waves today flow over my heart and mind....not the storm tossed thoughts. i need the day to be still and quieter...the days of late held too many of the other. help me to continue to heal my heart, my thoughts. help me understand that which will never make any sense, but needs to be able to have some way to accept and live.

tragedy. a word that in itself tears wide open the heart of whomever it is sent to. i have heard more tragedies in the last few years and know that the word itself is made up of shards of glass, unable to be grasped and held. i pray for all those today who are walking through a tragedy...a time of things wrecked and torn apart....please come. please touch those hearts today---please bring oil to heal. please Father.

rainy day...

rainy day-lots of quietness in my heart

lots of missing you. grief is quietness sometimes with no words and wild with many words at other times...tears and then no tears.

have had tears lately---soft falling off my face, loud unspoken wails in my heart...echoing against the walls...

long time since I touched your fingers---studying the way your fingers were like mine...your nails always so well kept.

you always cracked your knuckles and I would warn you that you would be sorry for how your hands would look and i was wrong...they looked so fine, so soft and so lovely...and they were so kind and so loving. you had a soft touch. i miss it. i miss how we would hold hands always when we drove together on trips....just did...always.

well, just a few words...seem they are all inside, just have a harder time writing them here lately...but they are there.

such a long, long way home...

i have completed the room...at least the things i took...there are a few things left for christopher to work with---all her art---needs to be photographed so others can make prints if they would like.

i ponder so much, so many thoughts run through my small mind...and i keep walking into the unknown...toward you Father.

it is quiet in my head. quiet and sore in my heart. i hurt. i ache. i miss.

i don't say much anymore...the words bring no different ending. no new release, no new out. no new freedom from missing.

i don't hide, i don't avoid. it just isn't the center of talking much anymore...

not that i would want it to be...but now, 18 months into this journey---it just is a long long way home. i long for heaven sometimes....just stretch myself toward the homeland.

i sometimes get lost in thought about seeing you---Father...wow. seeing your Son...wow....seeing the others...already there....just mystifies me...is more than i can ponder for too long...get so lost in the thoughts of it.

but, here we are...coming up on easter again. i am glad for this season...so refreshing of what i totally believe. i know many others don't, but i do...and i do deeply, more deeply than ever before. don't want to debate it anymore either...so guess it is settled, and maybe thought of as narrowminded. i really don't try to tell others their answers...but if they ask how and why i believe, i am more than able and full of passion to share...and just tell my story and how i can see no other path but one. just one...and that one is Jesus. so....that is that.

but...as far as this journey of moving forward and on---i have much to sort through...much to touch and feel...and savor...and remember...it isn't enough, but it is sweet.

sweet, sweet sarah c. sweet girl...my girl. miss you so...right now, the tears wash my eyes, so can't see as well what i am writing...not too painful, just the sweet tears of your mom...your mom who misses and loves you so. what a girl, what a wild child...full of life, love and passion...so full.

thanks sarah--thanks for it all.

Sweet girl, sweet memories

I have now been to Sarah's room 3 times and most of the stuff is now in my garage. At least it is moved...and now to begin to go through it a bit at a time. Feels less like a place that I dread to go now. Life has moved on even if I feel like I have moved slowly in this area.

Grief is hard at times---crippling, debilitating, sufficating, like you have no arms or legs and can't move out of it.

Then other times, it feels like there is movement and softness and comfort like no other.

Then other times, it feels like so much has changed that you can't even remember the sounds of her voice...nor the other voices of the ones gone on.

I am so mixed up on those days...is better to be quiet and slow to move.

Just this week, another friend lost her 14 month old daughter---same name....Sarah. my Sarah knew the mom---and they had talked some before Sarah died and were going to be on a Koinonia weekend together, but the mom was almost ready to deliver...her Sarah...so didn't do it. Sarah-my sarah, never made it to the weekend either as she had died shortly before. This new mom said to me...."your Sarah is with my Sarah." quietness in my soul...pondering that...

such a profound thought....our Sarah's together...however that is in heaven...wow God....somehow my mind just is unable to picture that. yet there is comfort. Sweet mercy...sweet mercy.

this picture is of Sarah's room before I started, messy, but the last of the view. art, neil, cards, always projects waiting to start...such a girl.