Just a normal type of day

Found this picture tonight as I was purusing my photo albums....one of you at your desk when you were still here...focused...working...in a lovely place, and bet Neil D. was playing....

somedays, I just want a normal day again, get a phone call to meet you or just to talk truly about nothing, laugh, plan...just one more time.

missing you is something that happens, just all the time. Was dusting your painting of you today and looked at that magnificent painting done by the artist in Italy and thought, why am I dusting a painting of you...how unusual to dust a picture of you...who would have ever thought that I would dust a beautiful momento of you...just stopped me right there. For a minute I couldn't really move...I was without thinking moving through the act of dusting...and it just hit me right then. I felt like i was in a state of true shock...like what the hell am I doing?

that happens way more than the world even knows. just seems like life has such an unusual component to it now...unnatural...you shouldn't be gone....that's for sure.

10 days before Christmas....and you would have a list quite full to get....you probably would have everyone done now--and wrapping, etc. I miss painting and making stuff with you...so remember the art table full of paints and brushes and all kinds of ideas all the way back a few months....just was so much fun. miss that too.

never changes...always missing something....missing you. missing the tradition we only did for one year. hummmmm, that truly sucks.

i surely am glad and grateful for all I have now...just wish you could have gotten to meet all these wonderful brothers and sisters and a dad and nieces and nephews ...you would have been blown away...and have already shopped for all of them! You had the gift of shopping down pat.

well, seems harder to write here these days. trying to live sarah...trying to keep on....walk on in the midst...to find joy, laughter...stay connected to the air I am breathing...for more than just organ survival.

still miss you. just as simple as that.

Friday morn

cold night-lots of wind and waves here on the lake-so noisy it woke me up!

I have been walking in a deeper valley this week. I know this valley of sorrow and know some of the trails that I take and each time they bring that fresh smell of loss. I also know how to walk back to life again and I am on the uphill climb to the light and air.

That deep place of the loss is so hard, so sad. I am glad I don't live there anylonger. Just so helpless, so unchanged. The story is the same. The ending is the same, it is a finished painting of what happened.

I took this picture up in the Rockies this last trip and loved the aspens. By now I am sure all the leaves will have fallen. There will be a barrenness to all the branches-but the hope is in the spring that will come after the long and cold winter.

My hope is in that final spring-the final place I will be for all times. For now, the need to keep with the changes of the heart, my dear heart that moves sometimes slowly through the season of grief. I don't know if it will ever feel like a right fit. I know many now around me who journey their own land of loss. I am glad we see one another across the borders of that sorrow to wave and shout encouraging words and smiles. That tenderness of a shared burden makes one's own burden lighter. If you listen hard and close your eyes--you will hear the breeze blowing through these aspen leaves and they are clapping--and making sweet noise, rejoicing at the last of their brilliant glory!

early morn

Never give up in Life video.

I saw this video clip at church last Sunday and last night after never going to sleep, yet finding myself resting quietly in my Father by morning, quiet in my heart, yet still so much swirling more quietly...that this song was playing quietly in my mind and wanted to post it. It is powerful...and good...and I know He holds me...and I will never give up, but run well to the finish.

Late night-swirling thoughts

been awhile since I couldn't sleep. just many thoughts swirling in my mind.

was writing tonight more of the journey i have had and it was alot to process of our life through many years.

also went to a grief reunion group of the group i did a few months after you died dear sarah c.

i miss you. i miss our life. i miss that there wasn't more to write of our journey.

i get to a place that no more words seem to make it make it better.

i am grateful and glad for things like this picture given to me just a week ago by Diana of a piece of wood she found for me on the North Carolina shore that looks so like a seagull and she wanted to give it to me as it so reminded her of all the parts a seagull has touched me in this land of loss and you.

i want to show it to you. i want to tell you and show you so many things. i watch other friends call their kids or they get phone calls from their kids...and you never call me and never will again. just am so quiet when i watch them talk-remembering the many calls from you-just random talk about anything calls. i still have 4 voice mail messages from you i listen to sometimes....randomly-and think how totally normal your voice is. and save them again for another time.

i am so grateful for the calls i get today from my dear other kids-and just savor the calls. still wish you would be here. want to tell you even about all them.

so the night is one of lonely wishes...and those just seem to get me into trouble with sleeping and peace...so decided to get up and write and try to leave these thoughts here. try to pry them out of my mind so i can sleep.

talking today at grief group was deep and hard. words spoken there by all of us that don't see air often now anymore as we journey farther out of the beginning and have gone further down the road. ability to share real stuff that still is in our hearts and processing events that are still a challenge-often to us with no one else knowing. grief is a challenge. we want to do it well, we just don't really know how. how to live well with joy in a land that is totally foreign to us...like a language with not enough words we know how to use. like when people ask, "how are you doing?" do we know how to answer, what to answer-how much do they really want to know-how long do they have to listen...how to end the conversation if you get started and the pain and tears begin to come--kinda like pumping one of those old wells and all of a sudden the water comes with a gush--do you keep pumping or stop and try to make the water stop too.

i don't like this new land, only it isn't a place you can move from to another place to change the scenery--it goes with you where ever you go--it is now such a part of you. so, tonight is a harder night-and it is midway through the night. i know the new day will come, the sorrow will slow and not be so heavy...and i will go on. it is just late and too many words swirling in my mind and, like i said....i miss you.

you would have been 32 in a few weeks. so many thoughts about that--how your life would have looked. loss of dreams and you. moms have dreams for their children that are part of the grief to reckon out and release too. those are sometimes new ones to deal with as you would have grown older--they then become a fresh release...seeing you with children, finishing school....on and on and on.

the night is quiet. i hear the clocks ticking, Rick's breathing...wonder who else can't sleep tonight? I think of the words of the psalms that have comforted me in the night hours and will go read a few of those and know others have journeyed before me...and lamented and sorrowed and see if i can find the trail of hope and see some of where God is tonight. Go sit in His presence for a bit and snuggle into the arms that knows me without words.

tucking you back in now. miss you. love you.

how can it already be 3 years since you left living on earth? it seems like just yesterday i heard you coming down the outside stairs, talking on your cell phone to one of your dear friends with your "outside voice" and coming into the cottage-throwing your books, your oversized purse down, petting harry...going straight to the frig and looking in (still hadn't said hello to me yet! :o) ) and then looking up over the frig door and saying to me..."Mom, all you have is condiments in here!!" All this time you would be doing that, I would be watching and smiling at you--loving to see you so alive, so full of your life and all you were doing. Then you would come over to me--still on the phone and give me one of our "kisses" that everyone would laugh at!
so, 3 years, and yet, i would not be surprised to see you just walk in again right now--as the last time I saw you-you were so full of joy and life...and then the news came that you were gone. the long trip from turkey to Italy to see you and sit by your broken body with Christopher who was also so broken...and marty and tom and A. Bunny and then Chris's dad...till we were finally handed your warm ashes to bring back to america...
how in the world do you ever get to the place that any of that makes any sense...or can hold it as the story of you-life and death....
such a new land for all of us. i am here in colorado, looking at the mountains....getting ready to go on a guided spiritual retreat today--and I come to you, My Father, with a heart that has so much soreness in it and come with handfuls of questions....and pray for you to see and meet with me and help me to live better and more fuller. i so miss you sarah. i have been blessed with more life...and a full life....that is for sure....and still holding you and all our life and memories close to my heart. so many memories that will never be told again...so many thoughts and places we went, so many things we did...seeing you grow up from a child to a beautiful woman....wow...what a blessing...but then gone. oh my....how to keep on...how to treasure and hold close without it destroying you...those are the tender things that are still here 3 years later.
i am blessed to have others who have lost close now too, so most times, i don't feel insane in that place as i see them in there pain...their sorrow, their journey...and we have somehow joined hands, small hands...and walk this road of loss of a child...young or older...our words we use are put together one chosen letter at a time....to write to each other.
i am blessed to have my family still so close and still so missing you...each having their own grief. I am blessed to have her friends who loved her so....love hearing her stories of blessing them. i love having Christopher still close to my life and heart...after all---she challenged both of us to care for the other if you died...just like you to do that...such a girl.
I love having my new husband, my new family from him....and know you would love each and every one of them...you would love to have brothers and sisters and neices and nephews to love on and enjoy...
i love that i had you for the one i got to be a mom to all those years. i held you close but always loosely--as you were a gift to me...one I never thought I would have. but i did get to have you and raise you--and i sure am proud of you sweet sarah c. you loved well, you laughed well, you lived honestly--sometimes others didn't like that so much--including me a few times :o))), but you were authentic, a jewel in my life...the joy of my journey...thankful i am as yoda would say...
i miss you, more than words can write out of my heart. deeply.
your mom

these 2 pics---one of Christopher, who is right now on our porch...having a fire and drinking a beer...and many of our family and friends will be coming soon to celebrate and remember...unfortunately...i am here in colorado...but my heart is fully there with you....knowing this is where God has directed me for this year. The other picture is of dear sarah...i have posted it before...just a beauty, my girl.

things we hold close

funny...this is now my 2nd time doing this post as my first time got deleted...

so my first run of words is gone...

will try again.

I wrote about the things we hold close...and was talking about how the blue heart on the green paper was given to me by Karen G. while visiting in Seattle....along with the photos to the left...dear to me, held close now. memories...treasures....

coming home from our trip, I found the word sarah written in pipe cleaners on the table in the living room...left by my grandkids who had just visited while we were gone...touched me so deeply...so dear...another of the things I hold close...as I hold them close too...treasures...

and then to the right...a letter and card along with a silver necklace that has a box on it to place some of Sarah's ashes to carry...treasures from Karen j. Got this gift when came home-was in the mail...a gift to mark this 3rd year of my sweet girl gone on before to heaven..

so, the things i hold close are not only the treasures given, but the hearts of the ones i have known for long years and those who have come into my path of life in this season of loss. gifts...gifts from this road, my life now.

i am touched deeply, always amazed at the goodness of God while still here in the land of the living. I sometimes so want to peer across the veil to see them--these ones who have left too early...and just know....

just to know...would help, but it is not the way it gets to be. it is a faith time...a faith that is found under all the stuff that happens...holding the rest of it. solid, whole, not broken...even if I feel like I am.

a deep breath...a tender month...how did 3 years go by...

i still have 5 voice messages on my cell phone that I have to resave every 3 weeks...i lost one of them this year...a dropped call while listening to them...and i cried and cried...like losing her fresh...

i listened to your voice yesterday...wishing me my 55th happy birthday...telling me that thousands of wonderful things would happen to me this year...and many did...but losing you in the days of that year were not part of the wonderful things...but it was one of the most powerful things...and then in the midst of this loss, I met so many new people, went to lands I would have never known--physically, mentally, emotionally....spiritually...the journey still goes on to this day...

never do I know or have an idea of the new things that will come across my path...i now see with different eyes, hear with different ears, smell differently, taste with passion...sip more, eat slower with deliberateness...touch and hold with tenderness..care...carefullness...but never holding it too close...never owning another thing in this life...knowing it is all part of the journey, grateful for the journey. grateful for the ones with me on this journey.

still my heart is quite sore right now...remembering...and trying to keep breathing...these anniversary months are hard...

i won't be here at home on the anniversary this year...will be on a guided spiritual retreat in Estes Park, Colorado at the Barnabus training...we prayed and I felt it was what I needed to do with Rick right now...but many will gather here on the beach with Chris and I know my heart will come and be here too...I hope that I will be ok that day...I want to hear God clearly that day...and trust Him in that day...

I wish my thoughts could come clear right now...it seems that my heart is still some unsettled with leaving here at that day. God come and help...I want to live well right now...and trust...and keep on going forward...to that home that will never end, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more death...thank God.

I am glad for my companions...my dear friends who still are close in this path...

well, that is enough for now...

no words tonight

just am sad tonight. sad for my friends who have lost their children too and are far away. Just thinking of them tonight--for each of them in their different homes, places they live...where they are right now and praying for their sleep tonight--and that God will come and comfort their heart and their dreams tonight.

"never forgotten, always loved"

Tiffany put these words with this picture of Sarah for Christopher for the widow's conference they will be attending this coming weekend in San Diego. He does not know about it yet, but she shared this with me yesterday....and it so touched me, so undid me for awhile. Such amazing eyes, such an amazing smile-and always will be loved by so many and never forgotten.
I have thought about her all day today. Not that I don't think about her all the time, but again--in a strong way, trying to remember things...her voice, her laugh...her presence.
This journey of walking on....on...on....
I have worked hard to stay present in the day-to connect with life in a tangible way, to keep my eyes forward, with memories and tenderness in my heart...yet not missing the oxygen that is in the present breath I take, enabling me to keep on...walking on....
yet, sometimes, for bits of time, I wonder if I am breathing...and in those moments...it all floods back...the deep and terrible loss...of sweet sarah c. so huge. so big...

God I miss her. I miss the fullness of all of it...every last drip of it. all done, all gone. Makes me crazy if I don't take another breath quick and fill my lungs with oxygen and remember to breathe again. God, I have armfuls of gratitude and thanksgiving..so much given to me to hold and embrace...and yet....I sure miss you sweet girl. how my life has taken on new dimensions that you are missing in...and will not be part of other than stories and memories.
just do miss you.

know others miss you--miss your presence, miss never knowing you...miss.

my fingers move over these keys, not knowing what to type, what key to press down, what word to create here on this blog that will help my heart...help me move forward....sometimes I type and sometimes I delete...forward, backwards...never knowing the correct word that describes the journey...no map, no secret clues, no foreknowledge...no help...
trusting God, holding fast, lingering in God's arms...having faith...believing even if it isn't true that I will see you again somehow, someday, not knowing when...
who is there, are you ok? Are you happy? Are you busy? Do you miss me? Chris? all our family? Friends? The cats? Your home? toooooo many thoughts, toooooo many questions...toooo many things begin to swirl and unravel...

back to the picture...she sure was beautiful, she sure touched many...she sure was....wasn't she?
Glad to have had her...thank you....thankful.

God's Chisel - The Skit Guys

Haven't written in awhile, but was sent this today. Really blesses me and reminds me that I am not a mistake. I am an original masterpiece. So are you. take time to watch it. bless you.

Inside Worship Podcast Episode 24 - 1000 Generations' Fail Us Not

Haven't written for a long time. I love this song. I love that God fails us not...in all things.

I still grieve and miss Sarah so. I live and embrace the days at hand. I live fully, wildly, embracing the moments with the ones around me. I do not grieve as one without hope. I hope wildly in heaven-in the Kingdom to come. Sometimes I feel Sarah's close presence---a touch, a gentle connection when the veil seems so thin. I can't wait sometimes to go, yet...need to be fully awake and here till called home.

Being seen

I have posted a new song-"Raindrops keep falling on my head" on my blog today. It was sent to me by my dear Tiffany, Christopher's new and beautiful wife. She blessed me with tender words telling me she sees me and that means so much when you often feel like you are not seen in the midst of relearning to live.

I am blessed to listen to a song that I heard BJ sing in person back in Las Vegas with Sarah's dad, even before she was born---and never really heard the words till I read them today and listened with my full ears.

Life feels like that often, like we don't even really hear the depth of songs, or words or music till it comes at us from a very different angle. Today, this song, her words, all help me to walk a bit stronger and with less of the slump I have found on me in the last months.

Could it be that maybe I will also be "coming into a new season"? I am watching the spring flowers push hard against the earth to come up and bloom. I too am trying to do that--push against the dirt in my life to breathe and live and move in this new season. I want to have joy again. even in the midst of missing dear Sarah.

a look back at our trip

Such a fun trip to Florida this year-saw family, friends, breathed the air and savored the sun. It is almost becoming spring here now too. Thankful for the new season. Ohio is so gray and cloudy in the winter....it gets to all of us.

The lake here is free of ice now too-wonderful to see open water again. Funny how open water is like our hearts. Sometimes we are iced over too. I have felt my heart like that and in seeing how the ice has been breaking up and melting before my eyes under the warmth of the sun makes me think of you God--how you try to warm me...my heart to flow better.

This season of deep sorrow and grief has found me so often helpless in how to walk...breathe, let alone run or do well. The longer I go on this journey, the less I know of what the new days will bring or the challenges to my heart and breath.

I find myself like gannetgirl's comment from the last post---quiet and not sure how to talk as some of the answers to my thoughts from others who haven't lost their child in a tragic way-say things that in an odd way, just amaze me that they even think what they just said might in some way be of any comfort. I have learned to just be still more often than not with someone else's grief or sorrow-I truly have NO idea what it may feel like for them and to offer up a group of words to try to fill a gap is just almost insane. We try hard, I know, even I do...to be of help to others...but more often than not...I now say---I just don't know what to say, just want to be here beside you if you are ok with that.

oh well....just random thoughts from my sore head today. Have been aching. Missing...trying to find my footing in this land I live in. Not sure of much these days. lopsided, crooked, out of link...zipper is stuck...nothing works right. going to go take a nap.

march

I am near the end of another journal-seems that is where most of my words go any more. Life is moving forward. It seems like a dream sometimes-missing you Sarah. I miss your voice. I miss you calling-for no reason...seems like I don't get those kind of calls anymore, spontaneous, needing something right now. it is such a new season for me, trying to find my place...seems like I keep looking for that place, that seat that had my name on it...that when I sat in it, was so comfortable, so sure.

now, I am learning new words, new places, new titles, new....new....new...somethings beginning to feel more familiar, more like it fits.

don't look back too long....will ache and ache...and takes so long to get my footing.

never changes the ending....

have met so many who have lost a child now. so many with the look in their eyes i know.

long for heaven, but love this land with Rick so. He is the best, the best gift. I am rich with the life with him, his kids, his grandkids...and they are becoming more and more mine. just takes time and time is sometimes so hard to understand.

grateful. yet so sorrowful.

shoes don't fit anymore, need new shoes to walk this land. sorting through the things, moving things to new places, putting new things up...moving things to precious spots to treasure... new things taking the place left open.

that is like the inside of my heart...trying to make room. room for life. honest to pete...this takes me to places i don't have strength for. don't have any directions...no clues...failing more often than succeeding...falling and getting up and falling and staying down.

early grief is just so wild, so full of every moment full of the loss....and now...seems like a solitary place...so many things to process but more on my own...not as many people now have any clue how many triggers each day there are for me to touch and handle and cry only in my heart...to hold tears back...so not to have to explain...how fragile you still are...how lost you are in that moment you are fighting so hard to live in and smile...

sometimes i even depress myself! i know that sarah would want me to not get stuck. we talked about that too...we talked about how in the world the one left would move on...it sure is not the same when you try to do what you talked about. Just would like to talk again...miss our talks...
even the hard talks...the ones that had us calling not long after the words were thrown...to say sorry...just didn't want to waste time...glad we didn't.

wish i had a new picture today to put up...hard to not have a new memory, new pictures of new things.

i think i am slipping down into the place...and don't want to today. just wanted to touch here.

touching many of you who also write me, if you are reading.

i pray comfort to your tender heart today, may God's kiss press into your mom's heart today. that place that still aches. may He kiss mine too.

life goes on

no picture today, just words.

i have had a hard couple weeks. went to a training on "peer to peer" debriefing...not realizing it would challenge me in the deep place of grief as really nothing has in awhile. i found myself wide open and swirling in images of sarah's death and all the details and happenings...just triggered so much that has been put away and not thought of in a long time...at least not so much at the same time.

i learned something...i am still very fragile inside...i may look pretty normal at times to the world, but inside, i am still just putting life together with the strong hand of God on a day by day basis. sometimes...minute by minute.

most days i find my thinking is able to handle and process events and things coming at me in a logical sense---like, "don't go there, Chris...just take it easy, you are tired, let it go right now...maybe tomorrow....blah...blah..." that kind of stuff....or, "of course they have no clue how that is for you---they don't live in this place of losing their only child and the future hopes and dreams...so they just don't know how it challenges you right now." and on and on...the self talk that people who have lost someone do to manage much of what is going on all around them in the normal events of every day....if you have lost someone...that sentence will make clear sense...if not...oh well...you may remember it someday.

but last week...well, we learned all about tragedy and crisis and unpacked each detail of it...and it retriggered it all for me--all over again...and i wasn't ready for it...so everything that was shared...well, I found a memory and in detail of the same...and by the time i knew i was in trouble...i was in panic...and was a mess...wow...i was totally caught off guard....

so, i finally left the training and called my grief counselor...whom i haven't called in many months for any reason like this...and couldn't even speak. she knew i was in Florida at the training and since all i could do was cry, she began to pray...and God came and helped through that prayer.

i learned alot that day...that i need to really pay attention to what is happening in me...and that i can only do what i can and to listen better to my heart and what it is telling me....
to pay attention still...i did better at that earlier in my loss, but it still has that potential to take me out.

i am better today, but sore...sore in my heart...sore that it is so real...and true...it is just so true...to have lost my dear girl...and in such a hard way...with so many unanswered questions that need to be left in the strong hand of God...i cannot take them back and try again to find answers to questions that have no earthly answer for me. it wrecks my heart....so....

thank you God for rescuing me...help me listen to my body and mind better in the future...to trust when it is too much for me and to know i can leave. i do not have the ability to do all of life blindly...but need to pay attention to what is happening to me. help me be sensitive to what is happening and my limits in healing. help me to realize it is still so early in this loss...

ahhhhhh....deep breath in and deep breath out....