September again, 4 years

Manarola, Italy

Beautiful place to be.

What a life this is...

it never stops...new people getting sick, dying, being born....day in and day out.

I sit here and listen to the waves on my beach....am enjoying the day of sun, a fall day...warm...

then I remember....you died in a wave.

then I can't even think straight for a minute.

Wrestle my mind back to a center and then breathe again.

I struggle to know what letter, let alone a word to type next.  All in all, I am doing well.  Life is going on, a good life, full of friends and love and new memories and family.  Truly full of lots of color and joy.  Embracing it is not so hard any more.  Not dropping any pieces of it, savoring and sipping the full glass I have been given...wow.  Thank you God.  I am rich with blessings.  Full of blessings.

Then something happens....or someone says something that slips into my tender and sore heart...and I remember.  Undone then.....most times no one knows...I hold fast to the anchor of you God.  I cry softly to you---hold me....help me not slip down too far. 

I surely miss my sweet Sarah C.  I know the sorrow I see in other's eyes for the one's they miss too---grief...such a journey.  I was talking to my watercolor teacher today and he is having a very serious surgery soon, and he told me his strength and hope is because he believes in God and He holds him.  Somehow I shared briefly about Sarah and her death at 28 and my similar hope in heaven and God.  After class he said, "can I talk with you a few minutes?" So I walked away with him--he is in his late 70s...and he looked at me and said, I lost my only son when he was 26.  I saw in his sweet eyes, the dear sorrow...the pain, the swelling of his tears...and we both were silent for just a brief minute of shared pain.

Long this life is sometimes...it slows down and the heart beat does too...and we wander around our hearts in those slow minutes, remembering---the sorrow crashes into the joy---the memories of the death, then the memories of the joys of their lives...and we are wrecked for some time...till it eases away...

There are these places I have gone with others too who have lost their children, there are no words needed...just a place of holding on...leaning close.  I do feel the presence of many of them as they know I am walking closer and closer to the day of Sarah's death.  I love to remember that this is also the day of her entrance into heaven and her eternal life...but that is not where my feet stay too well yet...I slip back to this is the day of her death, her departure, her last touch on all of our lives...

May these days coming up, find us just close...leaning....remembering....excited for the kingdom to come....yet, held by our Father in a way that a good Dad does...sometimes He just pulls us close and says, "just rest here on my shoulder, I'll hold you close and won't let you go, or fall.  I'm not leaving you...."

I feel you Father.  I ache.  I hate this.  I just do.  I hate that any of us have had to release our kids yet....we weren't done...we had too many things we looked forward to do, dreams of theirs we were watching come into being....

so, that's it for now. 

love that she has art that people like and want to have.  love that she has other's who benefit from the selling of her art to help them in their dream of becoming an Art Therapist...that is cool....Just wish she were here to put it together and walk around in some bright skirt and her wild hair flowing and hear her laugh all the day long.