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....

Just a fog on some days...seems like i almost see you...hear you...and then...my heart remembers it all...

last night as i was wrapping presents for so many new people in my life, i realized there were none for you...and then the tears came...

i had felt odd before it happened...a bit tense and overdrawn..and couldn't quite figure out why i was crabby, out of sorts, not enjoying what i was doing...and then... i knew. i went to the couch and pulled myself deep into the corner and just sat.

and remembered.

i am sometimes so lost in all this. i feel like my thoughts are like a misbuttoned shirt...no matter how many times i rebutton it, it never matches. and my heart feels that way too. trying to live well, yet still my shirt never buttons right.

i have lost my dearest daughter. i hate those words, that they are mine. i sometimes fight the wrongness of that and am so angry, so ripped off...so lost in my lost.

i can get to the side of walking it out again...knowing so many others now who have lost. their is a wildness in the eyes of someone who has lost. i see it. i even see it in my eyes when i look long enough. a sorrow that never leaves them. the worn edges aroung my eyes from tears. from the longing of another word or hug or smile or memory.

one more goodnight song...your wet hair hanging across my legs as you lie on my lap to have me run my fingers in your hair. feeling your full weight as you run and jump on me---even as a 28 year old...acting 5. don't think you ever grew up, sarah c...at least not with me...you were a girl in a woman's body but so easily slipped back into the joy of youth. i miss your joy in this season. i miss the card table up so we could make presents--with all the new ideas we gathered in the year. i have your last list on my computer that you sent to a. barb and i when we went to sagatuck....so many things we had still to do...

lost...in the memories...wires disconnected still in my brain, trying to realign them...to make it make some kind of logical sense, yet logic and sense never will connect in this for me. oh my, my brain is so tired when i am on this street...night hours pass slowly.

missing you tonight, every night...every day. wonder.

wonder so much. what you are doing right now...do you see me, do you know? do you know how much so many people miss you? i miss hearing that answer...that full answer you would have with any question and how you loved questions, learning more about me and everyone. you loved learning more.

and now another christmas--3 now you won't be here...i am trying to get the groove on in my step, new life, new kids, new grandkids who don't know what to call me...how did the buttons never match up? i didn't know life could get so hard...i didn't know i wouldn't know how to live...i never knew it would take all i have and more to do this...

i so need you God. please help in these moments when my buttons don't match and i can't figure it out. please come. please hold me, please kiss my girl too...tell her i miss her and love her. life is not the same anymore...

life is good, just not the same...never the same.

Happy birthday my sweet Sarah C....

happy birthday dear one. wonder what you are doing right now in the new place you have gone...wonder. wonder about my mom and dad and sister...what they are doing too. we just see so limited, and have to just stretch high and believe...up onto our tippy toes...stretching high with both hands up, reaching high...and still not seeing...but believing.

i have had the privilege of meeting others whose children are gone now too---do you all gather and know this where you are? do you see us touching each other's hearts in tenderness on days like this when we want to celebrate but instead remember...and hold dear the memories of days before? i wonder if you all are so thrilled we have connected--or did you talk to God about us and He brought paths of ours to touch one anothers...?

i woke today remembering exactly where i was 31 years ago at that moment...i was about 10 hours into labor and you were not descending, so they did an xray of my pelvis to see if i could even deliver you..and found it would be marginal...so we waited 8 more hours to then decide to c-section you---and i still didn't know if you were a boy or girl...but i was ready...i had held you in my belly for many months---holding you closer...and then when i woke from anesthesia, i heard your dad keep repeating, "it's a sarah" it's a sarah"...and i can remember opening my eyes and they held you before me for the first time...and how absolutely beautiful you were...your slanted eyes, lots of brown hair, very pink...and then...into my arms...held close...

i hold you close today...i feel your presence with me as i remember. how you loved the story of your birth...made me tell you it all, every detail, every year...and i loved watching your eyes as you listened and would remind me if i tried to leave a detail out...you were a stickler for all the details...

how glad i am for all those times...the tender and close times...glad we took the time....

blessed i am...to have been privileged to be called mom by you...thanks God...what a gift you gave to me...what a blessed time it was...

happy birthday sarah c. pumpkin noodle...loved all of you...

as a mom...i sure could go on and on...and could just talk all day and night. i do miss bragging about you..and telling what you have been up to. i miss new stories and new things going on...it gets harder when you have no new pictures to show, no new memories...that i don't like about the longer you walk down the road of you gone...ugh...that truly sucks.
so, i have to corral those thoughts...hold fast to the road i am currently on---wrapping my arms around the life here and not stay too long in the life back there. yet today, i pray...God, grace all of us who remember the dear memories of our bella sarah's life...and pick up each treasure and hold them softly...dearly, close to our heart...i am...and then hold me Lord as i hand each of these back to you so i can keep on.

see you soon girl....love you...here's a toast, a yugabanuch to you today--one of many to come when we gather later...

mom

just cuz i don't write doesn't mean i am missing...just pondering

here it is, just a week before what would have been sarah's 31st birthday. the ache is present in my heart as it always is....
have been asked to preach in dec. and to talk a bit about the birth of Jesus from Mary's perspective. so, alot in my mind about a woman who was chosen to bear the son of Man and to ponder so much all her life and then to continue walking out her life after He was gone--even if it all made sense then to her as she saw Him in his resurrected body.

i want to walk out the rest of my life with faith of knowing it is true. God, help me and others who share this common faith to walk this well, to know it is not all in vain and to have a brokenness in our hearts that lays us down...for the count.

God, come and touch all the one's I have met in this journey--even the women of late who have lost their older children, and are so sore at heart. It is such an honor to walk alongside each of them.

My inner thoughts are deep within me more of late, and don't seem to be stirred to the surface right now...not sure quite why...just is...harder for some reason, not sure what...to talk...to visit the sorrow...to go to the place...

i ponder much though...deep in my heart...deep in my heart.

2 years

this is the day---surrrounded by love, kindness, love...so many people who are missing you dear girl...lots of toasts and hugs...we just spent time together....am so blessed and grateful...so loved...and so touched.

thank you God. Thank you to all of you....


we miss you Sarah. 2 years.

a day in the life

With Hope - Steven Curtis Chapman
Source: www.youtube.com
For everyone who has experienced the death of a loved one, here is a song of comfort, reminding us of God's constant grace and the hope of the heaven that is to come. Music and Lyrics by Steven Curtis Chapman Speechless, 1999, Sparrow

This speaks my dear heart today...

just spent the evening with my son in law, Christopher---and a dear time with tears and memories....just a gift from God to me today....

i want to have hope in heaven...this life is too hard sometimes...

my heart misses so.

we love our children with a love so wild and full and complete, never expecting them to leave first. it is what a parent does...just loves fully. and I am glad I did.

just miss my dear one, my dear girl today...

2 years now since I last held you close

Sleep isn't coming anymore tonight...yesterday was the last time I took a picture of you-the one above with Aunt Barb as we were finishing packing that night before we left today for our trip. I am thanking God you did come over one last time-inbetween classes (also to eat--you were always hungry!!) to say "goodbye" to us as we all left today, 2 years ago for the "trip of our life", hoping to meet you and Chris in Venice and in Rome. Only you guys missed that train to Venice by one minute. I won't go back down the road of what a minute means...

Here is a picture of you small--so full of light and smiles--and a dirty face from peanut butter and jelly probably...and the gym outfit I made for you...loved sewing for you.

I am looking out the window right now-at the calm waters of lake erie and a beautiful soft pink sunrise just starting to glow over the water. coffee is perking and smelling good...Harry (chocolate lab who loved you too) is shuffling, waiting to be fed and let out.

But in my heart right now swirl so many memories. Carefully I touch them, holding my tears in check.

Thinking back sometimes is too hard to do. So many people have said things to me of late---"how is the 2nd year?", "I hear the 2nd year is harder than the first." and on and on...questions asking me to share how it is...how I am...where it is on this path for me...kindness from others really...just them trying to find a way to touch into me in this journey.

I have more compassion for others on this road alongside of me these days---I want to say,
"thank you to you all. Thank you for your warmth and quietness and soft eyes at times I didn't even see. thank you for continuing to find me when I didn't know how far away I had gone. For reaching out-taking my hand, sitting still beside me, for letting me make hundreds of toasts to her and all the memories I could conjure up-one after another---trying to keep the warmth of life in me while I toasted---to keep going so the sadness and grief wouldn't press its' unwanted way back in--the reality of "no new memories" ever again. thank you for listening to me tell stories or even making me tell them at times I have been quiet."

I thank my family-my sister Marty and aunt Barb who journeyed with me 2 times during this past 2 years---and grieved so deeply themselves for their beloved niece who loved them both so much too. I thank my friends who have not often known what to say or do, but did everything they could think to do to help. For my pastor and his wife-who has been there through so much-married Chris and Sarah---sowed into them, believed in them, encouraged them...

For my dearest husband, who only got to meet Sarah and Chris one time, and is a gift truly from God to me...somehow I think Sarah was involved in both Christopher's and my future as we both have been blessed now with incredible people in our lives...this new land...new discoveries, new families, new journeys.

but, how is my heart...truly...

well, the truth...my heart aches. it aches as it beats, each beat feels the loss of my sweet child, my sweet friend, my sweet girl. i miss you so. i press on, i believe with faith that is compelling me to press on---and look with hope to heaven...where there is no more death, no more disease--mental or physical, no more enemy...no more.

i am tired sometimes--way too tired...and fight to stay here-to stay present and savoring the gifts here in my life, the fullness....trying hard not to stay too long in the darkness of tragedy or loss. to not lose hope, to not get hard, to not become bitter or full of self pity...to remember the joy of being able to have a child---and to have her for 28 wonderful years full of memories.

each of us has our trials...and struggles...and some of the best times for me anymore are the times spend quietly beside a friend. resting. quiet. loving. To embrace my new family---and savor their absolute beauty in my life today. To not miss them--miss making new memories...not to miss their presence in my life.

September 27th is not too far away. i appreciate prayers for all of us who will be remembering that day...for my dear son Christopher---mostly...for his healing and life. For his heart of watching his dear wife die before his eyes. for him to live well, healed and whole.

not as many words spilling from my fingers these last weeks and days...but they are in my mind...and always looking for a place to land.

a tender month

http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=84138e76e13c5c50e12c

Can't seem to get this song on my blog at the moment and don't have time---but this is Steven Curtis's new song about his daughter who died. click on the link-or cut and paste.


can't wait for heaven.

no picture today

please pray today for gannetgirl and her family. today is the one year anniversary for the death of her son. you can visit her blog if you wish. today she posted a song that touched my heart so.

dearness....

walked the beach and the insides of our hearts yesterday---dear gannetgirl and me...

touched...listened, prayed.

i was humbled to hear her.

i felt heard....seen.

it is a treasure to have this now in my heart, this memory of a common place of mother's pain of loss. both of us have lost a dear child, it has forever changed our life. we are learning a language to speak that has words too hard to say yet---will it ever get easier with practice? i do not think so. the words are so dear...so tender...so full of ache.

she is forever part of my landscape now. as are many of you. these pages of blogging--sharing our journeys through this loss of child, whatever the age, the reason, no matter what....has drawn us together. i am rich because of you in ways i didn't know i could be rich. i am not alone....no matter how often i feel so alone in this deep sadness. mine is mine and yours is yours...but we can see and touch and know that we are not alone. and i then think...for me...that Jesus helped me find you...and you to find me...to help us....

this has been a very hard week for me, my sister, my aunt, my son-in law---as i heard from a couple who had been in the cinque terra the day sarah died...and the husband actually was one of the men who found and threw a life preserver to sarah--to try to save her...
they both wrote their rememberance of that day to us---i could hear their deep agony of trying to help, and she didn't survive....i got to tell them, that she didn't drown, but died of the massive head injury of hitting the fierce rocks....and i hope that brings healing to them....and their words have brought more to me to ponder on this walk. i hope it brings more to Christopher, my dear son in law, who tried so hard to help, almost dying himself...i hope it helps him...as i know the images run in his mind...seeing his dear wife die before his eyes...helpless....oh my....please comfort him and touch him in only the way you can Father....please....

what a journey this is...yesterday it has been 23 full months since that day. next month will be another year---year 2. gannetgirl asked---how was year 2? i have thought more on that since she left...seems like every day of 2 years, it has taken so much of deliberateness to keep breathing. i miss you sarah more than i can even say...life seems so completely not the life i had before. i truly am blessed with so much right now---so am so grateful for my husband, my family...my sweet friends....so please don't think i am grateful...i am....

i just am so profoundly missing my girl...the one i spent more time with...and loved...and cherished...my dear daughter and my best friend. she impacted me so much...and i miss her so. i was not ready to be without her. so is the 2nd year easier, harder...i guess, no answer...but it is a longer year...more silent, more keenly aware of you missing in the days...not as much anesthesia of grief---more acute pain with no numbness...more reality. more having to be intentional to walk, to smile...to make the life work...deliberateness...on purpose living...not as many times that people really ask---"so how are you doing?", not as many times to really grieve with someone else or cry...or at least it feels that way...probably more people would let us if we asked...just hard to ask, hard to know how to do it. it just is messy and not easy, and others miss you too Sarah...so want to help listen to them too.

writing is harder these last months for me...words seem to clog the end of my pens...build up, and no real flow---tried writing more in my personal journal and even that seems harder...so will keep writing here right now, going with the flow.

it is hard. i hate that it has been 2 years since i have a new picture of you, a new voice mail, a new memory. i hate that i don't remember how your voice sounded as well...that you feel far...and i can't find you. i don't like that life has gone on and everywhere i go, you are not part of it at all...you were often so involved in everything...and you are missing. sometimes when others are here....and everyone is talking....i look up on the wall at your picture and you are smiling, but quiet...no sounds...no sarahvoice in the midst...and i have to leave the room...and cry....just seems so odd to have you silent and only there in a painting on the wall....ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

this is a road i have traveled a long time on...and know how far to walk down before i can feel the deep pain of it...and don't want to keep going as it leads away from my heart into endless pain...and i am learning more and more....that i can't do it...it takes me out...so, now to turn around again...and come back to today...and press into all i believe of the hope of heaven. i know my relationship with you will never be the same...that it will be more than i can ever imagine and will be good. probably better than good---ha! i sense your presence more in deep peace in my heart this year...a deep peace of a "knowing" that you are good. i long for heaven...for home. i long to not hurt like this and not to hurt again....but life is life and i have no control over it....
so God, I give this all to you today...where i am...where this all is...and again release to you my heart of deep sorrow for this loss....I give you my dear friends and ask you to comfort them as only you do....touch them today too. Help us Lord...to walk this well...and please hold our breaking hearts and catch our hot tears....

just walking

i think i am in italy today, walking in the most beautiful land, with the dearest of people. it now has been over a year since i visited.

i often fly in my mind over there and take the trains from Milano down to the Cinque Terra and get off in Riamaggiore and then walk the walkway through the tunnel of the sea and then climb the stairs and walk through the "walk of love", looking at the chalk art...slowly moving my fingers through the lockets-looking for the american touristor locket...and then moving on....

up the stairway, looking at the seagull mozaic and then down the stairway to the manarola harbor...looking upwards toward Pont Bonfiglio...

why is this land so far from here..so hard to get to...makes the grief on days like today feel like the trip there---so impossible.

oh my....swirls and twirls of brain cells...some that have not been recovered...and my mind has slipped off the block. can't recall as much, and sometimes, don't even remember recent things clearly. almost 2 years---just a month away...

wrecked...my heart feels wrecked...recovered in some ways---full of passion and love...

feels like an old 78 record, skipping around, sometimes playing the song for good long time...and then...skips...and misses the beats...my song gets wrecked too...but the wail...is still long and deep...if you are listening.

heavy in my heart

This journey is sure long. miss you Sarah. I am having a grief time again--and not sure what is the center, nor when i get into it, not sure where I walked in and where i will walk out. seems like there are pockets of deep grief we get into---like falling into a blog.

i have a friend who was in Ireland a few years ago, and he was hiking and was off the path and all of a sudden, he went over his head into a blog and didn't have a clue how he would get out--if ever.

that is what times like this feel like...and it is so overwhelming. you wonder if you have made it down the road at all. and then if you do say something---people then worry and want to do something...but there is not a thing anyone can do--but pray for this place.

i ache...and have been....is it the full moon...the passing of another wedding anniversary with you not here, your house empty---so much moving further into the distance...you not part of a day, or even any recent days...

oh my....

no maps, no landmarks...a solo journey---each of us takes when we lose what is most dear...quietness in my heart...no words to tell others...i feel their grief too for you---and touch their words on the screen, or where ever they come with my small hand and lift them to God...probably like they do for me too...

wow...we are sure made of clay....

leaning into and on you God...fully today.

want to walk to cinque terra today and spend a long time.....miss you.

pondering

I think life is perplexing to me. I have been pondering the fullness of loss as Karen's friend loses her 2nd and last child, after losing her other child 10 years ago. it is too much for me to try to understand. it is the greatest fear of a parent-to lose their children before them---and to lose all you have-even for me, my one and only...it causes you to ponder~as well as many other things...but today, i am pondering.

these days can take you out and that is a "not good place to be".

in this new land of "losing your child", i have met many people who are trying to find their new sea legs to walk.

i was telling Rick the other day-after I did the women's conference in Washington, Pa., where i told my life story as i shared about the weavings of joy and sorrow in our tapestry that represents our life---that the women at the conference who had lost children, they hugged me in a different way then the ones who hadn't lost a child...maybe i have just begun to think it feels differently to me...maybe they hug alittle longer, maybe hug a little more like---"my heart is broken too"

----maybe i am just thinking it so...i can do that sometimes...think more into something than is there...

but to meet others who have lost more than one, or lost one that you were in conflict with and hadn't resolved the difficulty, or lost due to suicide or overdose or something else like that---is just harder than the alphabet has letters to help explain. i am at a loss for words for any of this, but it becomes life to us...a new land, a land we never bought a ticket to visit.

i never in a million years thought this land would be one i would be exploring---i am an adventurer...i love to explore and find and seek and see and learn and understand...but never in a million years would i think i would explore this land...

it has been almost 2 years now---2 long and quiet years without her voice and her influence in mine. i have met people and have a new family and new children...and still have an unsteadiness in my step...a limp maybe only really noticeable to me at times...but it is there. i want to keep my arms open for all the wonders and new and joys this new land brings...i am trying hard...some days it is too hard....

wish i could find words to say what is in my heart...the words of deep colors and heavy that are still there, swirling around, longing to have understanding and freedom to be loose from my heart.

ache...it is always there...i am more accustomed to the feeling of it now, can live a whole day or two and not truly lean into it...and then...if i do lean into it...is still sore like it has always been...so take care to lean when can and have the ability to process and then wrap it back up into the fragile place it lives...

i ache today for Karen's friend who walks this journey again...and for my new friend Karen someone whom i have never met except for our blogs, but this woman has now hugged a woman in italy who has touched me and my family like no other...our dear paula...and also Karen has walked and seen where sarah died...how dear is that to me...more than any words i can find. brings tears to my eyes and a closeness that no words could say---she took time to touch a place that touches me...thank you Karen...more than you will ever know.

so, to end this post is like saying i have said it all--and that is a lie...i have so many words and questions and feelings...but they must keep swirling for now---i sometimes question the place of what sanity is when i say my heart thoughts as they look so raw and real when i type the words of my thoughts here.

so, today is a day of pondering, a day of being careful to walk~ not too close and then to go too far~ but to stay in prayer for the one's who hurt fresh today and to pray for those of us who have a grief of loss that is fresh in its' long journey...