Month: April 2024

Talk, Talk, Talk…

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I talk to myself more than I used to. And I don’t just mean in my bedroom before bed at night, having the conversations we used to have and telling him how much I love him and miss him. I mean in the grocery store, at the DMV, in my back yard. Doesn’t matter if other people are there, apparently, because I realized this was occurring while in Walmart when a lady looked at me like I was schizophrenic as I had a discussion with myself about which vegetable would go better with the supper I was planning. Yes, it’s like that.

I’ve decided that it’s safer to leave the house with my granddaughter in tow because at least then people will assume I’m talking to her. And I don’t really even know WHO I’m actually talking to (which may be even more scary.) Is this some leftover habit of talking things through with my husband? I don’t know because we didn’t really always discuss what vegetable to have. I’m excusing myself when I burp at home and, just being honest, I didn’t always do that anymore with him either.

On one hand, I’m home with a toddler most of the day every day and have very little adult interaction overall. Maybe it’s just that I have a quota of words that I need to spend each day (if you know me in person then you already know that’s typically a high number) and I’m just fulfilling the minimum requirement to relieve the pressure of holding it in all the time. I think I drive my boys (autocorrect just changed ‘boys’ to ‘joys’ and that’s true, too) crazy wanting to talk forever when I do see them because I have to fit it all in somewhere.

Loneliness has a way of creeping up on you, too, though. My person isn’t here. When I talk to my mother-in-law (love) we can talk for long periods because the loss is a hole too deep to ever fill but maybe talking eases it some. Maybe talking to air is some strange way of placating the monster of loneliness. I just don’t know. I also haven’t talked to another widow about this (yet) so I don’t know if this is…common. I won’t say “normal” because that’s only a setting on the washing machine. In people, there’s no real “normal” because it’s okay to be whoever you are, but some things are more common.

Ultimately, what I have come to realize is that I’m not directing as much of that loneliness, that random talking anywhere and everywhere, up to God. Why am I talking to an unrecognizable void rather than to the Living God? The one who never leaves. The one who always stays. The one who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient: all powerful, everywhere, and knows all. My words should be directed at my power source. Over the past year, when my spirit has not wanted to live in this realm any longer, Abba God came through every single time and reminded me that He is still here and He has a plan; I just need to wait for it to be revealed in a way I am able to understand. Mind you, I do pray, but there is still all this extraneous talking that I apparently feel the need to do to no one in particular. I can definitely make better use of those words.

I don’t even know if this is a “stage” other people go through but, if you’re here with me, I see you! I truly believe that God never leaves us alone. If you can’t feel Him there, someone else is feeling what you do and you just have to find the helpers. The whole beauty from ashes? Sometimes it’s when God uses us to help those who come to a place after we do. We are the map. If you’re in that place where you feel lost, I hope something I say gives you a place on the map to start.

Change is the only Constant

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I’m not who I was a year ago. There are parts that are healing. There are parts that still feel beyond repair but I know they will heal…they just won’t ever look or feel the same where the scar lies. There are parts that are wiser (about things I don’t really want to be wiser.) There are parts of me that still can’t figure things out. All I know is that change is the only constant in life. How ironic is that?

The one year “anniversary” of my nephew’s death is next Tuesday. It feels weird to call it an anniversary – those are supposed to be happy occasions, like birthdays…but those aren’t as happy either anymore. After we fumble our way through that day, it is only 16 days until it’s been a year for me, too. It’s like there is a convoluted countdown going on. Part of your brain unwittingly hopes that one year means “Whew! I made it through the firsts. Should be smooth sailing from now on…” while the part of your brain that contains intellect knows full well that an anniversary date is no longer the end of anything. It ended last year and once it’s ended there can be no other ending. There’s no reprise, no encore act. The bow has been taken and the theater long cleared out.

I’m different because I’ve made it this far. I have exercised my faith this year as if I were training for a double triathlon. God has come through every time. None of it has been easy – the exercising of my faith to what felt like the full limit part, or even the parts when He came to the rescue. It’s still all been really hard, but I am here. I am still living in our home and was not forced to move. I still have three amazing sons and three wonderful daughters-in-love plus a grandbaby. I was able to care for my granddaughter during my daughter-in-love’s entire nursing school program so that my son didn’t have to pay for daycare and so that my sweet grandbaby was exposed to as little illness as possible. My husband and I had agreed to do that for them and I was trying my best to hold true to that. The fact that I feel so much loss and brokenness but am still so blessed seems like a crazy paradox. An impossible coexistence.

I will be applying to jobs soon. The retirement my husband wanted and planned out for me was revoked once he was no longer here. I’m so thankful that the grace of God has provided ways to allow me time to grieve and to be with my granddaughter; He has provided hand over foot, over and over again, each time I even considered that the time may be coming when we’d be forced to look into daycare for the baby. Then suddenly a solution that would appear, in the natural, to be completely out of the blue, totally unexpected…they were solutions that were promised to me last year. He said “don’t worry; it’s already taken care of” and it was, right on time, every time.

I really didn’t want to go back to work but I am thankful that I was afforded this time to walk the brittle beginning of this journey with my granddaughter to light up the darkest days and without added stressors to keep me from processing all that I have been able to thus far. Now I will work on walking back into the work world and figuring out how that is going to look.

Money has been a sticking worry point for me throughout the last year. I’ve often felt guilty for worrying about it because figuring out how to deal with the money part isn’t nearly as difficult as figuring out to deal with the loss of my husband, my soulmate. Also because God tells us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will wear because the birds of the air do not sow or harvest but God provides food for them. And the lilies of the field are dressed in the most beautiful finery but need not worry about clothing. How much more does the Father love us? (Matthew 6:26-30) Every time I tried to stop worrying about money, another problem would pop up, making everything feel like a monetary house of cards all this time. And every time, He provided a way like He said He would.

I figured out this week one of the main and primary reasons that I’ve been so worried about the financial part. First off, my husband and I were both nurses but he was in a position to make a lot more money than me. As is typical, our bills grew to what we were able to afford and we bought a new home just four years ago, right before the onset of COVID-19. We bought a home together. For anyone who doesn’t know already, this was not either of our first marriage. He had a home and I had a home when we met. He eventually moved to the home I already lived in. Then his career path changed course and we were able to begin looking at houses together. We found one we loved for various reasons and we purchased it together. Then we made even more memories here.

I think it was in the first few days thay I said “I can’t lose our house; God, please don’t let me lose our house.“ This home represented so many of the dreams we had together. Things we wanted to do here for future grandchildren. Upgrades and even addition we dreamed of doing one day. Plans of what life would look like after all of the kids had moved out. I was terrified of an empty nest but he had a way of making it seem exciting and fun to be “on our own,” able to leave town at the drop of a hat and explore places we wanted to go. So one thing that has been at the tip top of my mind this whole time was “how am I going to afford to keep this house and all of the bills that go with it?” I was talking about how going back to work was the only choice but that I should be able to work it out to have the house paid off before retirement (hopefully and prayerfully.) Someone said “well, you could look into selling the house and moving into something smaller since you don’t need so much space.” That person meant no harm at all and was just trying to give a helpful potential solution, but my heart felt like it fell past my stomach and to my knees. Literally like the first downhill of a roller coaster. That same fear of not having this place where we planned our forever jumped right back into my throat while my heart tried to find its way back to my chest. It was all I could do to hold the grief break inside of me til later. It was only then that I fully realized that was the source of almost all of my money fears. Yes, I could survive if I had to sell our home. Yes, I could probably afford a tiny home more easily. Yes, I know many people end up not having a choice but, if there is anything I can do about it, I will have a choice about whether to keep or sell my house. And I will stay right here.

Now that I know part of my plan to do that means I have no choice but to return to work and that I know I will have gotten through my granddaughter’s first year and a half with no daycare, at least, I am able to build the resolve to step into it. I’m in the process now of figuring out how to plan for retirement without him here, too, but God still says it’s all going to be okay…the money part anyway.

So, things are still changing every day. Nursing school ends next month and then I go back to being one, too. It wasn’t the plan but things keep changing. But I was wrong about one thing. The only thing constant in life is not just change. It’s also God. He is never-changing.

Another Monthversary

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Today is the 10th. It’s been eleven months. For some reason this landmark in my journey is trying to turn my balance beam into a tightrope. Eleven months means that, right around the corner, I’ll soon be looking at having spent an entire year without him in my life. I don’t know how this can be. And how can it still feel so surreal when I have battled, struggled, and wrestled with grief like a black belt Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champ.

Still, my perspective is changing. I’m still sad and still miss him terribly; I think I’ll always, always be sad on some level and I’ll definitely always miss him, every day forever on Earth. Along with those emotions, though, I’m starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, the horizon is changing a little bit. It will never change back to how it was, but there may be some light up ahead. I find myself wanting to celebrate his life and what we had together more often than devastatedly grieving his death. Yes, there are moments the grief overtakes me and the nightmares encroach on my wellbeing, but it’s less often than before.

It’s springtime outside, mine and Scott’s favorite season. The smell of fresh-cut grass, flowers beginning to bloom, sunshine earlier and later in the day, and time for planting new things. I think that being outside planting, watering, pruning, deadheading, and fertilizing has not only kept me busy but feeling closer to the one who would have been here doing it with me. When I think of things he used to say or do now, I find myself smiling a little more often rather than desperately feeling the loss of never having those moments again. Not always, but at least sometimes now. He brought true joy and love to my life and I’m thankful that I’ll never be the same because he changed me in all the best ways.

Springtime after winter is like a rainbow after the rain. It is ripe with promise of change for the better. It brings a feeling of starting again…or at least of continuing on. Springtime, for me, is hope. God created many reminders that we can keep starting over. A sunrise always eventually comes after a sunset. Rainbows after rain. Jesus on the cross. My husband’s death was a semicolon for me. I wanted to end the sentence but it wasn’t finished yet; there is more to be said and done. I take one day at a time while I wait, sometimes impatiently, for God to unfold my assignment, a way to be used by him for good.

For now, baby, I’ll hold you in my heart until I hold you in Heaven. I miss you so much. (And you would have loved watching this little rugrat we have running around now. I often think of how much you’d laugh at her and get on to me for getting onto her about something.)

The Span of Ups and Downs

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Grief makes you feel bipolar. It feels like I think having a legitimate care of bipolar or multiple personality disorder would feel.

Yesterday, despite the fact that it was the eleventh monthversary of his death, I felt somewhat hopeful and just thankful for what we did have when he was here: a kind of love that many people never experience in a lifetime and that it was so very easy to keep the covenant of “til death do us part.” The sun was shining outside. The weather was gorgeous and the temps in the 70’s. Nostalgia wasn’t making me sad yesterday.

This morning I was on my way to pick up my granddaughter and had my music on shuffle. An old song by Styx came on the radio: “Don’t Let It End.”

“What can I do
Pictures of you still make me cry;
Trying to live without your love,
It’s so hard to do.
Some nights I’ll wake up,
I’ll look at your pillow
Hoping that I’ll see you there.
But I get up each day, not much to say
I’ve nowhere to go.
Loneliness fills me up inside
‘Cause I’m missing you…. Don’t let it end;
I’m begging you, don’t let it end this way.”

Yes, I know this song is an obscure piece of music history. The lyrics are, in actuality, about two people who broke up and he’s begging her to try again, to get back together. This morning, though, this part tried to pull me back toward the abyss that is grief. It doesn’t help that today is rainy with thunder and lightning. A day with very little light.

This is a perfect example of what grief does to people. One minute you’re fine. You think you’re figuring it out. Thinking you are figuring out how to keep living makes you feel a little bit manic, like you finally cracked the code to a lock you’ve been trying to remember the combination for forever. You get a dopamine hit from what feels like an almost impossible success.

Drastically and suddenly, with no warning, reasonable cause, or explanation, something causes your foot to slip from the tightrope and before you know it you’re hanging from a thin line by your fingertips while the wind is blowing, rain makes the rope slick, and you look down to see a bottomless pit. Except there is probably a bottom down there somewhere and it wouldn’t be pretty to hit it…again. The “bipolar” feeling hits again. “I was just okay; what happened???”

The thing is, I have choices when this occurs. Choice #1: continue listening, dig deep to really feel the words, and end up so deep in the hole that it’s hard to find a foothold to climb back out. Choice #2: change the station.

Here are a few verses to consider:

“The eye is the light of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. . . .” (Matt.6:22-23)

This passage reminds me to pay attention to what I put into my mind through my vision. Be careful what I watch on TV or read in books, for example. If my vision starts to stray to something unsavory (from a spiritual perspective,) I should change my view by altering my perspective or averting my eyes elsewhere.

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” (Isaiah 26:3)

This verse reminds me that I will find peace if I change my thought process and aim toward spiritual things (whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Phil. 4:8)

More than anything you guard, protect your mind, for life flows from it. (Prov.4:23)

I have to guard what is allowed to infiltrate my thoughts; my life is influenced by what I allow.

“My son, pay attention to what I say; listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them; let them penetrate deep into your heart. For they bring life to those who find them and healing to their whole body.” (Prov 4:20-21)

Finally, my ears are a direct line to my heart. Music has always told me this because it has the power to elicit deep emotional responses. The Bible says that the Word of God in one’s ears brings life to those who find them and will heal their whole body.

This morning, I changed the station – literally and figuratively. I chose to pick a different playlist, and the song that played first on that station was “Healed” by Nichole Nordeman. This song sounds pretty somber, too, but the words are life-giving because they remind us of who we are, even in adversity; we exist but are incomplete until He reaches our hearts.

“We stutter and we stammer til You say us,
A symphony of chaos til You play us.
Phrases on the pages of unknown
Til You read us into poetry and prose.

We are kept and we are captive til You free us,
Vaguely unimagined til You dream us,
Aimlessly unguided til You lead us home.

By Your voice, we speak.
By Your strength, no longer weak.
We are no longer weak.

By Your wounds we are healed…

Passed over and passed by until You claim us.
Orphaned and abandoned til You name us.
Hidden undisclosed til You expose our hearts.

By Your death we live.
It is by Your gift that we might give.”

Today, my path was redirected because I changed my destination. Understand, though, that this isn’t something that is easy to do at all in early grief. There was definitely a time when I felt altogether incapable of redirecting my thoughts to anything but loss. And that is okay because it was part of processing the reality of the loss I have experienced. Even now, there are days I will still dig deep into the sadness and sit in it for awhile because something inside me needs to acknowledge my husband’s absence and the effect it has had, is having, and will always have on my life. Then, once I have had an opportunity to acknowledge those feelings, I’ve learned that if I change tracks to being thankful for the time we did have to spend together and for the beauty of our relationship while he was here, I am slowly and gently filled with peace. It all comes down to me being the boss of my thoughts and remembering that this life on Earth is merely one star in a sky of endless ones; it is the puréed spinach at the beginning of a long life of steak and baked potatoes, fresh bakery pastries, and millions of other delectably delicious delicacies. It gets infinitely better after this part that we’re slogging our way through.

If you’re grieving, know that it is okay if you’re not at this place yet, where you can take control of where your thoughts take you. I really think we need to go through the place where grief completely takes over. It sucks, but I think it’s necessary as our brains try to wrap around what happened and learn to grow our lives around it. If we shove those thought and feelings away in the beginning, if we just decide not to deal with them, they do not go away. We’re only hiding them so that they can explode later. It is not possible to ever eliminate them but allowing yourself to feel them takes away some of their power later on. If you’re not there yet, accept this hope that it does become easier to manage eventually. For me, right now it’s intermittently; sometimes it still rears its ugly head and tries to take me out but I seem to be able to find my way out of the pit a little more quickly after all the practice I’ve had climbing up.

The way God works, once you have experience hiking your way through dense and unexplored terrain, you’ll make a great trail guide for others who are trying to follow the same path behind you. You’re struggling now but one day you may be someone’s lighthouse on stormy seas. It’s a job you never wanted but someone will be grateful for you. ♥️

What’s That in the Mirror?

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I realized today that I cannot remember the last time I looked at myself in the mirror. I’m thinking that when I brush my teeth I guess I must look at my teeth. When I brush my hair I must look at my hair. But I haven’t “look-looked” at myself. I have worn makeup maybe three times since Scott’s been gone. I mean, who cares, right? What’s the point? I didn’t need to wear makeup around Scott. Even when I looked hideous he would say I was beautiful. (That reminds me of a photo of a kid’s school paper where the question asked “what is love?” And the little boy answered that it’s when you tell your wife she is pretty even if she looks like a dump truck. Sorry…A.D.D. moment.) Anyway, I definitely cared a lot more about my appearance when he was here.

When I acknowledged this thought, I instantly thought of James 1:23-24.
“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”

I think I’m having an issue with that, too. I read the Word almost every morning, rarely missing. It often tells me not to worry. To be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. (Phil 4:6-7) It tells me the joy of the Lord is my strength. (Nehemiah 8:10) It tells me to cast all anxiety on Him because He cares for me. (1 Peter 5:7)

I read these things and then often don’t get very far into my day before I seem to “forget” these things. Or at least forget to focus on them in the chaos that has been my life over the last year. I think a lot of this is because of difficulty understanding why or at least accepting that this is how my life is now…as a widow. But that thought process made me think of another verse about a mirror in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 13:13 in the KJV says “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” It’s a little easier to understand in the Amplified Version: “For now [in this time of imperfection] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, an enigma], but then [when the time of perfection comes we will see reality] face to face. Now I know in part [just in fragments], but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known [by God].”

I guess my mirror needs some work…or, well, my eyes do. Or my brain. But if I’m going to do my very best at walking what I talk, I’m going to need to focus my concentration on the Truth more consistently and less on the things I am worried about. Finances have been a big one and I have become far too focused on how to make ends meet rather than focusing on God’s assignment and calling on my life. Where God guides, He provides. And God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called. They may be somewhat cliché but both of these statements are 100% true. That should be at the center of my attention. If I am where God wants me, doing what He has called me to do, other things will work themselves out. I am admitting, much to my own chagrin, that my life has been fear-based more than I’d like to admit over the last year. That’s not who I want to be. I want my eyes to be fixed on a resurrected Jesus.

I’m praying that, as I change my focus (again, because I know you’ve heard me say it before…that’s what I mean about walking away from the mirror; grief has a way of clouding that image.) God will have an opportunity to speak to me about where I need to be and what I should be doing next. I’m also praying He uses neon signs since interpreting subtlety is not my forté.

And I’m expecting a BIG answer. ♥️

Who is Your Lifesaver in the Flood?

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I’ve written what actually happened to my husband during the last five hours of his life several times. Every time that I wrote it out is saved in a drafts folder. At this point I don’t know if I just keep writing it as some form of “therapy,” as torture in some kind of self-flagellation, or because I actually intend to share it one day. Although, I won’t ever tell you the name of the hospital, the nurses, some of the doctors, because I’m not at liberty to say even though it’s my husband’s story. And it’s my story because I had to watch it all unfold. It’s our story but it’s a part of the middle, not the end. Funny how they, the “powers that be,” have so much more power and control over everything than we do. You know, we the people. They can take their names out of it but it is still 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 of how it all ended in this life. How our love story here got cut short. And then “they” can get off and walk away scot-free. Pun 100% intended.

My life isn’t what I thought it would be now, but I’m trying my best to fulfill some of 𝘰𝘶𝘳 dreams. A lot of what you see about me planting things lately is really about him. I’m enjoying doing it but plants of any kind were really Scott’s forté. I loved to be in the garden with him but he was the one who could make things grow. He was always teaching, telling me how he did this or that, but he might have been a little afraid for me to touch them 😂 and yet he would still encourage me to try but I think that’s because he knew if I killed it he could bring it back. I don’t know how he did it but there were plants I swear were dead and gone but Scott could mysteriously revive them. And it’s not like when your kid’s fish dies and you buy him a new one just so he won’t be sad. He really brought them back. He could grow anything. Just look what he did with me while I had him here. And look what his absence has done.

Our back yard was one of the biggest reasons we bought this home together. It was beautiful when we bought it but we worked, little by little, intending to make it a an increasingly beautiful and peaceful oasis. We spoke often of how it should be a place to go when life overwhelms. It should be a place where our kids and our grandkids love and want to come hang out with us. It should be lovely and relaxing. It should be the outdoor version of 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦.

The boys have helped me take on a heavy duty (strength required) project out there that Scott and I had intended to do for awhile. It’s not quite finished but most of what is left to do is more about tidying up and smoothing things out. Unfortunately that part requires some heavy lifting, too, so we work on it when we all can. They’ve also helped me hang twinkly lights over our pool. They have encouraged me and at least acted excited with me over my fruit trees (because we wanted them all to be able to come pick their own fresh fruit when they wanted.) They have ooo’d and ahhh’d over my rose bushes and other plants that I’m managing to keep alive by the grace of God. They’ve also helped me when random but frustrating home issues have come up. Between them, my boys can professionally work on electrical, heating, air, or refrigeration problems, carpentry, masonry, and removing dents from vehicles. They’re each incredibly skillful and talented in their areas of expertise and have great work ethic. I often tease them that I still just need someone to go to school for plumbing. So far, I’ve had no takers on that one (even though that’s one of the things acting up lately.🤦🏻‍♀️) I don’t know what I’d do without them as I live without my husband.

Our girls, the ones Scott and I fell in love with when our boys did, have been a Godsend in so many ways, too. Scott never got to meet our newest edition, Erin, but he would have adored her just like he did Taylor and Patrice. She is such a sweetheart. I think he would have said something like “Man, Owen, you managed to reel in a nice catch! Good going, man! And it don’t hurt that she’s gorgeous, too. You need to hang on to that one.😉” These girls have really actually been excited with me about my flowers.😂 They have listened when my heart was broken but I didn’t want to burden the boys with my hurt. They have cleaned and helped host the comings and goings of many people when I could barely acknowledge who was here. Most importantly of all, they have loved my sweet boys and have been for them, in many ways, what Scott was for me. A safe place.

And my granddaughter. Well, she lights up a room even when she’s got her face scrunched up like she’s mad. She’s so easy to love and laugh at. She has also gotten me through some of the toughest days. One day I’ll tell her that her middle name should have been Grace because she sure saved me. Many days that it would have been easy to go down a rabbit hole of despair, that baby girl has held me away from the edge.

In the natural, the regular world, there shouldn’t have been any way, financially, for me to stay home with her this year. I was determined to try really hard to do it because I am trying my best to keep any and all promises and commitments that Scott and I made while he was here, and also because I wanted to spend this time with her and to help my kids. But my life is anything but natural since God’s doing it with me. Every time I thought it might not be possible for much longer, He has provided a wholly unexpected way for it to work. And He didn’t just do it for Lillian. He knew how close I’ve lived to the edge of existence at times and He already knew this would have pushed me to the brink. I’d never leave my kids and force them to go through something like I am, but it is desperately miserable to live teetering on that edge, walking a death-defying tightrope every day. And so He also knew what I needed to draw me back to solid ground. You’ll never, ever convince me that He didn’t send Lillian Reese here right when He did because He knew how much we would all need her. I may have said this here, online, before but if you ever saw Lillian any of her uncles, you’d think he was her daddy. They all treasure her like that and she is one blessed little girl to have all of these people who love her as much as our big tribe does.

God has been in the details all this time. Some of them I could see at that moment. Some I haven’t been able to see until looking back from a different perspective. I know that even when I felt alone because Scott is gone, God has still been there holding my head above tidal waves of grief. He has poured peace over me when I couldn’t find it anywhere else. There are certain things that, even now, I should be stressing and panicking about, but the urge to worry frantically over them isn’t there. I know who holds my future, even if it isn’t what I wanted it to be, and I trust that beauty will somehow come from these ashes.

I’m a few days away from the eleven month mark. Not two weeks after that will be the one year mark since we lost my sweet fifteen-year-old nephew and then about two weeks after that one year since Scott was here. I don’t doubt that the water will rise again soon. I also don’t doubt that, in the raging swirls and waves of that flood, I will be lifted out again.