A letter to you on your birthday, CRW

I can remember this like it was yesterday.  I was cleaning the boat.  You dragged your chair out and sat it up right smack dab in the middle of Byrd street.  You watched me and told me how silly I was to clean that boat because it was only going to get dirty when we put it in the water...you were right.

Things that make me miss you...
watching my boys jump rope
songs on the radio
knowing how much you loved Easter because of the trumpets
when I need to tell you something big
when I need to tell you something small
sitting on the porch
grocery store flowers {real ones}
when I see an old jeep
eating boiled peanuts
when I try to make a rooster sound {you had this one down}
when I see your mama...ya'll have the same hands.

I know I'm not alone in missing you.  You lived life so big and in doing that, people fell in love with you.  They wanted to be like you and make you proud and just be near you.  A lot has changed since you've gone; some good, some less good.   My heart doesn't ache for you the way it once did...when the wound was fresh and grief came crashing down on me constantly...when I could not speak your name without tears.  It's still there, but different.  I guess I've come to know that my time with you in heaven will be millions of years longer than the time I spent with you here.  Your leaving has made me live with a purpose I didn't know before because my only hope of seeing you again is there, in His presence.  I love you my sweet friend, Happy Birthday.

always,
Misty

{a letter to you, joy, answer, the hurt}

a letter to you

Things that make me miss you….

button-down polos
christmas trees
wearing shorts and long sleeves
riding with the windows down
Tradd and Jackson's birthday
Friday afternoons
seeing the red doors of a lutheran church
when I hear someone has married their high school sweetheart
when I say to my boys, "scat cat your tail's in the gravy"
and a million other things. a million.

Truth is, everybody that loved you has a list all their own.  I've heard it said that missing someone is proof that you loved someone worth missing.

Boy, were you loved….so you must be missed.

I took time to reread when I have written about you over the last two years and in doing so I can see that my heart is healing…it's slow going because the wake you left is hard to stand up in some days.

I read a book that I know you would have loved called One Thousand Gifts.  In my journal I have written time and time again this one line…

take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into joy that fulfills all emptiness  

I am giving thanks for the time that we had together on this side of heaven. 

always, 

Misty 

Joy

“God is not a belief to which you give your assent. God becomes a reality whom you know intimately, meet everyday, one whose strength becomes your strength, whose love, your love. Live this life of the presence of God long enough and when someone asks you, “Do you believe there is a God?” you may find yourself answering, 

“No, I do not believe there is a God. I know there is a God.”

~Ernest Boyer, Jr.

Today is your birthday and 
today i am choosing joy.  

 i remember you and my thoughts are of heaven

 my God who is perfect and makes no mistakes has taken this day 

from me and made it nearly perfect. 

Today

i made it to the gym

i changed diapers 

i blew bubbles

i picked up pinecones and waved at the mail lady.

i let a perfect stranger with a cane and white hair nuzzle his face into

my baby's head in Kmart as his wife looked on from her wheelchair.

hampton squeezed his finger and laughed and smiled

and pure joy rushed in

Tears in Kmart. 

happy tears because i know that's what you would have done

you loved old people

Today i am choosing joy all day long for you

because i know there is a God

and i know where you are

Oh happy day my precious friend. 

answer

I have been writing this in my head for the better part of a year. I have kept my words hidden {even from myself at times} for fear of making someone sad or upset, but this heaviness, this heart-weight just has to be surrendered.

Before she left, I did not know the space in my world that she filled.  Before she left, I was me...now I am someone else.

My battle is not to focus on the end, but these images consume me with eyes open or closed.

The call- the frantic shuffle to talk to my own mother.  Talking to Jacob in the waiting room full, but it was just us.  Anna giving her Coke from a straw in a can- her tongue thick in her mouth as she tried to talk around the meds.  She looked so small.

And her last to me, "How are my boys?" It was Monday.

Waiting- for doors to open, for breath to catch, to stop hoping and start healing.

The rise and fall of her chest in cadence.  Watching numbers on a screen, we are transfixed, they change and we notice. Wednesday.

I take my turn holding her hand- same as always just like Bon's.  Her little ones draped over her bed.  waiting

They said hours, not days- it was days.

And when it finally happened...when ushered out of this life and into the next...quiet.  still.  peace. It was Saturday.

I find I am still waiting.  For a call, a happy accidental meeting at Target that never happens.  I am distracted and sad and it makes me smile through tears.

My thoughts are fixed on heaven.  The glory that she must be seeing- the embrace that is holding her so tightly- the way the morning must look like from there.  And a question.

Is she missing me like I am missing her?  Because if she is- it's not always happy in heaven.

An Answer comes- just one line in a book that settles my question- at least momentarily.

In His embrace time loses all sense of speed and stress and space and stands still and holy.  

So there it is.  My answer.
He has her full attention and because of that she hasn't even noticed that I'm not there.

I am settling into the new me.  Less heavy, more healed...and praying for peace.

the hurt

I finally found my words and my way back to this blog.  So many times "life" gets in the way of me posting.

This time it was loss.

Writing this post would just make it a little more final...an acknowledgement of the truth that I have yet to accept.

One month and two days ago, I lost my best friend to cancer.  A battle that lasted one week.  One week from beginning to end.  From discovery to goodbye.  I have gone over the whole thing a thousand times in my head.  Is this real?  Did that really happen?  What now?  I have listened to voice mails on my phone just to hear her voice.  I have dreamed of her.  I found a spoon in my silverware drawer that she left at my house.

I always knew she would die before me...my mind is morbid like that.   I would be a ripe 75...she, a frail 92.  Never 34 and 51.  My mind doesn't work like that.  With a seventeen year age difference, I expected to live on this earth without her.    I could never have expected this.  It is simply unimaginable.

I gave the eulogy at her funeral.  It was the hardest thing that I have ever done. In. my. life.  And when I say that, I mean it was hard to get the words out of my mouth.  I was full of the words.  When someone has such an impact on your life, it's not hard to recall the stories, the memories.  It's just hard to find your voice when hundreds of people who love your friend are staring at you bleary-eyed and expecting you to sum up how they feel about her too.  It is my greatest hope that I was able to do that.

I know this sounds cliche, but I really feel like a part of me has died.  That I have this Cindy-sized hole in me that can never be filled.  The hurt is deep and wide.  It takes my breath sometimes without notice.  And still the question remains.  

Why?

I believe with my whole heart that I serve a merciful God.  That He has plans for me and will not abandon me....That one day He will answer my question so completely, so fully, that I will wonder why I even asked it in the first place.  But until then, I have to find a way to sit right here in the "why".

God often gets my attention through music...in worship and when I am alone.  In Christian music and non-Christian.  A few days ago I heard this song for the first time and I literally could have written it.  It speaks the words that I could not find.  It is helping me heal.  It is a brand new song by MercyMe.  What are the chances that this song, this single no less, was released days after my friend died?  No chances.  All God.

I hope you will listen to it and that it will help you too.  Even if you didn't know my friend, we have all loved and lost...we've all asked why.