Cherished Memories of a Life Well Lived
No words just a request for prayer for Tom as he is testifying at Cynthia’s trial today. I hate that he has to go back and relive that night. I pray for his continued peace and for God’s love to shower him as he’s on the stand. I know my girls are proud of their dad/Tom and so am I.
It’s Monday, another Monday in a long stream of Mondays that will continue to come while I’m here on earth. Another Monday without my girls.
Kids are starting back to school today, I can hear them outside making their morning trek to the Community School. It’s 8:37. I would have already dropped Abigail off, yelled “I LOVE YOU” out the window to embarrass her and I would be home now curled up in the big red chair reading with Anna. In about 15 minutes we would head to Dilley and I would walk her to her classroom, kiss her, squeeze her, tell her I love her to the moon and back and to have a wonderful day. She would say, “I love you too Mama,” walk into class, turn around and give me the I love you sign.
I miss my girls!
Here I am, sitting at my computer finding words to stream together to describe how I’m feeling. This second I am sad because I want to drop my girls off at school and tell them to have a wonderful day and I can’t. I don’t want to be here in this place of grief and longing. I don’t want to be amazing in how I’m handling this journey, I don’t want to try to find the words to forgive a girl who made horrible choices the night of the accident, I don’t want to look at pictures and video over and over again.
I just want to hug my girls!
I’m leaning hard on God and I feel his comfort and love all the time. I KNOW that I will hug them again, be in their presence and will someday see the bigger picture of why. The peace that comes with trusting God in this journey however does not take away the fact that I miss my girls.
Until the day I am with them in eternity I will ride this wave of grief. Some moments it overwhelms me, knocks me off my feet and carries me under. Other moments I am able to stand as it gently pushes against my legs letting me know that it is there. At this moment I’m feeling overwhelmed with the sadness of missing my girls.
This storm will subside, as it always does. At that moment I will stand back up, take a deep breath and continue on my journey knowing that the storm will come again. This is my life now.
I trust God with all my heart and I know that my girls are safe.
I just miss them so much.
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. ~Psalm 62:5-6
I rest here today and feel the peace that God has provided me. It is cold but the sun is shining here in Oregon.
Spent yesterday evening on a plane and in the airport. We missed our connecting flight in Phoenix by minutes but were able to get on another flight 2 hours later, landing us in Portland at 2 am; needless to say we are extremely tired.
It feels good to be home, sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee, listening to music and writing. We came home last night to candles lit at the memorial and lots of new additions to the space; an overwhelming sense of peace the minute I walked across the street to see what people had left. My girls are so loved.
A couple of days after the accident I received a kind gesture of love from a girl who played on a soccer team I coached over 10 years ago. We were driving through Forest Grove, I had just been to the house to get some clothes to take back to the hospital and was still in shock at the events unfolding in my life. We stopped at a red light, next to a bus stop, and when I turned my head my former player saw me sitting in the car. She smiled, lifted her hands to her chest and formed them in the shape of a heart. No words were exchanged, no hug, no embrace, just a small gesture to let me know she loved me and was thinking about me.
These acts of kindness have continued: cookies on our doorstep, a secret santa gift that magically appeared every morning for a couple of weeks before Christmas, an arm squeeze, head nod and a smile from a neighbor in the local coffee shop, friends showing up on my doorstep to offer companionship or a walk around the neighborhood, a quiet hug, a bag of groceries in my fridge after a long trip away, Sunday soup delivery from a dear friend, countless texts, Facebook messages and phone calls checking in to see how we are doing and a ride home at 2 am from the airport. All these acts of kindness have filled our hearts with love and gratitude of community near and far.
Lots of people have expressed that they have no idea what to do or say but feel the need to do something. My response is always the same, all we need really is prayer and lots of it. We feel the prayers by so many and I can honestly say that I truly feel that is how we get through moments of intense aching.
An example of this is a phone call I made to a dear friend while sitting in the airport on our way to Ohio. I was barely keeping it together, realizing traveling without Anna was tremendously painful. She began to pray and said she was going to send a message to her prayer warriors too. The prayer chain had begun and I started to feel better knowing I was being lifted.
Ten minutes after our phone conversation Tom sat down next to me with a smile on his face. During our first flight we all had seats away from one another which added to the stress of not having my main support, Tom, right next to me. His smile was due to the fact he worked some magic, or prayers were being answered, and we now had seats in a row. Our second flight was not without ache but I did have Tom’s hand to hold and shoulder to sleep on. The power of prayer is amazing and I feel it every single day.
I know I have said this countless times over the past two months but we feel lifted by the prayers of many. We are so grateful for these prayers, acts of kindness and also the donations that have been made in our girls name, some of which have been done by people we have never even met. I wish I could individually thank each and everyone one who has graciously reached out to us in some way shape or form. I wish I could give each person a hug and say I’m blessed to have you in my life, even if I’ve never met them before. I knew before the accident that we had an amazing community of people who watched out for one another, now I have felt first hand that love and am so grateful.
With all that said, I have to be honest and say I wish I didn’t have to thank people for taking care of us because of this tragedy in our lives. I wish I was getting ready for a community pot luck at our house and the girls were cleaning out the best hiding spots for an upcoming game of hide and go seek. I wish I had my life back. I wish I could yell up the stairs and tell the girls to turn down their music and to get ready for company. I so badly wish they were still here.
After a long night of traveling and very limited sleep I think I will spend today catching up, unpacking and spending some much-needed time in my girls rooms.
So happy to be home.
Family Get Away 2011
Sunny day in the snow.
A week ago I woke up and felt very sad to be leaving our home, our safe place. Today I woke up with the a similar sadness to be leaving my brother, sister-in-law and nieces. This trip, although it was hard to be away from home, was such a blessing and I am so grateful to my family for creating such a loving and safe place for us here. My little nieces have brought me so much joy this past week, little girl joy! We are looking forward to lots of Facetime chats and hearing all about fairies that explore their house while they are sleeping.
While we were playing fairies, dancing and reading Wet Dog; it seems that Abigail made a little visit to my other brother’s house. Katie, my sister-in-law, called the other night to share this with us.
They had just arrived home from their visit with us and Katie was in the kitchen putting things away and cleaning up. She heard Holden, my 3 yr old nephew, running down the stairs yelling that something had just fallen out of the sky into their front yard. Katie said that she was very confused and met him at the bottom of the stairs where he proceeded to head out the front door without shoes on saying, “yep, there it is, it’s from Abigail.” Indeed there was a piece of wrapping paper sitting on their front lawn. Holden picked it up, looked at it, confirmed again it was from Abigail, gave it to Katie and walked back inside and up the stairs. Katie said this was all done without a question that Abigail, from Heaven, just delivered this to their yard.
The wrapping paper was covered in balloons. Something you would see a birthday present wrapped up in.
When my older brother came home, Katie shared with him what had happened and showed him the paper. With tears in his eyes, he shared with her what he had written on the little piece of paper attached to one of the balloons released in celebration of Abigail’s birthday. He had told the girls how much he loved them and asked for a sign that they were ok. He got his sign and they are ok.
Looking forward to sitting in Anna’s room tonight when we get home.
In the past 2 months, we have had a lot of holidays to “get through.” Halloween (one of my girl’s favorites), Anna’s birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Abigail’s birthday have all passed and we have found peace in celebrating and honoring our girls through each. I can honestly say that I have learned that having no expectations going in has really helped us to experience the day as it was meant to be, rather than forcing it to be something.
New Year’s has always been my least favorite holiday. Being a morning person and not a night person I would say that this holiday has been somewhat painful in the past. I’m sure if you talk to any of my friends that have celebrated this holiday with me they would say that I barely made it to midnight – and I was definitely not the life of the party. Being forced to stay up way past my bedtime is not my idea of fun.
As New Years approached I really didn’t think much about how this unpopular holiday was going to impact me. I thought about birthdays and Christmas but not New Years. It never crossed my mind the significance of finishing one year and looking forward to the next; leaving 2013 to the past and looking toward newly recognized goals for the upcoming year. Since October 20th I have been living minute by minute, looking toward the future is very unsettling to me and writing goals for a future without my girls is terrifying.
So, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’m not ready to leave 2013. I don’t plan on getting stuck here but I’m not ready to move into a new year without my girls.
The year 2013 was filled with many trips to the park to play lava monster, nights spent playing games as a family and countless creations made in our little basement studio. We went on an amazing camping adventure as a family to Orcas Island and spent lots of time with friends and family playing, exploring and living life to its fullest. In 2013 I touched my girls, I held them, I loved on them, I listened to them and I celebrated with them.
It was a good year full of love and one I will never forget.
Last night as the clock struck midnight, and I was waking up from a little nap, I said a prayer asking God to hold my girls tight, just like I would if I could. I miss everything about both of them and staying in 2013 doesn’t make the ache go away, it just allows me to be exactly where I feel I need to be…right here, trusting God and celebrating Anna and Abigail’s love and joy!
love-drenched-life.com 
