It’s carved in stone. Yes, I have known Jennie died but seeing your child’s name, birth date and death date carved in granite does something to your heart. I’m not sure I have the words to put to the emotions, the feelings in my heart. It’s hard evidence of shattered dreams, of living out a painful reality– our child has gone before us. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We shouldn’t have had to spend months looking at designs, fonts and options and more options. Trying to imagine our child’s name in this or that font with this design or that design. And there were times I just wanted to grab all those papers and throw everything in the trash and scream, ‘No this is so wrong!” But the reality is- we did it. we finally decided on a design that would honor Jennie. And yet through the pain, through the hard decisions I felt, I sensed, God my Father there saying, “I’m hurting with you. It’s not what I wanted either.” And then I had to wonder. What did God want? He made us creatures of choice. And He wanted us to choose Him but instead we chose to question Him, to believe He was keeping something from us. And in one sense He was; He was keeping death, pain and suffering away. It was never His plan, His will for us to experience death, pain and suffering. But we chose to eat of the tree of knowledge instead of the tree of life. Yeah, I know it was Adam and Eve who actually did it, but I’m not much different from them. And God couldn’t stop the consequences of the choices that were made; so we live in a world of death, pain and suffering. But God had a plan for redemption and through Jesus’ work on the cross we can be redeemed. And that is what I hang on to- -day after day- – knowing that God is making beauty out of ashes and will turn my mourning into joyful dancing. And some day we will live in the beautiful world we were created for.

I had been working on a different blog post but all those thoughts are scattered to the winds of grief. I thought I was finally getting a handle on this grieving thing. Yes, it hurts just as much if not more than it used to, but it seemed my emotions were stronger. I wasn’t crying as much, I felt calmer in my spirit. I was thinking “We will survive. We can make it.” But Sunday morning, they sang Jennie’s song at church and the dam broke again. I started crying and I haven’t stopped crying much since. Yes, at Grief Share we were told to prepare for the hard days, to be aware of the grief trigger points, the holidays, the anniversaries, etc. And sure there are some things you can think through and prepare yourself, but how was I to know they would sing that song? How could I prepare for that? I never saw it coming. I’m sure the song leader had no clue what memories that song would evoke, what feelings would be felt again. I feel like I’m back in those first weeks of intense pain and raw grief. And all the crying sure doesn’t improve the head ache issues. And my poor little girls don’t know quite what to do with me. One says, “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?” the other one hugs me and pats my arm and say, “It’ll be okay mommy.” Which only, of course, brings more tears. So need-less to say its been a rough couple of days. It’s been hard to see God and I keep asking, “God, where are you?” And I can’t feel anything but pain and I can’t see anything through the tears running down my face. But this song says it about right…

“Your love surrounds me in the eye of the storm.” “My only hope is to trust in You.”

As a prayer request and I don’t even know what to ask for but we are really struggling with things. A variety of things. All I will say is, I’m not the only one with a brain injury and each brain injury is very unique and causes unique side effects. So with three of us having brain injuries on differing levels and effects, it leaves us in an extremely overwhelming situation.

What I’ve learned….

~ Grief is a very lonely path. No one can feel my pain, no one can really understand because only I was Jennie’s mother but God can transcend all and He knows, He understands my pain.

~ Grief lasts longer than I realized. We never get done grieving, really; sometimes it’s quiet like a gentle rippling brook, other times it’s a raging river and we can’t see a thing through the tears streaming down our faces. But God says, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

~ There are some people who appear to be uncomfortable when I cry. But God collects my tears in a bottle and that tells me, my tears are special to God.

~ Grieving is hard work. There are times I don’t feel like getting out of bed to face a new day of missing Jennie, Jana and even myself. But God says, “My grace is sufficient.”

~ There are some people who seem to be afraid of us, of our pain and I wonder if it’s because they feel helpless, they feel they can’t do anything to make it better, less painful for us. And it’s true, people can’t do anything, but couldn’t they just be there with us?

~ There are very few people (or I haven’t met them yet) who understand what it like to live with a traumatic brain injury. I feel bad for my dear hubby to live with two of us. And we may look like a typical grieving couple/family but quite frankly a brain injury affects all parts of your life and most people have no clue what our family deals with on a daily basis. And we’ve had people say, “At least, (which by the way are 2 words that should never be said to grieving people) Jana didn’t die.” But quite bluntly – It certainly seems much more painful than death would have been. Please don’t misunderstand me, hear what my heart is saying. I am thankful  that I can still talk with Jana, see her smile and hear her laugh,etc. And I do believe she is alive for a reason, that God has great plans for her. But do you know how incredibly painful it is to see a beautiful young lady full of life and vigor now struggle and need to learn new ways to take care of daily needs such as dressing, combing hair, etc? Sure, Jana has come a long way and she does a lot on her own but she has worked hard and it’s been a long hard struggle. Have you any idea how it feels to be the “mean mom” and require your child to do her therapy? Especially when it feels like the therapy isn’t doing what you had hoped for and I’m tired of being strong, tired of fighting, tired of pain. Had Jana died, yes, it would be incredibly painful but I know she would be enjoying heaven with her sister and not struggling with living in a broken world. And not much hurts a parent more than when we can’t make it better for our child, whether it’s physical, emotional, mental or spiritual issues. And then I wonder, what kind of pain do I put God my Father through, when I choose my way or when I think I know best…?

~ There is grief and then there’s complicated and ongoing grief. That’s how at least our psychologist counselor explained it to me. When a child dies, its so out of the usual cycle or circle of life; we will, for the rest of our lives, remember and grieve what should have been and isn’t. There will be many “firsts” we have to live through. And then not only do we grieve the death of Jennie; we also grieve the death of the Jana we used to have, as well as the death of what I was. And at times it feels we are caught in the crossfire  as we become aware of all the shattered dreams we have and how our world has been broken. But I am choosing to trust God, to believe He sees the whole picture and He is making all things beautiful even though to me is seems the most ugly, painful, messy time of my life.

~ God is so much more than I ever knew Him to be; more beautiful, more loving, more kind, and more gentle. But I wonder – Couldn’t I have come to know God better without going through this intense pain? Couldn’t there have been another way? Yet I want to choose to rest in God’s sovereignty, choose to believe in His redeeming love.

I can’t believe this is your second Christmas in heaven. In some ways it feels like forever since I saw your sweet smiling face and heard your girlish giggle and then I look at the calendar and I see it’s only been about 21 months and I wonder, “Who messed with my sense of time? How could life change so much in the blink of an eye?” And I long to go back to the before- – Back to the time when I was thinking about what to put in your school portfolio, instead of thinking about what to put on your gravestone. Back to when I could do most anything I wanted, instead of trying to decide which thing to do, cause if I do that, I won’t have the strength and energy to do this. Back to when I heard Jana dribbling a basketball and throwing baskets instead of hearing a squeaky quad cane and a shuffling gait. Back to when our table didn’t have an empty chair.

But that was then, this is now. How do I bring the two worlds together? Is it even possible? I can’t live in the before- it’s not what is reality. It was reality- – now it is only a memory that I wish was reality. How do I live in the now, when it’s the past, the memory I’m wishing was reality? I’m not sure but I don’t think it’s about forgetting the past or not thinking about it at all. Somehow I’ve got to hang on to the truth that God was in “the before” and He knew “the after” was going to happen and He is here as well. He can take this broken now and make it something beautiful. I’ve got to hang on to the truth that God is for me even though it seems at times He is against me. And the truth is what I’m really longing for is heaven- where life is perfect. There is no pain and sadness or struggle and difficulty. Just beauty and peace- someday, someday God will restore and all that is broken; will be made whole, complete, and beautiful. And we will see you again.

It’s your second birthday in heaven. We miss you. There seems to be no way around it, no getting done missing you. There are days I think it should be better, that missing you shouldn’t hurt so badly but then I think that would mean your life here wouldn’t have mattered and that’s not true. You were important; your life did impact people. There was a reason for your short life here on earth, even though I think it was too short.

 I wonder- what would you look like? Would you have started putting your hair up and wearing a veil? I tend to think you would have because you had already started asking questions about it. How tall would you be by now? What kinds of goodies would you have learned to cook and bake? What would you be studying in school? The other month at co-op, I saw your friends, sitting there singing so beautifully, so young and pretty, so alive. And it was like a hard kick in my gut, that’s were you should be sitting singing too. But you’re not, instead you’re in heaven, so young and pretty, so alive. It hurt to not see you with your friends. I cried. I wondered if they miss you, if they remember you, your smile but their life does go on even though at times it feels as though my life has stopped. That is one fear I have that people will forget you lived, forget your smiling face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM98oFIrwQA

We again went shopping and filled a shoe box of goodies to ship to another young girl. We decided since we can’t buy you birthday and Christmas gifts we will buy for another young girl.

Not that it really eases the pain or makes it better. But even in our pain to somehow show some little girl somewhere that God does love and care about her and us.

I would like to thank you for your prayers and to ask you to continue remembering us in prayer over the next couple of weeks. The holidays are an especially difficult time for us. Missing Jennie and what could have been.