Birthday Memories

Today would have been my sister's 38th birthday. It has been almost 2 years since she died and life has changed so much in that time that I find myself changing the way I think again in light of her absence. It has changed to me trying to picture her today in the 2015 world instead of it being so easy to imagine her with me. It's been long enough that I have to wonder what she would think if I told her what I have going on in my life today. Sometimes I imagine how a conversation would go between us.

I always have fond memories of my sister. I loved being able to tell her happy birthday on her birthday and sharing life's every day happenings with her. I feel now like the broken parts are starting to heal and be replaced with new experiences and memories that don't include her because they can't. The new parts are stronger in come ways and still weak in others, sometimes easily re-broken when memories resurface at just the right time.

Yesterday we were visiting an air museum and there were veterans around at this place. I made it most of the way through it all in a state of awe and wonder, making sure to take pictures and learn something about the history lessons there. All of a sudden, it hit me like a ton of bricks that my grandpa was a military man at heart and I miss him. I barely made it out of there without shedding tears. I don't know why it's important for me to not cry in front of strangers, but my brain seems to think it is and it stops me from doing it.

One of my most vivid memories of my sister's birthday, or at least an event that I associate with my sister's birthday, was a sleepover that she had with friends at our aunts house. There was some nonsense with the freezing of the bra of the first girl to fall asleep, which I thought was very cruel and did not understand. She was always surrounded by friends and a tagalong, grumpy, bitter, little sister. I felt sorry for it when I grew up and realized how I treated her growing up, but I was too immature to see it early on. She was always ready to forgive when I had wronged her, for the sake of sisterly love. She was a rare treasure, just like her birthstone the diamond. Now she is a diamond in heaven, a treasure where she is also dearly loved.

It Is Well With My Soul

I feel like I can breathe again, like I am finding out and exploring who I am now too. The holding pattern that I was in for a long time is something I want to break out of. I am a little restless; I feel like I need to get out and do something new and different. I need to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone.

I have so many plans and ideas that I can't keep track of them. I am excited about the future and the opportunities there. I am trying to focus my mind on scripture and meditate on the verses. Life feels good again.

Guest Blogger-Jonovan

Jonovan had a writing assignment for social studies this month. He wrote the following about his most prized possession.

My prized possession is my Little Big Planet video game. It is important to me because my aunt Candace gave it to me and my brother. My aunt Candace died two years ago. She was nice and funny. My brother plays it with me and we finished all of the levels together. We had a lot of fun playing together. My cousin Aaron and I would play it together and we finished a lot of the levels together. We had a lot of fun playing it together. My family likes to play it together on Friday (family game night). That is why it is important to me and my family. It also helps us remember her because she gave it to us.

I Am Loved

I feel like I am ready to move on a bit. It has been slow going, a slow process to get here, but I feel differently than I did a year ago. Today for the first time ever I feel like I am moving on a little more. I feel like I am telling myself to move on.

At first, it feels traitorous to do so. I love my sister dearly and so deeply. How can I honor her memory if I move on? I think I am starting to reconcile these feelings. I can move along my path of healing a little more each day. I feel joy in life again. I feel like I couldn't imagine feeling for over a year. I am making new changes while still remembering with sorrow and fondness the memories of my sister, grandpa, and grandma.

Today it hit me  as I was writing postcards to all my family, when I got to writing my grandparents, that I am missing a whole set of grandparents. What a different world it is today. I am OK with that. I have new friends to make and people left to love. I have a God who knows me.

Breathing Fresh Air

Lately I feel more like I am growing and changing and breathing fresh air. I feel some sadness lifting and have found some joy. I feel like it is true that "You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness." Psalm 30:11.

Praise the Lord! I feel like I have hit a different path than the one I was on, but I had to get through the rocky mountains to see what lies ahead.

A Purple Melancholy

This song has been running through my head for at least a week now. I finally looked up the music video for it and watched. I was pretty surprised at the end of the video because of how my sister died in a car crash last summer. Ironically this song has been speaking to me as it runs through my head. I love the lyrics and music.

I still feel broken hearted. I don't think it will ever heal all the way. My mind runs through the past year back until the day my sister died over and over, back through Grandpa's death and Grandma's death. I know I'll be OK.

Two Hard Days

I have been subconsciously avoiding thinking about today and tomorrow. I did not take tomorrow off even though it will mark one year since you died. I realized yesterday (since I've been avoiding thinking much on it) that most years there will be two days that stick in my mind and remember the day you died. Since it happened on Father's Day, that will always mark that holiday with those memories, as well as the calendar date. I just hadn't given it any thought but it was worth noting to myself for some reason.

Yesterday was hard. I cried a bit thinking about it. I looked over pictures of you when you were little, spent time remembering what you looked like as an adult and how it felt to hug you. I expected today to be harder, but it wasn't. I contemplated today how I am in much the same situation that I was last Father's Day with my kids going crazy and my husband taking them to spend the afternoon outdoors. The only solace for today was that I can never get a call again that my sister is dead since I only had one.

You came to me in a dream again the other night. You were telling me that you got a job in California and I was so excited and told you that this was great because now I can see you more often than once a year. I woke up happy afterward while remembering the dream because in it I didn't know that you were dead. Even if that's all I get now, just to see you in my dreams, I'll take it. I know that I will get to see you and hug you again someday.

Last year at this time we were well on our way to Boise to rush to your kids. I was distraught, crying almost non-stop. I cried and cried and it hurt to cry and I felt like an empty shell of a human. I did not know what to do with myself. It was awful.

Over the past year I know that I have been carried by our great, loving God when I couldn't get through. I have been comforted by the Holy Spirit with a peace that I can not understand at times. I have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and it is well with my soul.

By God's mighty hand I have made it through a year without you, which is something I never thought I would have to do for many more decades and never imagined how I would get through. I am not over it yet, and likely will never be, but it is always a delicate balance between grieving too much and not grieving enough. Like Goldilocks, I have to get it just right to make it through. I would like to think that I've learned a little bit about how to comfort others through their grief; things like what to say and what not to say. To listen and offer comfort without having to have the right words or any words to say.

I've learned that through it all the most important verse to me is still this:

Ephesians 4:32

English Standard Version (ESV)

³² Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.