Today I had time to sit and think for a bit, and the thought came across my mind that you will never see 2014 on this earth. That's strange to me. If you take the two people in the world closest to you, and imagine what life looks like without one of them in it, it's a harsh reality.

I still can't wallow in my misery of throw myself a pity-party. Worse things have happened to people. This isn't the first time this has happened. I just never imagined life on my own so to speak.

I went back through my birthday cards from last year, after you died, and there was an absence of one with your handwriting for sure. I always looked forward to getting your cards.

Tonight I imagined playing a game from an app on my phone with you. It would be so fun to share it with you. The world is a very different place for me now. Sometimes it's even more confusing than it was before.

I listened to some of the Beth Moore live feed from Passion 2014 today. You would have loved listening to that too. We could have discussed the message together. Instead, I wrote about it in my prayer journal.

I find myself tonight oddly thinking that I can't wait until this is all over. It's more of a subconscious thought, because I really do enjoy life and the hopes we shared for the future even if they're not with you any more. It's like now I'm just waiting until we can be together again and there's this gap in time until I get there.

Refusing Sadness

Tonight I am fighting it. My body feels sad but my brain is fighting against it. I don't want to be sad. I have some preconceived notion that 8 months is far too late to be crying and sad about it. I know that it would feel better to just cry and get it out and over with, yet I still fight it. Such conflict.

The other night I woke up in a good mood. I had a dream with you in it, only it was quite odd. You lived alone, no mention of your children or husband in my dream. That is where you are right now, so I guess it was fitting. It didn't strike me as odd until I woke up, but the dream was happy. My husband and kids and I were all staying at your place, and you had several rooms in your house. I was trying to convince Mom and Dad to stay at the house too so we could all be together.

Greater Reality

I was reminded this morning of the plans we had begun to make about a year ago. Planning with you was so much fun, whether or not it came to fruition. I just loved being such a part of your life and dreams.

I think it was around a year ago when you approached me about sending my kids with you to stay the summer. I was excited and hesitant at the same time. We planned and had things working out. It would have been so much fun: the library, the waterpark, theme park. I wish it had happened the way we planned but God directs our paths in the end, despite all of our plans. It is obedient to go along with his plans, and that is what I have tried to do ever since they got cut short.

Passing time has allowed us to change to how things are different now. We are still sad to have such a beautiful part of our lives vanish, but we are growing with the changes. I don't think I have anger left. I did at first. I said it was so stupid that this happened. It felt so pointless and knowing that I won't know why was frustrating. Then I felt like acceptance was obedience and what God wanted, so I did that. I am comforted when I feel that God knows my pain and he hurts for me.

Some things felt too taboo even to write in an anonymous blog. I remember being so caught up in my sorrow and grief that I couldn't see much else. I was thinking that I would look forward to seeing my sister again, and then I was challenged by the idea that I would rather see my sister than Jesus. I knew I had allowed myself a little too much obsession with my grief. God helped me through that and I no longer feel that way, nor do I feel ashamed at having had those thoughts. I have learned that grief causes reactions in people that would otherwise never happen.

I have to work on being patient with people while they are grieving and with people who do not understand grieving. I am still a relatively quiet, introspective person who is usually slow to speak for fear of saying the wrong thing. It can be a good quality sometimes and sometimes causes me to not say anything at all when perhaps I should.

The fog lifts a little more each day; I can see more of the bigger picture, and it is amazing. I pray that I can live out the word and comfort those with the comfort I have received. I do not understand it all, but I do not need to understand it all to live.

Now, this chapter came to mind this morning as I was waking. What a reminder:

The Excellence of Love

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body ^[a]to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵ does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, ⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ^7 [b]bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
⁸ Love never fails; but if there are gifts of ^[c]prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part; ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I ^[d]became a man, I did away with childish things. ¹² For now we see in a mirror ^[e]dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. ¹³ But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the ^[f]greatest of these is love.

Happy Dreams

Last night I was able to dream of you again.  I am kind of hopeless in that all I have left is hoping you can be alive in my dreams.  I love it when you are still there in my dreams.  I was looking at you and you had on this Lia Sophia necklace and earrings set that I have been looking at on ebay.  How sad is it that I woke up so happy that you were alive in my dream.  I think later on while I was sleeping I knew that you were dead, but I am still glad that I can get those glimpses of you, even if they are all my own imagination now.  It's all that I have left.

The more time passes, the greater the distance my memory has to travel to remember how you smelled, laughed, sounded, smiled, and loved.

Even with Grandpa, it all seemed to happen so quickly.  He would have been 80 last week, and I can still hear him telling me a story and the way he used to chuckle while he told a joke or funny story.  He always made me smile and he had such great hugs.  I remember getting a hug from him every time I left his house.  He and grandma would chase us through the playground playing tag, something no other grandparent would do.

I feel like lately I can see more clearly than I did before.  It has been 7 months since that awful day.

Lord, Direct My Steps

Proverbs 16:9

The mind of man plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.

This verse came to mind this morning as I was going back through the childcare expenses for 2013.  I am at a place where I can look back through the story of what happened and not be despondent about life, so that is something to be thankful for.

The summer began with plans all set.  I had purchased additional childcare in the weeks before you died to account for your arrival on Monday instead of Sunday.  I ended up getting a refund for what I had paid for Monday's childcare, and then I also had to rearrange childcare for the summer since those plans had changed.  Oddly enough, I enjoy doing our taxes each year, especially in years when we have been owed a refund and not had to pay taxes.

We can make so many plans and they can be changed forever in seconds.  I never was one to count on anything until I could see or feel it, but this whole journey still took my by surprise.  It has shaped me and changed me.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4

I was just reminded of this verse. It holds so much promise for me tonight. I have been reading my own blog and found comfort in the words that God has given me to write.

This Christmas is going to be happy and sad.  Christmas has always been my favorite holiday.  One of my favorite Christmas memories is of you hiding behind a chair because you were in labor and you didn't want to go to the hospital. I remember laughing at you because I was not always kind in my youth.  Your son was born the next morning and I got to be there in the hospital the whole time.  I was young but I loved you fiercely and wouldn't have been anywhere else.

I feel as though I have been lifted partway out of a fog that I was sitting under for the past 6 months.  I was so focused on the immediate concerns that I could not see the future.

Guest Post

This one was written by my son for a school assignment.

Aunt Candace

My Aunt Candace was awesome. She would play games with me. We went to visit her when I was little. They lived in Nevada. I played with my cousin Aaron. We would play his xbox 360. Then they moved to Virginia. We went there to visit them a couple times. That was fun.

She was coming from Virginia to Oregon by car. She was in Idaho and then a car was over the passing lane a little bit and hit her car. Then she died but Aaron and Leila and the dog were barely hurt. We went to Idaho to check on them. We spent a lot of time with them there. Then we went back home. She died on Father’s Day. I wrote about her because she was amazing and wonderful.