Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, I had seven kids weaving in and out of my day.  And then one day, I had only had six.  That's because one of my cherubs died.  My husband says it was a category five hurricane and the roof of our home blew off.  It was the end of our life as we knew it.  I say the sun was eclipsed and we were thrown into the raging, freezing cold Atlantic and were smashed against the rocks over and over ...and no one knew we were lost at sea.  However we describe it, it was bad ...as in nightmarish, devastating ...beyond human words.  And it still is, but we're stronger now, accustomed to living without a roof, managing the swells of a stormy sea.  I spent well over a year sharing my story of my own struggle to survive, while striving to comfort the rest of my kids and husband. Losing Phoebe,Heading for Home tells the steps I took forward and backward, sideways, uphill and down, trusting God, placing all in His care and believing that despite all appearances, His was a plan of love, mercy, redemption and eternity.
For lots of reasons I stopped writing, mostly because the struggle to stay afloat was enough. But I like to write, it clears my head and opens my heart big and wide.  And I've been told by lots of different people that what I wrote helped them, either personally, or in caring and understanding someone they loved who lives with the loss of a child.  What I say now, what I see and experience is different in many ways than I did in the first days, months and year.  And other experiences I've had during this time of life without Phoebe have shaped the way I continue to experience losing my girl.
Sadly, the number of teenage suicides is on the rise and the pressure our kids live with is absurd.  One thing that is especially important to me is that no more children die by suicide, that no other parent journeys this route.  This is a painful, difficult path ...it hurts, really bad.  It doesn't go away.  I don't say that to be morbid or hopeless ...just real!  Because what happens around us is that most of those in our world heal.  The loss of our child becomes a moment in history, something in the past. In silence, the world screams at us "aren't you over it yet?  surely enough time has past!"   For us, the parents, and the closest of our world, never heal ...it is an open wound.  A child has died, our world has changed ....we speak a new language, live by a different code, see through a very different lense.  It's not obvious to the outsider, but it is there, always.  When everyone else is at 45 degrees, we are at 39, or 42, or even 44.5 ...but never again where most others are.  We're into our third year of physically losing Phoebe. And I'll be quite honest ...it's lousy, as in ...doesn't get better, easier, forgotten.
But ...there is hope.  A new relationship, a new way of mothering, a new reunion to look forward, a new way of being ...a "new normal" springs.  The steps begin, forward ...not away from, not distanced, but towards ...the promise of eternity, the promise of all time together again ...forever.
I trust God.  He is my root in all things.  His voice is often silent in my life, but sometimes quite loud, forthright, clear.  I trust Him in everything, and very slowly I'm learning to thank Him for all of it ...even the really hard unbearable things.