May's ending

May is closing, just hours away and it will be June.
May has been a very hard, arduous month ...in many ways.  It will always be Phoebe's month.  Over time, maybe it will be someone elses too ...maybe a grandchild will be born in this month, lots of possibilities to soften the harshness of the loss tied to her.
I've pushed toward this day ....seems funny to me, that I would race through a beautiful month, as if I could make its passing come with earnest.
There's lots I'd like to say, and little time to write, but there are a few thoughts that close this month for me.  It ends with all my living kids home on a hot Friday night ...temps in the 90's.  I like that, them here, the buzz of life ...laughing, fighting, settling in and finding a way to cool off.  Close enough to the ocean, we can sense and feel a distant breeze ...fleeting, but bringing a moment of relief.  I'm glad for that!
I see all of us finding a way to make this month something other than what it is ...an exclamation point for Phoebe.  Intensity describes all of us well, intentionally, inadvertently, subconsciously.
The last time I approached a period of my life in a similar way was several years ago when our oldest was heading off to the Air Force Academy.  We would be out of touch for six or more weeks.  The thought of that overwhelmed me, thinking I might not be able to survive it.  The severing of a child from my life in such an abrupt way seemed harsh, irrational.  I invested myself full on into the prerequisites for nursing school.  It kept me focused, forward thinking.  I did well.
It's funny to look back on that time and see how God prepared me, us for the real severing, the real brutality of separation that would always be ...the loss of Phoebe.  He cares for us, crafts our lives so that we might survive it, because we've practiced.
Stephen didn't stay at the Academy, and for lots of reasons I'm glad.  At first when he left, I thought of it only as a loss.  Now, I see the gain, the benefit, the rightness of it all.  I see a young man heading off with his little brother, rubber boots on all four feet to find the secret pond, abundant with frogs for catching.  I see the smiles on both, and the days of enjoyment with frogs hopping around our backyard, until set free back into their natural home.  I see a young man who asks me about my day.  I get to watch him build a life.
Quite honestly, I don't know how I would have fared had he stayed in such a highly structured life, away from us.  Little did I know when he decided to leave the Academy, a dream of his for years, that it was an enormous gift ...one that didn't feel like or appear to be one at all.  I'm grateful.
A long day of work closed with a sweet encounter, a witness of great love and devotion ...of marriage.
Our marriage has been stretched and pinched, pushed, shoved, pulled, twisted since losing Phoebe.  How could it not be?  Our missing is both united and very separate.  At times of my greatest frustration and despairing I've wondered what good could possibly come from this.  How could God make this new, even though He makes all things new?  When I'm settled, in moments of peace, I've thought that all this ...all of it ...is the writing of a great love story.  Because love stories that are truly beautiful do not look like Hollywood, but rather they appear tattered and frayed lots of  times.  And surely, we are tattered and frayed.  I've looked at this man of mine, and known that the depths of his sorrow are deep in a way different than mine, and yet the same.  This girl, this great, magnificent girl, was ours for such a short time ....but an extraordinary time, and our years sharing her were woven with golden thread that will last for all time.
As my work day came to a close nearing 7PM, the calendar caught my eye, someone mentioned tomorrow would be June.  Inside, I sighed relief.  May would soon be over, I could breath.  We all could breath a bit easier.
A little man, about 5'1" passed me pushing his wife in a wheelchair.  I greeted them, she waved, he smiled.  "Where are you two lovebirds off to?"  They giggled and looked at each other, their eyes twinkling.  On they went to enjoy their time together.  Everyday he visits her, holds juice to her mouth, adjusts her napkin, pushes her.   Moments later, I'm asked to bring something for pain to someone else.  I find the patient and his wife sitting in the sunroom along with another couple.  Both husbands are in special reclining wheelchairs, both suffer with dementia, both are there with their wives.  A double date.  The wives beam as they smile and chat with each other.  It is not the two of them sharing this moment.  It's a foursome, two wives, two husbands, two marriages that have survived long years.   I chat for a moment, wanting to ask them to tell me their stories ...their love stories.  This snapshot would likely be seen by the world as sad, depressing ...ugly even.  But it's not, it's a tapestry, a beautiful weaving of a life ...of lives.  This is a love story.
God helps us write stories woven with sorrow, pain, suffering, disappointment loss ...and he makes it all new.  He helps us write our love stories ....without revisions, do-overs ....it is raw and real ....it is blessed.
And so May closes, and my hope soars ...that we are living and writing a love story of gigantic proportion with amazing chapters and characters, events ....it is an epic, and Phoebe, like each of our children, has helped us write it.
I thought I'd close May with relief ...but instead, six little old people, tired and worn out, showed me the true meaning of springtime ...of new life ....of true love.
God is amazing in His generosity!