This Day

I rise before the sun.  Mass for Phoebe at 7.  I've rested well, so different from years earlier ...where sleep meant nothing and those hours of darkness gave me a chance for stillness.  I wept my way through the night for the first two years, waking with eyes crusted shut ...it became a way.  I didn't care that sleep was fleeting, I only cared that for a little while everyone else slept, and I knew they were safe.
  These past six years have been hard.  There's the obvious loss of Phoebe and with that the nuances of her life entwined with ours from space to noise to laundry, food, shoes, movie preferences, tooth brushes, shower times ...everything changed.  And as mundane as many of these things are, when they're altered you recognize the root they have in our life and when they uproot, balance and basics of everyday become unfamiliar.  It takes time to right the ship ...time to learn to sail without the mast ...time to learn how to move ahead without the sail.  It takes time ...still is taking time.
  So what's the difference at six years?  Chronic agony does not have to be managed.  It still overwhelms and envelopes me, but not quite like it did when this whole journey started.  Yesterday, during our usual routine I could feel the uprising.  I wanted to flee away from where I was, away from the tidal wave of memory and pain that charged at me.  Eyes caught me, a familiar face, laced into our life in a unique way only God can do!  She knew ...the time, the who, the why.  Because every spring she steers her way gently and cautiously through the raging waves of grief.  No words, just a millisecond of a gaze "I know!" was enough to catch my breath, get through the task.  See how amazing God works!
  Six years ago I was thrown into a raging, churning ocean, crashing against jagged rocks.  I was cold and alone not knowing how to swim.  And that ocean is the same ...but today, I swim strong.  Every once and a while a wave catches me and carries me towards those rocks, but I graze them, knowing how to kick and move away.  Sometimes I go there, but mostly to whisper into the ear of a newbie thrashing in the terrifying, deadly waters.  Follow me, I say.  Just like someone offered us in those early days and years.
  Phoebe's death is the obvious loss, but there is so much more that nipped at our heels.  Its exhausting being around someone in devastating grief.  Ours was not familiar to anyone we knew.  It's not the same as losing a mother or father.  It wasn't like any of the miscarriages I'd had.  It's just not.  And its terrifying because it challenges what we like to consider impossible, controllable even.  We want to manage the course of our lives, making just the right choices to maintain a certain path, keep our kids safe.  People like me and my family surely must have done something wrong, or else Phoebe wouldn't have died.  And who wants to catch that cootie?
  And so my kids lost people who were a big part of their lives, and for children that's a really hard thing to understand ...its another loss.  Most people just quietly drifted away, but others created stories and reasons why we (me really!) were terrible, cruel people, freeing themselves from any kind of relationship with us. Today, I'm glad for it, because I know who our friends really are and I learned so much about my family, myself, humility, sacrifice, patience, forgiveness.   God teaches us everything we ask him too, often in ways that are enormously challenging and costly.
  We lost our common step, our way.  For a time.
  Today, six years later, I look at these six children of mine ...plus a new one in my new daughter-in-law ...who to me, is just a plain out daughter!  And I am in awe of them.  Each. One.  Amazing.  Our lives could have detoured in all directions.  But it is just where I would have it ...ready, with open arms to welcome Phoebe home.  It's as if she were still here ...my sweet, challenging, dynamic, witty, intelligent, vibrant girl!
  I brought Olivia home from school after six weeks of being away.  We arrived to an empty house and I could see her disappointment.  Why wasn't everyone awaiting her return?  Shortly after two cars pull in the driveway and the front stairs pound.  There is laughter and yelling and fighting over who gets there first.  By the time I come out of the kitchen, all my kids are fused together in one big hug.  They are holding and rocking, laughing through the welcoming of Olivia.  How different this might have looked; how we might have wandered off, each fighting to survive.
  God stayed at the center of this wild journey.  I've trusted God since the beginning, even before I said goodbye to Phoebe.  And I am so grateful for where we are today.  I am so grateful for the people in our lives who've stayed and tended.  And I'm grateful even for those who left, they gave what they had while they could.  I'm grateful for new people who've entered our lives since Phoebe's passing.  I know she had a hand in picking them.  I'm grateful my husband is the man he is, with the passion for his kids and family he shows every day.  I'm grateful to all of my 'Compassionate Friends' both ahead and behind me in this journey of life after such a loss.
  But most especially, I am grateful to God's generosity and His invitation to draw closer to Him and trust in all things.  He brought me Phoebe for a time, her time.  And if you knew her, you'd know what a blessing that is.  God has not left me.
  Please pray today for parents who've lost a child.  Beg they are surrounded by people genuine in their care.  Pray they find God and rest in His plan.
  On this terribly rainy Sunday ...we're off to the state championship regatta with both Hannah and Lucy rowing!  Phoebe would consider this a great race day, more so because of the rain!  The more elements to contend with the better; so today's weather is fitting, shows she's still in the mix.
  Looking for a victory ...and something tells me ...we've already won, no matter!