Category: grief

Wrestling Alone

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“So Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.  Genesis 32:24 NIV”

We all know what it’s like to be alone. 

A spouse leaves.  A child dies. Friendships separate. A move happens. Pain sets in.  Grief, for what is lost, permeates the deepest crevices of our souls. 

We wonder if God has left too. 

When our 3 year old daughter died suddenly, my faith was shaken to the core.  Having been a Christian my whole life, I was shocked by the questions of unbelief and doubt that flitted through my mind.

One hot summer day, I sat weeping by her grave.  I looked up at the clear blue sky and asked God, if he existed, to show me that he and Heaven were real. In that grief stricken moment of feeling so lost and alone, I longed for simple reassurance that I would indeed see my daughter again, because at that instant, I really didn’t know. 

Through tears, my eyes focused on a wilted rose left from the delicate pink casket spray.  Someone had stuck its long stem into the dirt right where I sat. I began tugging gently on the ugly, dead stem.  Up, up it came. As the last part of brown cleared the clods of dirt, a tiny, fresh green leaf unfurled its beauty.  With heaving sobs, I realized the significance of God’s answer to me at that very second. He calmed my weary soul, sending his message through a single dead flower that wasn’t so dead after all.  

Jacob knew about being alone. 

He’d met God while on the run from Esau. He had zero family near, was unsure of his future, and had no place to sleep except a pile of stones he used as a pillow.  

Soon after, his life changed.  God’s blessing and abundance became evident.  Returning to his homeland meant facing fears of how Esau would respond. The night before the big reunion, Jacob heard Esau was headed his way with a band of 400 men.  He sent presents for Esau, his 4 wives, and his passel of youngins ahead, then stayed alone at the spot where, unbeknownst to him, he would meet God once more. All night he wrestled with what the Bible refers to as “a man”.  At daybreak, Jacob begged the man to bless him before he left. 

God did.  

Jacob named the place Peniel, saying “it is because I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared”. 

Through our ongoing grief, I have found odd comfort in wrestling with God.  After all, He created me, mind and intellect. He knows my questions before I ask them.  His shoulders are big enough to carry the weight of my inquiries. Sometimes He answers in colossal, magnificent ways. Other times he gently brings me face to face with seemingly insignificant, dead flowers.

Thankful for the Locusts

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So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust, my great army which I sent among you.  

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,  And praise the name of the Lord your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you;  And My people shall never be put to shame.  

Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel:  I am the Lord your God and there is no other. Joel 2:23-25 NKJV

I have always loved writing and began blogging as a means of recording “God sightings” in our family’s day to day moments. Those who know me well, know me as the hopelessly addicted to picture taking, post to social media freak.  I have always said that’s proof of the good times. 

After grief came, I wondered if the sun would ever shine again. Would good times grace our lives again?

We’d walked through infertility.   

Grief visited then too, but in a different way. 

I grieved what I perceived as wasted years.  

Afterall, didn’t God put the desire in me to be a mommy? 

Seasons changed.  

I always picture God giggling as He blessed us with 4 babies in 4 years. 

I was finally living the life I was destined for.  

His plan however was different than mine, when he called our Abby back to heaven unexpectedly after 3 short years here.     

My knowledge of grief was suddenly obsolete. 

I struggled with remembering God’s goodness when grief came.  From my point of view, the locust called grief destroyed all the joy we had known, leaving life bland, empty. 

As I have thought more in depth about the locusts, Job 2:10 kept coming to mind.  I love how it reads in the amplified Bible. “Shall we indeed accept only good from God and not also accept adversity and disaster?”  Job had just lost everything and I mean EVERYTHING, his home, his livestock, his crops, his kids.   Now Satan was attacking his physical body as well. His wife, bless her grieving heart, advised him to curse God and die.  (There’s a whole nother lesson for another day…) The verse ends with an admonition that still issues challenge for us thousands of years later.  “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” 

He trusted that the God who had blessed him richly would take care of him during hardship and extreme adversity and loss. 

Same for me.

Despite my wrestling and many questions, God stayed close, constantly revealing himself as the faithful God he is.

Since then, my goal has been to make the best of messy, and to focus on God’s restoration of joy, even in our broken and to encourage others to do so also. 

Times & Seasons

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“And the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 1 Peter 5:10 NIV”

Today is not only the start of a brand new day, but a brand new season for me. Through an extended period of illness for me, we made the decision as a family to put both our daughters into the public school. Having known nothing else but the homeschooling I have done for almost a decade, I feel a little lost when I get up in the morning, even though I still home school my 7th grade son.

As I look back on our journey, I see very clearly how God’s divine hand led us to and through the places we’ve been. I did not set out to home school. But after many years of infertility and also having worked as a teacher’s assistant I went gung ho into the process.

It was indeed the best yes for our family’s season as we grieved the sudden loss of Abby. Grief can not be hurried or placed on a time table. We were able to putter about and do what needed doing in that time.

Back to the present…I have always loved writing and for as long as I can remember have written. I come from a heritage of writers. My grandfather was a devout Amish man who from my earliest memories sat holed up in his office pecking away at a manual typewriter writing for the Family Life magazines he founded or the Amish newspaper, the Budget. As a young child I pondered how one could possibly spent all that time tucked away.

I get it now. It’s in my blood.

My uncle Ira is soon releasing his second book after his first called “Growing up Amish” became a New York Times best seller. Along the way I’ve picked his brain and he’s always been super encouraging.

Both men are my inspiration.

Over the years, I have had much encouragement to write. As I have spent time exploring God’s call on my life, it has become apparent that writing may just be a piece of that puzzle.

Though I don’t yet know if me writing is for the greater good, or simply for my own healing and encouragement. I do know God has offered me the gifts of time, a support network, and a small platform where I can make my mark on my world, all gifts I can not refuse.

Our guest speaker at church yesterday, John Troyer, spoke directly into my vision. He talked of being plucky and asked us to raise our hands if we saw ourselves as that. Only one or two did. He then went on to explain that plucky is defined as “having or showing determined courage in the face of difficulties” I was to intimidated to raise my hand but after church my sweet husband questioned me about if I had raised my hand. At my reply, he stated quite abruptly that plucky defines me perfectly.

John explained how we are all pretty much created fully and completely average. Reassuring, isn’t it? But then we all have an assignment from God that is not limited by those around us. He finished by challenging us to remember that pluckiness keeps going and how each of us must allow God’s dream to be planted in us.

So, today, with my dream in hand I set out on a new adventure. It may seem a little scary and a whole lot intimidating, but I have a finished manuscript that has already passed several editing processes and just needs me to be brave enough to write an actual proposal, so I can get it published. I choose to embrace my new season with joyful anticipation because I know who’s with me.

“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; Do not be discouraged….Deuteronomy 31:8”

And If Not

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I’ve been sitting on these 3 small, seemingly insignificant tittles of our English language for quite some time. Continued notions zoom by as I have played them over and over intertwining them with the plaguing unanswered questions that seem to be on constant replay.

I have noted myself to be a person of contrast, sometimes gullible and easily swayed, yet firmly grounded in what I have found to be truth.

My parents taught me about prayer at a young age, a gift I cherish and enjoy to this day. They showed me God’s personal side, and his love for us, his beautiful creation, and how very much He pays attention to the small details in our lives.

As I have grown older, I find myself somewhat callous and honestly, at times, questioning. Do my prayers matter? Is God really who he says he is? Is Heaven real?

The heavy load of grief has saddled many a dear soul close to me, including my own.

Sometimes I find myself wondering why we even pray for healing, financial miracles or restoration of a marriage.

Did I just say that out loud?

Recently though I was reminded of the why we do exactly that.

A sweet friend recently lost her husband to a brutal brain tumor. On the post announcing his passing, the one line caught my eye. Through my tears, I have gone back to it several times. “although our hearts are broken, we rejoice with him that our prayers for complete healing were answered…”

God did not close his ears to the prayers of healing for this man, he just answered them in a different way then hoped.

Heaven is perfection, complete healing. Whereas staying here presents the reality of continued pressures, problems and pain.

While seasons may bring us to different places in our thought processes, the reality of our foundation is God’s faithfulness and knowledge of what we truly need most.

He invites us to ask the most difficult questions with the assurance that his shoulders are big enough to handle them.

His call to us is simple yet profound.

In Matthew 17 he says, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

He, sweet friend, is bigger and more capable then the what we see as unanswered prayers and every “and if not” moment we face.

All I Want For Christmas

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This past year I enrolled in a fabulous writing course which has opened up a whole new world for me. As I have hungrily devoured each lesson, repetitive encouragement has been to “find my voice”. As I have started to find bits and pieces of that answer, fear has intimidated my inner soul.

What if people don’t like “my” voice?

What if my story is not unique enough to make a difference?

What if I am not able to be true to the calling God has etched in my heart?

The past 2.5 years have seemed to play out on repeat. As I peruse the stuff I’ve penned in that time much of it has similar tones of questioning, sickness and pain. But in the masses of words, I also see the promises of a better tomorrow and of God’s faithfulness.

We are in a season.

Since grief came, I sometimes wonder if the seasons of hard stuff will ever cycle around and bring happier times again? According to the Bible it’s got to. Ecclesiastics says “to everything there is a time and a season…”

The past weeks have had me wondering if the season of sickness for me will ever end. For the 3rd year in a row, my illness is preventing our Christmas trip to see my family in the sunny south.

Day after day I continue to feel poorly, fight fevers and infection and miss out on things I really want to be apart of. It’s made me quite grumpy really. Ask my family.

As I think about finding my voice and ultimately honoring God with my life, I keep coming face to face with the compelling reality of speaking about God and his love for me, even when the season is long and hard and boring. After all it’s not my words that need saying, but His. And His words will not go out void.

So as I pen out my thoughts, I must align them with His. Instead of wallowing in self pity, I must instead reflect on His blessings. This thought process changes my perceived needs.

While I could write a list a mile long of all the things I think I want and even need, I will chose simple instead.

Help me to cherish the moments.

Help me to be truly thankful.

Help me to be smack dab in the center of your perfect plan for me.

5 Tips For Cultivating Gratitude

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In a study noted at Harvard, psychologists found that giving thanks can actually make you happier. They also found gratitude helpful for people focusing on what they had, instead of what they lacked. 

As fall turns to winter, shorter amounts of daylight breed depression for many.

Instead of succumbing to the negative, why not try gratitude instead?

#5. Write a thankyou note to someone who has made a difference in your life.  

A real honest to goodness stamped envelope or postcard in the mailbox is an extra treat in a society bombarded with instant everything. 

Thank your hairstylist for the great cut you get each month.  Compliment your pastor for the time he spent on last week’s sermon. Tell your child’s teacher how much you appreciate the extra time they spent helping Johnny with a harder concept.  Look up someone from your childhood who made a difference for you during those tough preteen/teen years. Your parents, spouse, children and friends are excellent choices as well.

#4. Thank God (out loud) for the green light and the open parking spot.

Our children hear us loud and clear.  The vocal grumping at the slow poke driver in the fast lane needs to be balanced by thanks for the non irritating parts of the day.  Or, you could try thanking God for the slow poke. 

#3. Keep A Prayer Journal.

Sometimes writing out requests helps our focus become less selfish.  Charting answers to prayer can provide a faith boost. The Harvard study also stated that people who pray and meditate are more grateful. 

#2. Start a “3 Things” Tradition with your family. 

At the end of each day, whether at dinner or at bedtime, have each family member name 3 things they are grateful for.   It can be the good supper mom made, or the play date with a best friend. We live in a warm house and our shoes don’t have holes in them. You get the idea. 

#1. Be intentional.

After Abby died, I found it a chore to get out of bed each day. 

My sweet friend Sara introduced me to the idea of taking pictures and making an Instagram post each morning about 1 thing that brought me joy or that I was thankful for. What started as a 30 day challenge, ended up being a year plus of daily posts.   Even though the time included hospitalization with a scary illness, there was still always something good if I chose to look for it. Being intentional takes work but is so rewarding!

Psalms 9:1 says,  “ I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.” He has blessed us indeed.  The least we can do is live with a heart of gratitude!

What are you most thankful for today? I’d love to hear your list!

Magnificent Adversity ~ Finding Purpose in Pain

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His face seemed sad as he sat quietly beside me. I could tell he wanted to chat, to tell me the thoughts currently plaguing his mind.  

I struggled knowing the right questions to ask, though I could guess exactly what was coming.  

I had urged him to go to an overnight multi church event, telling him it would be fun. 

He’d been hesitant, but agreed to go. 

Since his little sister died 5 years ago, sleep has been an issue, so I obtained permission for him to bring his audio book and a noise machine our family has found to be helpful, pushing back the worry that it may be another way to set him apart. 

Sure enough.  

I watched my son, with tears in his eyes, explain how he had been the object of jokes and how the other boys had told him in plain english that he just wasn’t cool enough to be with them.  

Ugh.

I’ve thought as he’s grown, that boys are so much less drama than girls.  

How incorrect my assumption!   

I know my son is different.  

He’s left handed, dislexic, and big for his age.  

He prefers entertaining younger children over playing games with his peers and still, at age 12,  loves Thomas the Tank engine. 

He’s never been into playing ball or sports of any kind, thought we’ve offered to get him involved. 

Despite the list of things he’s not, he is a mastermind at fixing things. 

He is my troubleshooter, fixing anything from my broken food processor to the tv remote. 

Reading the hard copy of a book is not his strength but he has devoured close to a hundred full length, age/grade appropriate audio books in the past few months. 

Parenting has had many surprising twists and turns. 

I did not anticipate the sheer amount of drama that presents its ugly self each day. 

I remember some drama as a kid but the stuff my kids have experienced makes me contemplate moving the family to a deserted island. 

Just kidding of course.  

In all seriousness though, I long to protect them and just make things be ok. I wish life would treat them kindly.  Not that we need a pass for doses of extra kindness, but from my vantage point, grief pretty much made their playing field uneven, rough at the edges.  

I pray for Godly, kind friendships for each of my children and that they could be kind as God is kind, loving the unlovely and the unpopular. 

Mostly, I hope that I am not making them into feeble, frail persons who as adults will embrace a victim mentality, holding on tightly to every hurtful situation.  

As I continue to observe their stories unfolding, I am made painfully aware of how much I am just like them, insecure, awkward, unsure of who exactly God made me to be. 

This past year has been a real exercise in reminding myself almost daily that I am not the sum of what people have said and surmised me to be.

The pain of being labeled and defined by one’s weakness and past can squeeze the very life out of a hurting soul. 

It’s especially difficult when the most hateful of actions and words come from those professing the name of Christ. 

My teenage daughter spoke complete truth from one of our family’s lowest points this past summer stating simply that if the actions we have seen represent Christianity, she wants nothing of it, no part!

What then is the basis of living like Jesus, learning what God is trying to teach us and finding the good in our adversities?  

1 Thessalonians 5:11 says very simply “Encourage one another and build each other up”….

How do we do that?

The start may simply be understanding that God created each and everyone of us with meaning and purpose and treating those around us with that awareness. 

I recently sat through a super fun, community class where the main focus was studying personality differences.  We looked at our own strengths, weaknesses, joys and needs and then evaluated which other natures we get along with the easiest and how very important it is to remember the need for each and every personality God created. 

While some of the hard times in life revolve around more than simple personality differences, evaluating the reactions of others based on how God created them may help us extend grace much more freely. 

Maybe our focus is key?  

I am hoping that my children will see me work through my own pain, insecurity and awkwardness in healthy ways and that they will find the courage to seek and find God’s unique purpose for each of them and offer that grace to others. 

Living Deliberately

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Today my sweet friend buries her mother.

As I sat and chatted with her a few weeks back, she shared how she had helped her mom pick out the dress and jewelry she would be buried in. As I stood at the casket admiring the sparkle of the fabric and the beauty of the necklace, my mind of course went back to another time and another casket and the thoughts of those moments swirling in my brain.

Each death I observe seems to have that jarring effect.

My mom lost her first sibling a few months back, a brother just younger then her. They were close. My siblings and I are close to his kids. Watching them grieve has made me think about life in that sobering, change your thinking kind of way. Again.

After Abby died, I thought for sure I would never slip back into my old complacency and the lack of living intentionally. Sadly, I all to easily find myself there.

I don’t know if I will ever come to the place where guilt does not plague the thoughts of my last moments with her.

I was busy, to busy to stop and enjoy the moments.

As much as I know guilt is not the place to live, I struggle with the muddle at that very thin line between feeling sadly and living in peace.

Relationships and life in general can be intense and exhausting. Watching my friend and my cousins cope with the reality of sickness and death has reminded me much how the effort of multiple weekend trips or the time for the phone call are to soon memories and the only tokens left of the life of someone who was a deep integral part of our very foundation.

As I wrote much on my facebook grief page, I often ended with “mamas, GO hug your babies”.

That hug, smile or kind words may be the last moments we get to share.

We don’t know.

We aren’t promised tomorrow.

All we have are the moments right in front of us right now.

For me that means putting down my device or the work I think will never end and listening to my sweet daughters who both still love to talk to me, sometimes incessantly. It means hugging my touch loving son multiple times a day. It’s about calling my own sweet mama for our daily chat.

It boils down to cherishing the good, the bad and the ugly and embracing a life of intentional love.

5 years

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The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God…

Fyoder Dostoevsky

I often wondered how I might feel as this date approaches. 5 years. 5 long years. 5 years since God decided it was time for one of his gifts to come back to Him. I had thought prior to this part of our journey, that I would not be able to physically bear the loss. But I have survived. We have survived through God and his strength alone.

It’s hard to know how and when grief will present itself again and crush you into a crumbled heap reliving the nightmare that never ends. I have not cried as I did on a daily basis for quite sometime, until today. It feels only natural to go back through the detail of the memories of the event and the days surrounding it.

One day our life was normal. We walked along together.

Then grief came and we experienced death and our lives were overturned, upset forever.

I was always one who stayed as far away from death as possible. I thought people who took pictures of death were the oddest creatures alive. (deceased in casket etc) But on this side of death and grief, it looks different. And though the pictures were the hardest to look at for the first while, they are strangely comforting now. **warning: stop reading here if you are like I used to be…pics to follow. Several different persons took the photos in this blog. Evonda Marner, Janice Marner, Shawna Riche, Alaynna Schwartz, Natalie Yutzy….

This is the hardest to look at. I can still feel deeply the inability to breathe. I can remember the people around and family and friends singing “Safe In the Arms of Jesus” as the last machine was unplugged. How quickly her little body grew stiff, is a sensation I wish I could erase. And then we had to sign the hundreds of papers ok-ing donation of her eyes, her tissue, which never happened due to infection. Janice stayed with her as she got cleaned up and got all the wires taken off. Then it was time for final goodbyes before she was taken for autopsy.

Then there was the walk from the hospital to our van. I kept feeling lost. So lost. I only had 3 children with me and I often said that feeling is like stepping out the door and realizing you have no clothes on or leaving for town and forgetting your purse….

Funeral planning. Ahhh that part. It’s not natural. Children plan their parent’s funeral. Not vice versa. It’s seriously the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Thankfully Janice and friend Karma did a lot of thinking and planning for us. Thinking about capturing her memory added a lot of flavors to the week and to the actual funeral service. Pink and red toe nails, bare feet, minnie mouse and tidbits from Frozen brought bits of reprieve to the nonstop tears. And the friends and family who came from everywhere. Though my memory is a bit clouded the beauty of the love and care we were surrounded with shown through the pictures is a tribute to family and friends.

The autopsy drug out the time and made us wait several days for the funeral. My 93 year old old order amish grandfather insisted on coming which was so special. He and his sister Rachel were among the few left from their generation. We saw well over a thousand people at the visitation, which took it’s toll on my body and I remember little of the later hours, except my uncle Ira telling people to move aside so they could wheel me out in a wheel chair because the world was spinning and black.

My 93 year old Grandpa
  • Grandpa’s sister Rachel. She lost a young child once too and kept checking on Abby…

Then it was time for the funeral and the longest, hardest walk no mama should ever have to take.

I never noticed how my sister Janice and I look like one person here. But that woman did my breathing for me during the darkest part.

Some of us sat barefoot for the service. Someone brought a recliner in for Grandpa.

The service was filled with special tributes including my brother and sister’s beautiful rendition of Jesus Loves me. Not sure how to put it in here correctly but click on link to here it….

https://www.facebook.com/dorothy.miller.142/videos/vb.1751572627/4338775884869/?type=3

Then it was time to say our final goodbyes.

We ended the day with the release of a bunch of red balloons.

Life has gone on. God has walked with us. With each passing day we are adapting to our new normal forever remembering the zesty 3 almost 4 year old who will forever be a part of our favorite memories.

Abby Marie 9/14/10 ~ 7/15/14

It’s grief week…

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Well folks, the time is here.
That time of year when Dorothy gets all sappy and posts a million things more in addition to her usual blather.
Grief week ~ year number 3.
I had made big plans this year to have everything be more normal, more low key.
Then death and terminal illness reared their ugly heads around me.  And due to my process, I have learned those to be trigger hot spots for my emotions.
So I sit to write the splattering of jumble bumbling around in my brain which should be comfortably asleep. 
Nope, the lovely PTSD is sending the old images crashing through the back corners of my mind.
Tonight I waited to go to bed till I was good and tired.  I took a long soak, talked to God a while and thought happy thoughts.  I was relaxed till the first second I laid my head on that pillow. I close my eyes and there she is scampering out the door in her purple 3 sizes to small swimsuit, tittering on her tippy toes cause the suit is still wet…and I am to busy to do what my gut says.

 

 

 
Regret on top of the flashbacks sits me straight up in bed, gasping for air, tight bands constricting my chest.
I pray. 
I know HE is there, but so is the horror. 
So I resign myself to going where there is light to chase the dark away and where I can safely voice my inner struggle.  Here I write. More prayer and a good glass of bubbly are my aids.
 
 
We have tried many coping mechanisms. 
Some of them work. 
Some of them don’t. 
I internalize people’s words. 
I am sure much of what has caused much brooding was not so intended.
It’s that people pleasing part of me that does not always do me well.
A conversation last week which left me feeling like a squished bug,  firmed up the plan to “move on along” and “get on with life”.  It bothered me when it was so spoken, but man! has it eaten at me ever since.  I wish I wouldn’t have been so complacent in my response. On one hand I wanted to punch the broad and yell that she had never faced this type of loss and that she should sit quietly by hoping that she never would, instead of issuing such branded statements.  But I sat there, smiled and agreed, even trying to point out ways we are moving along.
Now don’t get me wrong, moving along is all good and well and necessary. 
But grief is unpredictable.
The 100 miles we got ahead yesterday may be meaningless in the 101 we got set back today.
 
 
I feel we are relatively healthy emotionally for where we are and for where we have been.
Our counselor told me recently that our lives will most likely always be laced with PTSD as well as the happy now untouchable memories. It’s not the greatest of outlooks, but it’s ours so it’ll have to do.
 
We talk of death now as we would food and drink and other parts of daily life.
Some friends of ours had a miscarriage this week at 18 weeks along.  We talked of another sweet girl up with Abby.
Today we chatted about that family fun day we had with Thomas the tank engine just months before Abby died and how she acted that day. She was the only one not afraid of Sir Topham Hat. (yes…”Sir Topham hat was cross…”)  It made us all giggle. 
I think that’s the one thing I miss the most is her giggle.  Sometimes I fear it is fading so that I will not remember.  But her loud, rambunctious spirit came through in her laugh. Her smile really did light up a place.
 
 
 



 
I miss holding her and how after seemingly endless years, I was suddenly not mommy to a preschooler, just in the blink of an eye.
 
It hit me this week how odd it is to not sign cards from our family with her name.
 
I still feel lost and incomplete at times when we are all in the car, like I am there in just my under ware or that my purse is still inside on the counter. 
She is not there. Life is upside down.  We long for Heaven and Jesus and the day all will be upright once more..
 
I need to re do the bows on the fence where we feel she met her amazing Creator. They are tattered and torn.  They aren’t really all that sentimental but are from the first Abby memorial event we did. I was mowing close by the other day and almost couldn’t continue when I got close….Maybe this week I will have the energy.
 
Kali is heading to her first Bible camp and first week away from home.  We are both a tad nervous and I am sure that is not all that helpful for the process of trying to “feel” calm in this season.  She has openly asked us if she will die at camp.  Of course the question always takes me off guard and leaves me with that kick in the gut feeling.  I think we have handled it ok….
While it is a tough feeling I know she will thrive and have the time of her life this week. I know we have to encourage her to spread her wings. I know she can not “stay” with us forever. 
In the same breath I also know we are not guaranteed tomorrow.
I have thought a zillion times about how I made Abby stay at vacation Bible school just a few weeks before she died. It was good for her and she ended up loving it and after the first night or two of loud screeching and hiding behind my legs.  I wonder if I had known I was down to just a few more weeks with her if I had not chosen to block off the calendar and spend every single possible moment with her?
I know I have to come to grips with the anxiety that “normal” parents probably face too and balance that with my grief infused life and then turn the whole lump over to the one who has faithfully provided sustenance and hope in this awful journey.
But let me tell you, It ain’t easy.
As I sit contemplating the week ahead, I know we will continue actively walking the grief road.
I know we have progressed and made choices that are our families best yes in the yucky. I know we have a wonderful support network who won’t forget. (You have no idea the gift that remembering her is to us…)  I know we will most likely shed a few tears as we remember. And I know God is not tired of our tears and continues to give breath when we don’t always know where the next one is gonna come from.
For this I am so grateful.
 
And I am grateful to each of you for continuing to walk this painful journey with us.  Your love and support means more then words can say….
 
 
Abby Marie Miller
9/14/10 ~ 7/15/14