365 Days Ago

365 days ago we watched, from somewhere outside ourselves, a nightmare unfold before our very eyes. I've replayed the 2:30am phone call over and over in my mind this past year: the trip to the ER, the nausea while trying to grasp the news that Michelle and her baby had left us on earth, remembering the exact words spoken to me. For the longest time every time I laid down to sleep at night, my mind would go there, back to the ER, back to the funeral home, back to the extreme sadness written on my family's faces (especially my children's) and the sound it made in their voices. I still fight those memories at times, especially at night. Even now there are nights I awake to look at the clock and thank the Lord that I made it past 2:30am for another night and thank Him that my loved ones on earth are safe. We walked through that next week without being able to focus. It was like everything was a blur. We couldn't think straight. Decision making became very difficult. The days ran together and even now, looking back, I have no idea how the clock ticked by the first week, what we did most of the time, how we spent large chunks of time, it is gone from my memory. I do know that over and over again we asked ourselves questions. "Why us?" and the answer I heard each time was, "Why not you?"

We've accomplished many milestones over this past year. Milestones that didn't include my funny friend and sister-in-law. We missed her every.single.day. I can't tell you how many times my thoughts started to form to the phone call that I impromptu planned, or the text my mind started to send her about something funny that happened. Even more so, we missed her on the holidays that we checked off our list almost right away. We checked off birthdays: Archie's, Michelle's and Jade's birthdays. Mother's Day brought on new meaning as I recalled the promise I made to Michelle to try and fill her mothering role if needed, even though we both knew "it" would never happen. Summer camp came and went for Madison without the traditional care package from Aunt Michelle filled with candy nor the 3 letters in one day, making her sing to get them. Jade's first day of kindergarten was prefaced by, "I wish Mommy was here to see me go to school." Even on Madison's October birthday I found myself ready to say, "It's strange that Aunt Michelle hasn't called you yet," and quickly thanked the Lord that I caught myself before the words fell out of my mouth. It some ways 365 days feels like 3.65 days. In other ways it feels like it's been 3650 days. Grief. It means so many things that it deserves to be the only word in a sentence and works as the beginning, middle and ending. Sorry English teachers. Grief.

This week we've spent extra time reflecting on our year. I've fought my emotions off and on all week. Tony's 99 year old grandmother passed away on Wednesday of this week. Our belief is that she and Michelle have been reunited together in heaven, and that gives us comfort. My mind is much more clear this November. I can more easily redirect my painful thoughts and more readily turn them around to other things. The following are a few things I'm redirecting my thoughts to and I'm choosing to linger on these things...

• From the moment I made my first phone call on that night, my friends were immediately at my side, beginning way before dawn on that day, taking over and taking control of the immediate situation. Thinking more clearly when I certainly could not. Later that morning, one friend asked what she could do for me. I had a huge caffeine headache that Saturday morning and asked her just to bring me a Diet Pepsi. She blessed me and brought me a whole case of Diet Pepsi instead. Our friends and family dropped everything for us time and time again. These gifts of time and listening ears were the greatest gifts we received. They truly were and they still truly are.
• We were blessed by prayers from others on our behalf. Some prayed with us in person and some even by email. Hundreds of people told us they were praying for us and we felt blessed that they brought our names before our God. Countless Bible verses gave us hope time and time again to face another day.
• We spent all of our time that first week at Don & Isy's house, being comforted by many friends and family that were quickly arriving. In the evening when we went home, we were blessed to find that our neighbors had raked all of our leaves to try and ease our burden. Family came from Kansas and Iowa and family blessed us by taking Jade and entertaining her with swimming for an afternoon. She wanted everyone to "stop talking about my mom" and this gave her the perfect way to escape the adults for several hours.
• Flowers, plants, Willow Tree Angels, picture frames, books, blankets, Kleenex : ) and FOOD began arriving from friends and family who wished to bless us by appealing to our senses with pleasant things to look at, feel, smell and taste, in attempt to comfort our hearts.
• We arrived home from our local and Iowa services to find our grocery list fulfilled, our linens all washed and replaced, Cocoa had been taken to/from the kennel without us giving it a thought and the reassurances that "drive-by's" were made to our homes while we were gone.
• The support at work... the incredible support that my colleagues gave to me. I can only describe those first first few weeks back to work as literally excruciating, to listen to chronic pain patients tell me about their physical pain when I was suffering so.much. emotional pain of which they knew not. I cannot tell you how many times and how close I was to drawing blood from biting the inside of my lip hard enough to hold it together in front of these. There were lots of hugs and listening ears and even some anger shared by these friends at work. They were one step away from the situation which really helped me see things from another perspective. One day I prayed all day for God to just show me a glimpse of His face, just a peek, believing that some of the brightness and joy would surely wear off of me for I felt none in my heart. It was that day that a colleague spoke a few very simple words of love to me in attempt to relieve my emotional pain away, blessing me by being my answer to prayer that day although she knew nothing of my request.
• Phone calls and door knocks. Just this week I received a phone call from a friend who said, "I'm calling to see what I can do for you." Barely 24 hours later, my door bell rang and I opened the door to a different friend who asked this question, "I'm just stopping by to see what I can do for you." You ladies made me melt. The one standing in front of me had to see it too. : ) Do you know what a blessing you were to me this week?

I could go on and on and on. I really could. Yes, it's been the most painful year of our lives BUT it has also been the most BLESSED year of our lives. How do those words fit together in the same sentence? Isn't that an oxy-moron? Pain and blessed aren't words that go together. I'm still trying to fit my mind around all of these facts from the last year. Grief. I've found the best way to answer all of the questions about our future was with this analogy... I describe that I feel like I'm standing with my nose right next to a picture of our future... so close that I can't see it, I can't make out what it looks like at all. Each month I've moved my head a little farther away from the photo. I can make out the people in the picture but I can't quite tell what they are all doing. That's where we are at today. We can see you there, in the picture with us, and for that we are truly grateful. We like you there. : ) I choose to look forward to moving a little farther away from the picture, looking at how life unfolds from here and believing the whole picture will gradually fall into focus. I'm excited to watch how God's perfect plan will unfold for my life. Even though I don't know what the picture is right now, I know that my faith, family and friends are already in it. May the Lord bless you all as richly as He has blessed me. I love you.