As a result, the traffic begins to create a long line of cars trying to move toward a destination either to the west or east of their current location while they carefully navigate the remnants of what used to be four lanes 61st street..
I have made the mistake the last two days of leaving my office and turning left onto 61st street and into the heart of the construction, only to remember too late that I can't turn left at Memorial to take a more direct path. Thus, I wait in line. The intersection of 61st and Memorial sits at the bottom of a hill, so a driver can watch the east bound traffic climb the hill westward as they wait their turn to move through the crawling intersection. Arrive late enough, and a driver moving west, can rest atop the crest of a small hill and see the dozens of cars waiting to approach the intersection.
Once you've committed- on purpose or on accident-, you are stuck in the line without a detour, without an exit for several blocks.
I couldn't remember the woman's name who drove drunk, slammed her SUV into my daughter's VW bug and killed Taylor and injured her friends. I couldn't remember. For days this week, my mind would search for the woman's name finding only white space and the letter B. I thought it odd to not remember - but I have whole weeks and months that are completely missing from my memories.
"I just want my daughter back." I texted this to a friend earlier this week and she granted me permission to be angry. That word - angry - kind of hovered around my heart as I read her text. Am I still angry?
Yes. I am still angry but I can't remember the driver's name. I don't even think about her. I didn't think about her until I got trapped on 61st street with the orange cones and my memories of that night. So with whom am I angry?
God. I am still mad at God.
I am still without the answer to why...
My husband doesn't ask questions to which answers will never come but I don't have that kind of mental discipline so I often return to this question. When I realized, I was still mad at my heavenly father, silent humility captured my heart along with this knowledge. He has taken my anger toward the driver and welcomed it upon his shoulders.
Abba, my heart whispered.
What a true daddy to take that which would be poison to me and others and take it upon himself.
There are not detours from grief - the road Joey and I planned to travel down has been forever altered and orange cones will always litter our path blocking us from the future we had planned. Barricades lay where college graduation should have been, where a wedding should have been, where grandchildren should have been, where a beautiful life should have been.
When I realized with whom I am still angry, I marvel at this being who continues to call me to him and covers me with grace even when I am so angry.. Our path lies torn up, forever under construction, strewn with reminders of what should have been, with only remnants of the work we had begun. Along the way, accompanying our memories and our stolen dreams, while we wait until we can leave this broken world, the road always takes us to the power that brought us together and that gave us Taylor Renee and sweet baby Wade.
I would much rather whisper a prayer of gratitude while I listened to the banter of my children in the back seat of our car. I would choose that any day.
Since I can't I will wait in line and be thankful God continues to wait in line with me.
#golighttheworld