Writing calls to me; it does, but my daughter doesn't want a pathetic mother, someone who continues to wallow in the same words she pooled five years ago. Yet writing about anything other than my children seems somehow like betrayal.
Wade Garrett left for Mexico on New Year's Eve Day. His hobby, his relaxation, he says, is going on Missions. So he has been in Mexico all week serving at Big Heart Orphanage in Reynosa.. About Wednesday, I began receiving daily texts from numbers I recognize and numbers I don't. The messages all say something like - "this is your daily reminder that your son loves you, so much"
When I was dating his daddy, Joey used to say - "I love you like I did yesterday, and just a little bit more." So the gesture maybe hardwired into Wade's dna - but this mama's heart stands moved that our very driven 20 year old would orchestrate text messages from his friends to me - knowing he would be without cell service and that the silence would hurt. I am so proud of the man he has become and feel so loved.
Wade's thoughtfulness battles the emptiness, the sadness, a new year brings. I should feel closer to eternity, but I don't. I just feel farther away from Tay. So I pulled the baggie I keep a lock of her hair in - out yesterday. I held it to my face; I tried to drink in the scent of her as I closed my eyes and imagined her here with me, with us. And I cried - out loud. Not the silent sobs that I allow in the darkness of night when no one else has to suffer them - but loud sobs to fly head long in the face against the days that pass where no one says her name. Time alone I needed.
The weight of grief doesn't change but neither does the consistency of God's faithfulness. While I wish he would have provided us a way to keep our daughter - I am not blind to his hand on my heart when I am given time along to cry out loud, time to wrestle with my anger, unending love from a husband who lost his daughter, and a glimpse into the man my son is becoming,
I believe the same faithfulness caused me to send the following to a man who lost everything this year:
:As parents who have lost a child, I’m not sure we were made to see clearly, fully and I don’t think anything “good” will ever be enough. But if faith is believing in those things unseen, I have to believe that the goodness and mercy described directly after the psalmist describes the valley of the shadow of death will help me find the “good” -when I can see clearly.
It doesn’t change today’s anger or tomorrow’s sorrow or tonight’s fear. It’s just a place, a thought I am constantly led back to when my heart needs more.
Kind of like text messages from my sweet baby Wade's friends..."your son loves you"...
#golighttheworld
#bestrongandcourageous