Dear Allison, is it still March, why is lasting so long, yet, how can it be your birthday week, and the Sunday that we would often celebrate as a family, how is that it is here so soon? Here it is, the wearin' of the green, you, almost a St. Patrick's Day baby, but waited a little longer. You, gracing the world with your 10 pound presence...and I know, you don't like that part of the story! But I DID, and DO, after all, how many mothers can say they delivered an over 10 pound baby...probably many, but to me, that was the start of something magnificent. Well, not the start, the whole pregnancy was incredible, had such moments that I almost didn't believe, carrying you longer than the 9 month plan! Nothing went according to design when it came to your life in the womb and your life thereafter...nothing. Yet everything. And, so, here I go again, the "teeter totter" of this experience, the up and down and views that would have been hidden if not for you. I am not sure I always saw it, or even appreciated it, while you were here, your first birthday, your tenth, your thirteenth, your eighteenth, then your 21st, the last one we had with you physically. Oh, I surely did find the laughter, who could not when you were in our lives, the calmness, the sweetness, the contentment. What baby sleeps through the night the first night she comes home and wakes up cooing and happy? You, that's who! What baby barely cried, but had the nature of an angel, as your parents walked around in almost a state of disbelief. You, that's who! Sometimes it was as if you were not really here, yet you were, just as I wrote to you the other day. Then you were gone, and I cannot, for the life of me, pinpoint where 21 years went.
When I think of how blessed we were to have you that long, and when I ask God to help me find contentment that those years were what we were destined to have, when I desperately want more, more time, more experiences, more laughter, more YOU, I hear your voice, encouraging, guiding, and whispering softly; BE BRAVE. And I will, Allie, I promise, I will be brave. I am. I have needed courage and determination and fortitude before, but this is different. This is not like that first time I held your sister and prayed she would live through her first week of life after being so sick, I was SO naive, thinking that all good would come to us all the days of our lives, this is not like entering the classroom to thirty eager third graders, this is not entering the library as a first time principal about to hold her first faculty meeting, all eyes on her, this is not being transferred to a new school community, not knowing anyone at all, but being expected to do the job, this is not like whispering in my father's ear for the last time just how much I love him, and always will, as he lay in his final moments in our home, this is not like holding my mother's hand as we knew we had to release her to the light that was calling her. This is like nothing at all. And still, I must be brave.
I must be brave and live this day. I must hold on to hope. But where do I get that hope, that moment of peace, that contentment, when my world seems to have been shattered into millions of pieces, all tear stained, and strange, and unknown and uncharted. I turn to God for the promise of hope, the answers that He will reveal, in His timing, and not in mine. I cling to His word, this day, when I should be putting on the birthday tablecloth, making your favorite foods and waiting for the family to arrive, all of this, on the Sunday that we always celebrated YOU. Now we celebrate YOU in new ways. We find our way, we honor one another, and we find that what one can do, the other cannot, too much pain, too many tears. So, we talk and respect and hold each other's hands as we are guided as to what to do.
This year, the number 25 resonates in ways that cannot be described. God knows how you were on the threshold of your life, and while others can tell me that He needed an angel, you are at peace, you are where you need to be, I can still miss you. I can still fall to my knees, and I can still wonder, WHY? HOW? I can still stare in disbelief at your photographs, and look into your eyes, capture the moments spent with your sisters and friends, and our family photos of four. I can still outline your cheek, rub my finger over the outlines, and kiss your face. Oh God truly knows a mother's pain in not being able to see you one more time, celebrate one more birthday, know and see the woman you would have become. True enough, 25 is just a number and where you are now, it means nothing. There are no years to add, worries to consume you, fear and pain of cancer going one more place in your physical body, one more side effect, one more treatment...only bliss, and beauty, and light. That is what I strive to comprehend as I think of you, this birthday week, you as a spirit, whispering, loving, teaching, molding from the place in my heart that needs to hold you close. I WILL be brave, Allie, I will.
It's birthday week, and I will do what I must, what I can, what comes to me, through the spirit above, from you, from God, from my heart and soul. Unlike my dear friend Kim, I cannot put the candles on the cake, I cannot always do the tangible, I cannot place the balloons at your grave, and I cannot always "celebrate" in that way, but I can do what I am led to do, what feels right and good,knowing you lead me to the places I am supposed to visit, even when I never leave the house.
I will honor this time, this birthday, and if it is through tears, that will be okay. I will do it my way, respecting myself, those I love, and God almighty who has given me the grace to stay strong, be brave, and continue...just continue.
My heart holds you close, with every breath, Mom
No comments:
Post a Comment