So Much In A Day

There is so much to seize in just one day. I go back to why I entitled this blog, "This Is The Day", many months ago when I felt the need to release and sort out feelings and thoughts through my fingers that seem to fly and barely stop on the keyboard, as if the internal release cannot escape fast enough. It's still that way, and it is still my morning message from God, to take the day He created and make it the best, the best I can for that moment, that hour or that day. Where would I be without those words (...this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it)..., even on the days of despair, and pain, and sorrow, and on days when phone call after phone call seems to bring sorrowful news. There is so much goodness to share and embrace, but when one is in the trenches of finding out how to live again, to move, even learning a new way of breathing, eating, shopping, socializing, it can be a difficult job to "see" the blessings. But they ARE there, and I am thankful. I've kept that blessing journal for so many months now to help me focus on the beauty and the rapture in my world, especially when it seemed no sense could, or would, ever be made of this loss, a mother's journey in grief. And I've mentioned that sometimes the blessings were so simple, the only ones I could see from the couch that brought me comfort each and every day. I see common threads...coffee with Jennifer, opportunity to make her breakfast, walk with Barkley, late afternoon chats with Joe, phone calls from family or friends, even on those days I couldn't pick up the phone, sunlight streaming in all the windows of this house, even though it showed how much housework was NOT getting done:) Common threads that held, and still hold, me together.

Sometimes I know I am turning that corner, for when newly grieving mothers turn to me now, to make sense of the madness, to try to comprehend how you weave your life back together with all that is missing, how to cope with friends who say the most insensitive things because they just do not know, how to shop in the same places, how to break a 20 year pattern of being with their child, and hearing their voices everyday...when those phone calls come, I shake my head to myself and I know this is what God had planned for me, and this is what makes Allison smile from the heavens. Her death was not in vain, she is teaching us, by using God's own words, to take the day, make the best we can from it, and help each other along the way. By choice, I would have remained ignorant of all this entails, but choice and control were not part of this equation. It was clearly designed by God above for His distinct purpose, and on this day, I see that so poingantly, feel it so intrinsically, and am thankful for the blessing of being the one chosen. That is not to mean in the next minute I won't be brought to my knees by a vision, a memory, a fragrance, a girl driving down Kisker Road in her white headband, ponytail flying in the breeze, loving life in her gold sebring convertible. That is not to mean that when we head to Hull, or celebrate Jen's upcoming 27th birthday we won't feel the pang and emptiness of a family that has been pulled apart, but stands together through the veil of pain and loss. But for now, I can smile, and know in my heart, I am being held up for the bigger plan, the bigger purpose, and when God deems it time for the sweet reunion, Joe, Jennifer, and I will know we served Him well.