Remembering

Remembering...

Every day I remember sweetnesses about my boy. Some days I remember his smile, or his voice. I remember his little red ukelele. I remember the baseball and soccer and basketball,etc, etc... We have many Timmy stories that have become common family memories--Joel has even been known to say "Remember when Timmy....?" It is so wonderful to remember that which makes us smile.
But some days other memories will invade my heart, my mind, my vision. Last week as we drove home from a quick lunch with daddy during his work-day, my memories betrayed me. Usually I can keep them relegated to the beautiful, tender moments. The ones that bring joy, albeit bittersweet. But this day they were very disobedient and they strayed to darkness, even my darkest day.
I tried to push them back. tried not to remember. But they were very persistent. I had done well to black out this day. For who wants to remember the day you bury your child. Your first-born. Your treasure. At first I was thankful I could remember very little, but then the few memories that broke through taunted me through the haze. I saw the box, wooden, small. My husband, the light gone from his eyes, as I'd never seen before, held one corner. His brothers, strong and quiet, each held a corner. I could not remember who held the fourth. I still cannot. I desperately want to know, but I cannot bring myself to ask him. I don't want to make him remember that day.
most of it is lost, and I don't try to find it. But I remember standing, holding the one who was holding me. I remember Terri's beautiful voice, for she has always been my favorite, singing "Jesus Loves Me". I remember the first clod of dirt. And I said to my love, "let's go. he's not here." And we turned and we walked the longest walk of our lives.
The next memory completely disarms me. The cry of my sister. The one whose faith had linked with ours every day of that ICU battle. Who had prayed and cried and spoken from God's heart to ours. Who had dared to believe even after hope had gone.
Anguish, despair . Crying out what my voice could not. I did not cry then. No cry could have been deep enough or loud enough or long enough. So I didn't bother.
My last memory of that day is at my house, filled with loving, sad family members. There to comfort one another, to be family, to insulate each other from the harsh reality of this broken world. Only the brokenness had invaded and had already done its damage. I didn't understand then why they were there. The fog of my brain wanted only my bed, which later caught my tears. And then my grandma, deep in the throes of dimentia, said from across the room, "Is she the one who lost her son?" Someone quietly tried to answer her, but it was too late. My heart had heard.


"Leah, I don't know why sometimes the kingdom breaks through and other times it does not". My childhood pastor, who had witnessed many miracles in his lifetime of pastoring. But he had also tended many a bedside, and ushered far too many from sickness to eternity. We had believed, had been certain--thought we had heard a promise.

Too many questions to ask. Some say that time brings healing, but really it is Him. Time can bring numbness or detachment. Only the one who knit me together, who knows the questions I didn't want to ask, only he can heal the great void, the black hole in my heart. And as I invite Him, he does his patient and sweet work. I would like to think it was done after I said yes to him 2 years ago. And in the biggest way it was. He took that shroud off my shoulders, as I unpeeled my fingers from clutching it to me. But how can such a brokenness ever truly be healed?

Today two of my boys fought. Over nothing--football and a broken rule. But frustration became anger and anger became sin which wounded a brother and a heart. As I tried to unpeel the layers of how nothing became a heart-wound, I knew that the one who'd inflicted was hurting. His own brother-wound will never be fully healed.

"I know we have suffered a huge loss in losing Timmy. We miss him and we wish he was here! But there are 3 brothers who ARE here. And they are God's gift to you, and He wants us to cherish what we do have. "
And my brave and beautiful oldest boy climbed up in my lap and cried like a baby. Or like a four year old who just lost his best friend. He cried and we cried and we held each other. I asked him if I could read him a story and I found " Tear Soup", and we read a beautiful illustration about grieving and allowing yourself to cry and feel and heal. He was holding his Timmy blanket and Timmy's husky dog, Blue--with whom he sleeps each night. We had a special time and conversation turned to other things which were good to talk about, but hard for him to voice. God used the time to shine a light where I hadn't yet looked, and it was good. The boys then wanted to watch a video and my 9 year old asked if they wanted to watch Blues Clues. And he enjoys it as much as Joel.
It was one of Timmy's favorites.

Tonight I feel numb, and go to my room to hide with my new book. To escape. But I had not chosen well. Though God knew...and He had. As I read of someone else's loss (unexpectedly included in chapter one?!!) I saw my story. And with Ann I wonder, "with memories of gravestones, of combing fingers through tangled hair, I wonder too...if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. To see through to God. That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave."

My book is put down and my brokenness spills all over my pillow. But I am struck that my "escape" has turned my numb spirit right back to His kind face. And while I had intended to run from him into my darkness, He still found me. And he knows me and he is not afraid of my darkness and the questions I don't like to ask, so they still linger.

And tho I have written so seldom, I was compelled to write. To share this pain--not for the sake of pain, but for the raw beauty of the Healer waiting at the end. Sometimes I think I am past the deepest of the pain, and certainly that is true in many ways. But it can come in, unbidden, and overwhelm me--a result of my own memories, or the grieving of my child. But either way, He knows and is not surprised. And he comes in his sweetness and reminds me that He is good and His comfort pours over all the broken places like water over a pile of rocks. And my rocks are softened again and are not rocks at all, but the soft mess that is my heart, again being held and molded by the one who created it in the first place.
Psalm 139: 7-12
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.