Technology has so many wonderful things that it can do in our lives. It has become a way for our family to live in different states and still know one another and build deep and lasting relationships that can withstand the test of distance. But as equally wonderful as technology can be, it can also frustrate the heck out of me. I come here to this journal space when I’m having “big feelings” as we call them with Audrey. I open the text box and I just start typing. Sometimes that equals coherent thoughts and they get shared and sometime it equals a whole lot of rambling that eventually ends up deleted or filed away for another day when I can more easily access those big feelings and sort through them with some kind of articulation. Today, I opened my computer and started writing about my mama. It’s her 5 Heavenly birthday. I almost never know what to expect will come out of my brain and out to my fingers. But my goodness is it healing to see thoughts forming on the page as I type away. Today was an especially thought filled day. Paragraph after paragraph filled the blank white space on my screen, as tears rolled down my face. I was remembering, and in many ways I hope I was honoring. Because just as I finished those thoughts and dried my tears, I clicked save and everything was lost.
As I frantically searched all the “places” I could think of to find the words of my heart on this day, it became sadly clear that perhaps those words were just for me… because they were gone. So I went back and read a few of my thoughts from previous years. They were nothing like what was on my heart today. Isn’t it amazing how the weight of a day like today can look so different from year to year?
I make no attempt to recall those words from the raw and unedited yieldings of my heart. They were sweet and reminiscent but they cannot be duplicated. But as I stare at my computer screen, I remember that first anniversary of her death. Audrey Nole was almost 1 and it felt like the emotions of this day, on that year, were just too much to handle. It was the end of the infancy of my first child and it was blatantly clear that my mama would never celebrate any of her milestones. In many ways, March 12, 2015 felt much less hard than March 12, 2016. Because as a year had passed, we could just start to see and realize all the ways that we would miss her and all the things that she would miss the earthly side of. She would not be there for Audrey’s first birthday and she would never get to celebrate the milestones of her grandkids. She would miss out on two weddings and one college graduation. She would never meet the spouses of two of her kids and would never meet any of her future grandchildren. She wouldn’t grow old with my dad and experience all the bucket list things they had imagined would fill their senior years. There would be no more firsts WITH her, but there would be a lifetime of firsts WITHOUT her.
This day doesn’t draw the heaviness of years past. While there have been and will be tears as I miss her deeply, I’m reminded today not necessarily of her absence, but more of the ways that her life - and this day in particular - continually point me to Jesus. Even in her worst fears, the ugliest parts of battling cancer, and even in her last moments with her family on earth, she was always pointing us to our Savior. She was the first to remind you that there was no survival without Christ; no hope without Jesus. On that night, as she took her final breaths and we all said our good byes, the sky was filled with the most beautiful sunset. My mama loved sunsets like I do, and while I don’t remember ever asking her why she loved them so much, it was such a sweet gift to turn from her empty body and see a sky full of life. Full to the brim of all the perfection of God’s design. It was a reminder that God was in this life with us. And as my mama walked hand in hand with Jesus toward the gates of Heaven, her legacy was one that would draw us closer and closer to God.
I miss our chats about life, sometimes over coffee and sometimes over the phone as we went about our daily tasks. I miss the champion of my dreams and the person who always took my side, even when I was wrong. Im thankful for the 28 years of memories that I have to draw on as I tell Audrey and soon Harry about the woman that loved me fiercely. Im thankful for the example of parenting that I can recall when I’m having a particularly rough day with Audrey - and I even am thankful for the ways that maybe she wasn’t so perfect, as I can learn and change. I’m thankful for the picture of marriage that she and my dad set for us. That 35 years together, as two sinful people, is completely possible because they both loved God first and each other next. Of course, I’m sad over the many ways that we will experience firsts without her, but I’m so thankful that the hope she believed in so deeply is not just make believe, but real and true. It makes living life this side of heaven that much easier to bear without her. And it also makes me long for heaven in a way I didn’t know was possible before she left this earth. Until we meet again, mama! Happy Heavenly Birthday. I love you so!
