Timing

Just when I think I'm about to crash, someone swoops in with a ready ear and heart.  This is so needed at times like now.  It's not their words that soothe me right now, it's their ears ...they listen with their hearts ready to gather my chips of sorrow.  My intellect assures me of Phoebe's safety ...I can reason that, but my heart?  Well, often that can have a whole different dynamic going on.  It boils down to the simple fact that I miss Phoebe.  I do, I miss her.  Part of me seems to have gone missing, part of me just up and left.  I'm surrounded, even buoyed and comforted by my other kids, all wonderful, alive, vibrant with promise.  They hurt too, something isn't right.  But for a mother, a father too, oh there are no words in this English language that captures what we have become ...who we are now.  Broken? No.  Hardened? No.  Angry?  At times, yes.  It's more like the marrow of our bones has been taken, and though we seem the same, look the same, have the same mannerisms, expressions ...we are hollow.  I am hollow.  I believe in the promises of Christ.  I believe He loves Phoebe, suffered for every hair on her head, for her very soul ...so that she might find salvation.  Yet, to live each moment wanting her ...is like an incomplete yawn.  You need that yawn to manage the exhaustion.  But it is never complete.  I know we are wrapped in prayer and that is why I can live each day, it's why I can type here and name what my heart cries.  And I am so grateful.  Tomorrow marks four weeks.  In some ways, I expected  the worst to be over, but I wonder now, is it yet to come?  I'm not a doomsday person, but I've never experienced a wound, a sorrow that continues to seep, every so slightly, deeper and wider each day. When does the healing begin, take hold?  Pray for us, most especially for Phoebe. 
Their is the promise of the Resurrection, a new life.  I'm holding tight and won't let go, but it takes everything out of me, out of us.  Today, I am a weary traveler ...making my way to the Promised Land.  I know it is just ahead, though perhaps a lifetime away.   I can say all these things, allow the cascade of sadness when a listener is there ...and it frees me, gives me the second wind I need for the next mile.  Timing is everything, listeners are everything ...without them my heart would be far too heavy to carry.

Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace.  Amen.