It takes nine months for a new baby to grow enough to safely sustain living and breathing independent from his or her mother. Nine months, and one week really, for the imperceptible being, created by God, undeniably human in its smallness (regardless of contrary 'opinion', Truth is truth) to arrive.
It will be nine months tomorrow since I first started missing my girl. I feel as though I've just seen her this morning in the sense that I have lost nothing in how she moved spoke, sang, played ...complained, ate. Last night, at dusk, a skateboard made its way down our street ...the rolling of the wheels against pavement a familiar sound to me. Phoebe was mostly about sounds. If I looked up to find her, I would have smiled ...not surprised. But this person wore shoes, something Phoebe rarely did as she guided the board beneath her feet. It wasn't her.
It doesn't take nine months to let go. It's only nine months in ...on a long road home to her. There is a reason in God's perfectly designed plan why Phoebe left early. I won't know that reason for a long time perhaps, but I absolutely know Gods wisdom is greater than mine ...even when I want to refuse what He's given me.
It's a misty night here on the coast ...and its a busy house. Life has gone on ...with a robust energy, I think this is a blessing. There is no time for Phoebe's parents to linger over their loss, their missing. Our job, our obligation is to show our children the abundance of life ...to appreciate and savor the moments God grants us ...even in the mundane.
We park by the beach for a few minutes and look over the rocks, the sand, into the ocean, the Atlantic ...her ocean. I could never count the times she spent in its waves. She was a water girl.
It's a known pattern now ...the agitation, sadness ...settling in around the 9th of each month. That day belongs to her, and the anticipation of its arrival disturbs us, makes life a bit harder, makes God a bit more fleeting and absent.
I realize as the salty air washes over us that as much as I have bonded with this man through seven births and five miscarriages ... it is the death of this daughter, our daughter, Phoebe, that forces a bond far deeper and wider even than those births. It's not to say that the loss of her makes our love for our others less ...but our language limits us in words, and there simply are none for what this does, has done to us. The chronic ache of missing he has, I know. And when the weight of that is unbearable for this dad so tied to his oldest daughter, I see ...and can brace him just enough. And when I cry out the questions of where I failed, and ask why God has chosen this for us, why, after so much, and striving so hard and deliberately to serve Him, only Him, He would allow us to live with this deep wound for the rest of our lives ...my husband knows those questions.
We lost her together, we sent her off that morning, a typical morning ...together, we were together when we got the most horrible phone call to come home, we held her together and blessed her. We said farewell to her and together prayed for her. Together we offered her back to God ...and buried her. Together we live without her ...each day we wake knowing she is gone. And when one cannot see the promise of eternity, the other reminds with certainty and great, great hope.
Because we believe ...and because we trust God so completely with a wild, seemingly insane and impractical (given the worldly score card) assurance, we have hope.
Nine months ...of missing, remembering, praying, hoping ...and waiting for that precious day when I see her again.
Eternal rest grant unto Phoebe and may perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen.
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