Space

A year ago, one of the hardest things was the emptiness ...the big hole that was so obvious and cold.  Phoebe took up space because she had a large personality and a zest for life.  I both wondered and feared it would always feel that way ...vast and void.  The other day as I pull onto our road I did a quick head count figuring out where everyone was.  When I walked through the door with two kids with me we'd all be home, except Phoebe of course.  Knowing we'd be  home for a while, no more drop offs, pick ups for the rest of the day I found peace.  It didn't stab me so much anymore.  She's found her space in our home in other ways ...good ways.  It isn't as vast and void anymore.  There are moments when it pierces me, stuns me and takes away my breath.  But life has continued in a forward motion and lots and lots of good things have come our way.  I know much of that is due to the tireless prayer of so many people for us.  People we don't even know have remembered us each day.  Phoebe didn't see last Oct. 10 or 11, so we tread different territory now.  A year ago the pain was excruciating, deadly, Like a shattered skyscraper driven into my heart and lungs.  There's no words really to  capture the feeling.  I've lost both my parents, had some significant struggles in life, painful experiences ...nothing came close to this.  Like a wound that attempts to heal, there is the obvious scar, the granulation of new tissue posing as original, always the potential to have areas of pain ...that's what we adjust to ...what we become.  Space is different now, we've grown accustomed to the absence no matter how obvious and unwanted.
I asked a patient today who lost her daughter over a decade ago what year two was like.  Those who've walked this path before us tell of a year a bit harder than the first.  When I first heard those words I wanted to be dead.  How could anything be worse than what we were experiencing?  I know now that searing pain, that first cut becomes part of who you are, and so you take the pain a little easier than you did when it was all so new.  This woman told me it was harder because it was all about the facts.  Phoebe is dead ...fact.  Phoebe will not come back ...fact.  I don't need to buy Christmas presents for Phoebe ...fact.  Part of me hoped and prayed I would wake from the nightmare of losing her, and God, in his infinite generosity, would rewind for me.  After all, He could.
Someone comments on our dishes this past Sunday ...and I don't tell the story of them and how they came to take up her space.  People ask me how many children and I answer seven, no explanation.  It's different now.
Her passing is now a normal part of our lives ...part of our fabric, part of who we are.  People ask me how I do it ...live this life without her.  They ask because they care and can't imagine living after a child dies.  I answer "grace, God's tremendous, limitless grace."  "I still couldn't" they often say.  Truth be told, I didn't think I could either, but I have.  I knew how I felt and I looked at my husband and these other kids of ours and knew they suffered ...they needed assurance and promise and hope.  It came, little by little. Our life has rebuilt to a "new normal," as they say. 
A year ago, I just wanted to be where I am right now.  And here I am.  I'm certain I'll be with Phoebe again.  I ask her to join me all the time even though I have no sense of her.  I'm a year out ...we all are.  We still have some tending to do, some learning, letting go, changes.  But it will all come in the time it should.  We've weathered the loss of Phoebe ..and lots of other little losses along the way.  People we didn't expect to stay have, while others we were certain would be in it for the long haul haven't ...for whatever reason.
I open my front door and see her converse sneakers ...they will always stay there.  I walk down the hall and there are her shoes, worn by someone else, but casually in the way ...as they usually were.  I do the laundry and cycle through her shirts, shorts, pants ...and I see her twinkle and giggle  "you didn't think you were gonna really get rid of me mom, did you?"  
I see how far we've come.  Even the moments and days when the burden is especially hard, I see we've come along.
Two of her friends come down to her room, our room now.  "It smells like her still."  And it does.  They laugh and remember the funny times, look around for her things, many still as they were.  They miss her too.  We remember a night these two were sent home ...pushing the limits.  Phoebe and her friends had acted outraged at how unnecessarily strict we were being, but we held firm.  They see the wisdom now.  Its good to see them. "I wish she knew it would pass.  I never thought she wouldn't know that."  She was smarter, deeper, more invested in life than them they tell me.  And she was.
Phoebe has new space to take up.  We haven't heard the last of her, I know that now.  Phoebe has a story to tell, one that impacts all of us.  When the time is right, when the Holy Spirit wants it written ...it will be.  In the meantime, I'm finding my footsteps a bit surer than before ...grace comes our way.

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