Surrender

Christmas arrived.  A different journey this year for sure.  Last year, with Phoebe gone just a few months, it was all about surviving.  It felt as if at any moment I could die.  I mean that.  Life was so precious and the emotional pain was devastating, despairing.  But the physical pain was piercing and blinding.  It didn't feel possible to sustain that level of suffering.  That particular aspect resisted words and stayed hidden deep inside, but it was there.  Only now, a year later, I can name it.  Grief moves through your body, settling differently over time, but always settling, making a home.  This year making it through, living Christmas without Phoebe was almost harder.  Early on there is that great hope that the nightmare will fade and life will resume as it was.  But now there is no denying the reality of loss ...the simple, harsh fact that she is not to come home.  I wanted her home last year, but wanted her home even more this year.  Some of the fog has lifted and the stark reality she is gone takes root in my bones.  I'm extraordinarily sad and wondering about God's great plan, still trusting, but not understanding the wisdom or the thread woven into the tapestry of eternity. 
I see her friends and am glad.  I see their own sagging hearts, waiting and hoping their great friend might return in some way, bring that freshness, that vibrant audacity to fully live back around them. 
I look at Christmas cards, families robust and full, everyone there smiling.  I love those cards.  We compare them over the years, how people have grown and changed.  I can't click my camera yet and capture my own crew without her.  How do I say ..."this is my family ...here they are," when such a one is missing. 
Last year I huddled by the manger, trying to catch a glimpse ....and I did.  Generosity, open hearts of others in that time, brought that to me.  I will never forget that soothing, peaceful day.  But this year, I am behind the crowd and I don't have the fight in me to jump up and see above those taller than I am.  He knows I am there, I trust that. 
Life goes on, we all know that.  I've learned so much this past year, so much my own daughter tried to teach me herself.  Did she have to die so that I might see the truth of so many things?  I would like to hold her hand, smell her freshly washed hair, make her a cup of tea she requests.  I want to make that tea like I would and give it to her so she can once again set it on the counter, blow on it, take one sip ...and then leave it there until it is cold and I dump it out.  I want things to be whole again, like it was.  I want her back.
And so much of my life now is about accepting the unquenched wanting, living with a desire never to be filled.  Maybe the message is that the quenching, the satisfaction, the balm, is only in the surrender and acceptance of losing.  Maybe this great loss is really my great gain.  I can see through worldly eyes ...or I can pray for God's lens to focus for me what it is He wants from me.
I look around me at these beautiful children and know the greatness of them.  They are mine for so short a time.  I watch their eyes twinkle, the giggles, the sneers even ... and strive to embrace it all in that moment, being grateful for even the little annoyances. 
They remind us that grieving the loss of your child is the hardest work you'll ever do ...and I must remind myself of that.  It is hard, hard work for sure.  And I am tired through and through.  I don't have great words or deep wisdom to share here.  By a thread, I trust ...by a simple thread.

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