until it so desires...

Mom, it’s been ten years. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to know you now… i never really did. Back then you were my teacher, the one who taught me to read, who made me eat my vegetables, who later found shriveled up carrots hidden under the table. I remember you gave up drinking coffee, which somehow made us think it was like smoking, and made Jess and I determined to stop daddy from drinking it. You smelled like flowers, and your favorite ones were violets. You liked big, chunky, knitted sweaters, and flannel pajamas. You loved health food stores, and lighthouses, and hugs, and a crackling fire in the fireplace, and when daddy sang and played guitar. Though [with the exception of my small feet] I look nothing like you physically, you gave me your stubbornness, your passion for being pro-life, the habits of biting my nails and cracking my knuckles, your love of the color purple, singing, creativity, those weird brussel sprouts and fried tomatoes. But of all these things there was something that mattered much more that you gave me. The thing that really had your whole heart and life.

Of all the things I remember, your love for God is what sticks out the most. If there is any gift you gave me it is the one of the faith you instilled in my head, in my heart, and in my life. The weeks we spent memorizing different Psalms, praying… it could have seemed like a lot of made up stories, but you made it real. When I think of you, I think of you praying in the mornings with daddy, I think of you in church with your hands raised high, and in the living room singing along with Darlene Zchech at the top of your lungs. Mom, of all the things you gave me, that is the greatest gift. It’s what has kept me going for these past ten years, and it will keep me going until I die. It’s the very basis of how I live my life. I remember you singing to me to sleep, and telling me to cast my cares upon Jesus, in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, which was a lot, and to be honest I still think about that a lot, when I’m worried about anything. I know he is with me. He is my joy. He always sustains.

These last ten years have been up and down and wonderful and crazy and hard… I wish you could have been there for them. It’s so strange to think that I’ve now spent more than half of my life without you. I don’t know how it went so fast…

I still miss you.

I still cry.

But somehow time is healing the wounds. The scars will never completely disappear, but they will stop bleeding. They have, for the most part. I think this year it’s just hit me hard to think of how long it’s been.

I carry a small card in my wallet, next to my favorite picture of you on your wedding day. It says “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” ~ Philippians 4:13. And on the back you wrote “I love you” in your handwriting. I don’t keep it for some sort of good luck charm or anything. But it reminds me of what you gave to me. It reminds me that I know you believed those words with all your heart, and even though God didn’t answer our prayers exactly the way we had hoped for ten years ago, that he was still with us. That he always, always is.

I know that as time goes on, some of my memories will fade. I knew you for nine years and I just wrote pretty much all of what I remember. It would have been wonderful to have known you now. At this point in my life we could have been friends. But if there is anything I will always remember, this is it. And that’s the best of all you gave.

Thank you, mom. I love you. 

Love, me.