11/14/2023
Warning…long post…
November 14, 2022–I looked at the clock at 11:11 AM. I thought of my sister. It was kind of our thing—same number times, and cardinals. She had been with Jesus for 15 minutes, and I continued to teach my class. It would be another couple of hours before my world changed. We had Thanksgiving lunch at school that day. I ate it in my room, alone, in the dark with a lamp on, in the quiet. It was like God’s gift to me before the storm. “Gather your strength, dear one. I can’t save you from the pain you are about to endure, but I can give this last bit of peace before you suffer, and I promise to be by your side every minute of the next year. In fact, I will carry you when you can’t carry yourself.”
As I sit here at a cemetery with 6 minutes left before 10:56 AM, I am reminded of what I don’t have to understand. I’ve seen and heard what God has done with tragedy in my life. He has used it in every way possible to glorify Him, and that is all my sister would have wanted. If that is what He wants, I will bear the burden. If my sister is at peace, I will bear the burden.
My mother’s call to me that afternoon, one in which she literally couldn’t get the words out was answered on the second phone call. I already knew what it was before she did get the words out, but I didn’t dare to utter them out loud myself. She knew she was about to crush my spirit, alter my life, change my reality, break my heart—in the same way hers has just been shredded. One thing I remember about the following day was how she called to check on me. Imagine. A mother lost her child, but she called to check on the other one. I couldn’t decide which way to go first. I needed to get to my mother and daughter. I needed to see my sister and my nephews. The tears didn’t come until later. Shock and numbness are very real when you lose a person who shared your life with you. Denial and anger soon followed, but when I picked up my nephew that afternoon, and he said, “Yay yay, are you picking me up to take me home to see my mommy,” the dam burst. What could I possibly say to a 4-year-old who would never go home to mommy again?
I’m a very detail-oriented, organized person. I began the steps to take to get us all through the next few days…her burial clothes, her eulogy, what to tell Seth, where to bury her and on and on. The in-between times, I let others help me carry the burden, and so many of you excelled at that task. I shut my eyes, shut out the world, and I thought of my sister’s face and voice. Bless my mother’s heart, I should have gone in to see my sister’s broken body before she could at the funeral home , but I left it to her to help me gauge what I was about to witness. As she rounded the corner of the doorway, I watched every expression cross her face. That was the part I was most scared of, seeing her condition, but my sister’s beautiful face was still beautiful. She looked as though she slept. I wanted her to open her eyes and ask me what took so long for me to get there. I told her how sorry I was I had not been there at the time of her death to hold her. I think if she had any time to think at all seconds before the accident, she would have longed for my mother and me to help with her fear and pain . I told her I was sorry her life was over.
My reality is different—almost like a parallel universe because that’s the only way I can cope with her not being in the same one like before.
Today, I’m thankful to have had her for 43 years. I’m proud of what she accomplished and how many people she left an impression on. I’m thankful that she went to Heaven shouting praises for the Father and the Son. I’m thankful for the sons she left behind to carry on in her stead. I’m thankful for her testimony. I’m thankful for a mother who has shown a ridiculous amount of strength in the wake of her youngest child being ripped from her grasp. I’m thankful for a brother-in-law who has been mother and father to two sons in ways I could never have imagined. I’m thankful for the village she left behind to help raise them. I’m thankful she made me laugh so hard I would p*e a little. I’m thankful for the 18 years she had with my own child. I’m thankful I got to be her big sister all of her life, and how I took that role very seriously.
I’ve been given another time of peace and silence and stillness. One year later, I’m sitting staring at her picture in the quiet—just the two of us. Even though she can’t talk back, I’m still keeping her up-to-date and laughing with my little sister. I’m going to read her my eulogy. I’m going to tell her I love her, not just today, but every day of my life, and I miss her. I’m going to be thankful she went to Heaven a shoutin’. One day I will see her big, blue beautiful eyes again. Until then, I will be down here keeping her memory alive, making sure her boys know how much she loved them, and still raking off these leaves from her grave with my butt stuck up in the air while she laughs at me for trying.
