Cheerios

All wounds eventually heal, but they all leave scars.  Scars are tender to the touch, and are easily susceptible to being gashed open again and again.  The open wound of my broken heart is slowly healing and tender mercy by tender mercy pieces of a very twinged scar form to protect my heart.  

April 6, 2013 family and friends gathered at a quaint little treasure in downtown Frisco TX.  Some drove for miles, some flew in from hundreds of miles, but they all came and they came for one reason, Kelsie.  Looking out into the crowd as I mentioned her name and to see smiles, to see compassion, to feel love, encouragement, strength, prayer from all those that came, it was a small piece of an open wound healed with a beautiful scar. 

Healing does not mean forgetting, healing is loving, it's forgiving, it is joy in the depth of immense pain, a smile, a hug, a card from a stranger, family, tears, cries from your soul.   Healing from this hurt is evidence of God's amazing grace.  As I looked out among the crowd when I spoke at Kelsie's memorial, I felt a since of pride.  Seeing tears fall, but only among smiling faces is proof of healing.  I was so proud of my husband who stood tall as I spoke, a son who never took his eyes from me.  A life that truly could be so different, but somehow, God's grace has brought so much more light than darkness through it all.  The grief is still a very real part of my day to day.  Just today, in the quiet of the morning, I had to stop what I was doing, sit down and allow the missing take over.  I sat at my kitchen table imagining life with a brown eyed bubbly toddler.  I imagined a booster chair beside me and cheerios all over the floor.  I thought of the piles and piles of pink and purple clothes that I never get to fold.  I thought of the quietness and ached for Dora the Explorer theme song drowning out the tantrum from a two year old. Tears stream from the corner of my eye to my shoulder.  It's not there, and the pain of all that is missing is still raw and very real.  For me, allowing myself those moments to acknowledge it, pray about it, cry about it, smile about it and most of all believing in the hope of the Glory of the Lord gives me this amazing ability to live in the missing and to love what is still living all in the same breath.   I will see Kelsie again.  I will hold her again.  Just as I sit and imagine her here with me, I dream of someday being with her.

This poem was written in my journal on April 6 2012, above the title "a dream".  I read this at Kelsie's memorial.

Daisies

When the dark becomes a bright light,
Jesus meets me there.
His scared hand wipe my tears away.
The arms that once stretched across a wooden cross,
These are the arms embracing me.
I hear His voice,
"My beloved I have someone I wan you to see."
As he speaks, my gaze follows His.
I see a young woman in a field of beautiful daisies.
She plucks a white daisy from this new land.
Her caramel brown eyes meet mine.
Her smile, I can remember how I have missed that smile.
My smile; I have never smiled like this,
It's more than a movement of my mouth,
It's an emotion, it this true joy, YES! It is.
I look over to my left and I see Jesus there,
Is this her? I don't say out loud, but He nods to confirm.
I look back, and there she is.
She places the daisy in my hair.
Her arms fall around my neck.
I collapse into her embrace.
Tears fall, but the pain that has accompanied the tears is now gone.
I hear her speak, I love you Mom.
Without speaking, I respond I love you Kelsie.

~Summer Beavers