Regret...

Dear Sara,

I'm finding I have one major regret in life. I never took the opportunity to make a video of you. I could have easily picked up my phone and made a simple recording of you walking in the door after work one day. I could have captured the sweet smile on your face and the beautiful sound of your voice saying, "I'm home!" I could have...but I never did. I'm sure I have some video of you some where. Maybe the tape from when we did our home tour 10 years ago, on the day we closed on our house. Maybe some random footage from some random family event. It's the one thing I've missed most the past few days, and the one thing I know I'm going to have the hardest time finding. It's a needle in a haystack situation.

The ability to see you in motion, to hear your voice; I don't know if it would bring comfort or if it would send me back to the early stages of grief where crying was so physically painful that I could only manage it for a few minutes at a time. Photographs are nice...but they start to seem lacking when I realize they are only a reflection of your life, a beautiful reflection, but somehow empty, too.

In a few short hours it will be exactly 28 days since you departed and began the eternal part of your journey. I find that the flavor of grief I'm in right now is changing in subtle ways every day. When I cried during the first couple of weeks, the physical pain that accompanied my grief was almost unbearable. It felt as if all the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in my body were trying to move in their own individual directions, tearing me apart at the seams. There are several flavors of loss that make me cry now, but none of them compare to the physical pain of my initial grief. There is still hurt, emotional hurt, raw hurt, more hurt than my heart can bear at times and it's randomness catches me off guard.

There is a specific flavor of grief when I think about the loss of everything we had together. Fifteen years of shared life have been ripped from me, and this produces it's own bitter sting. There is a specific flavor, or lack of flavor, when I think about the loss of everything the future held for us. An empty chasm exists where a road waiting to be traveled once spread out to the horizon. These griefs mix together, but do not become homogenous ("Welcome to Baskin-Robbins, would you like to try the double fudge swirl of sadness today, or maybe a double scoop of chunky monkey with sprinkles of sorrow on top?") They each maintain their unique ability to make me hurt, along with several other flavors that accompany them, a gang of grief, wreaking emotional havoc wherever they roam, whenever they feel like it.

Your dad sent me a quote by Mark Twain this week. It's from a piece he wrote about a year and a half after his wife had passed away. I can relate to what he says when he writes, "The mind has a dumb sense of vast loss—that is all. It will take mind and memory months, and possibly years, to gather together the details, and thus learn and know the whole extent of the loss." Twain goes on to detail just how long he expected this to last with an analogy, "A man’s house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And, when he casts about for it, he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential—there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. He did not realize that it was an essential when he had it; he only discovers it now when he finds himself balked, hampered, by its absence. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster."

I try to celebrate what we had, even when it hurts. I try to remember how soft your cheek felt against the palm of my hand, your lips against my lips. I try to remember the warmth of your body, pressed up against me as we slept. I try to remember your scent, clean but earthy, infused with aroma of a day spent in the flower shop. I try to remember...but find that sifting through the rubble of my burned out house often produces a only a cloud of ash. I worry, as CS Lewis worried in A Grief Observed, that my memories of you will become mired together in an almost unrecognizable form, "We have seen the faces of those we know best so variously, from so many angles, in so many lights, with so many expressions—waking, sleeping, laughing, crying, eating, talking, thinking—that all the impressions crowd into our memory together and cancel out into a mere blur."

It's been a month...soon it will be two, then three, then twelve, then the count will tick to years.  It seems so vast, yet so compressed, I can't fathom the passage of time yet to come when the past 28 days has felt both eternal and only a breath in this life.

I love you.  I miss you.  Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Chad

Did I mention Lazarus?

I just finished reading my daily selection for Friday (yes, I realize it's technically Saturday right now) from Grieving the Loss of Someone You Love. I felt like it ties into my last post, at least a little bit.

"...our King sent his Son to be broken for us so that he could put us back together better than we were before. That doesn't mean our pain is not real. It is very real, just as Christ's pain was real when he wept for Lazarus...your job in this rebuilding process is to hand each piece to your heavenly Father as he asks for them. Then watch in awe as he puts them back together."

Early vs late...

Dear Sara,

It's either very early or very late.  I guess it's really a matter of perspective.  Tonight is the first night that I just can't go to sleep.  I'm not even tired.  It's 2:00AM and I haven't come close to sleeping since I first tried almost 3 hours ago.  Maybe all the sleep I have been getting has finally caught up with me.  I'm not sure, but it presents another opportunity to talk to you through this keyboard.

My reading today (yesterday, actually) sparked a flame to a thought that's been wandering around my mind since your funeral.  I'm still trying to flesh it all the way out.  The reading talked about the phrase "it must have been God's will" or "it must have been God's plan" (is there a difference?...different argument, different day.)  It's something people say all to frequently to those who are grieving, and I've probably said it myself, but I'm not sure it's really the truth. I think it's a half truth we say more to protect ourselves and avoid awkward conversation than to actually provide comfort to the grieving.

I wonder, as Christians, if we've managed to confuse God's omniscience with God's will/plan.  I don't believe that this was God's plan for you, for Miranda, or for me.  I have a hard time believing I'll ever think that.  I believe God knew it would happen, but that doesn't mean it was His plan or His will.  I think Pastor Mark really was onto something in his message at your memorial service.

The Word tells us that God has plans to prosper us and not to harm us.  This is a message that is repeated throughout the Word.  However, we also read that bad things will happen to good people and good things will happen to bad people.  And then there's Death.  Death was never part of God's plan.  Death entered this world as the result of sin.  God's plan was for a perfect eternal communion between Himself and the man (and woman) He created in His own image.  Sin, the harbinger of death, interrupted that plan.

The story of Lazarus, in John 11, contains the shortest verse in the Bible, "Jesus wept."  The story around it tells us that Jesus was so moved by Mary and Martha's weeping for their brother that he himself wept.  I wonder if there wasn't more to it?  I wonder if Jesus' tears were partly in recognition that the sacrifice he was soon to make, while providing us with a means to reach the Father, wouldn't be enough to take away the pain of death? That until He comes again, until death is defeated, that His children will have to suffer the pain of loss and grief.  That even with the hope of the resurrection, we will still hurt when those we love are taken from us, especially when it feels premature.  I think Jesus weeping was a lot more complex than the situation.

I don't know, maybe I'm completely off track with this line of thinking.  I know God has a plan for us.  But I think that that plan gets distorted and broken because we live in a broken world.  That doesn't mean He stops caring.  That doesn't mean He doesn't weep with us.  I think it just means we have to rely on Him to heal us, and help us get to the end of the race, to that place where His perfect plan can no longer be derailed by the broken world we leave behind.

"Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heav’n and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant Friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

“Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,

For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,

When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him, from care He sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,

For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."

Civilla D. Martin - Matthew 10:29-31

I wonder if this doesn't help explain why Jesus wept.  He watches us so closely, cares about us so much, that the pain of our loss, my loss, affects Him just as deeply as it does us/me.  Did he weep because he knows this wasn't the plan?

I'm starting to feel like sleep my finally be on its way for me.  I hope my rambling makes a little bit of sense.

I love you.  I miss you.  Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.

Love, 

Chad

Good days and bad days...

Dear Sara,

It's hard for me to believe that it's been almost a month since the accident.  In some ways it seems like it was just yesterday and in others it seems like it was ages ago.  Time plays funny, or not so funny, tricks on the mind during difficult days like these.

Yesterday was a bad day...at least it started out as a bad day.  I think Stevie and I were both missing you more than we had in recent days.  He wandered around the house crying out for you all day long.  I mostly sat on the couch and just cried.  Things got a little better as the day progressed.  I had dinner with my mom and dad and then met Aaron and Sarah in town for some shopping at Best Buy.  It was back to crying when I got home though.  It probably didn't help that I was looking at pictures of you and Miranda when I should have been trying to go to sleep.

Today was different.  I woke up and actually caught myself smiling, for no apparent reason.  Instantly it made me feel sad, but not like yesterday, more along the line of how can I be happy at a time like this.  Stevie has had a better day today, too.  Much less vocal "noise" on his part.  Speaking of Stevie, I think you'd be proud of him.  He's getting used to having people other than us in the house.  Aaron came over tonight and Stevie didn't seem to hardly notice that he was here.  That's a long way from the days when he'd sprint down to the basement as soon as an unfamiliar face showed up.  I was so worried about how he'd react to the baby and having people over to see the baby...apparently he would have handled it just fine.

I love you.  I miss you.  Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Chad

How long...

Dear Sara,

Last night I was thinking about the last time we spent this much time apart.  It was over 12 years ago.  We'd been married a little over two years and you had to take your Cross Cultural class at college.  I dropped you off at the airport on January 1, 1999, just as a huge snow storm was moving in.  If your flight had been 30 minutes later, you wouldn't have been able to leave for at least a couple of days.  You were gone for almost four weeks.  We didn't have cell phones, so you took a calling card with you and we talked on the phone every night.  Not for long.  Just enough to catch up on the day and say "I love you."  At the time, I didn't know how I was going to make it through until you got home.  I missed you each and every day.  But somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew you'd be home and that made each day apart something I could handle.

You're not coming home from this cross cultural trip.  I know that, but there's still a part of me that can't accept it.  I wait for you at the door sometimes, just like Stevie does, hoping you'll walk in at any minute, but you won't...not this time.

While I was at the hospital, holding vigil at Miranda's bedside, the sister of one of our neighbors tied a beautiful pink ribbon on the tree out in front of our house.  It's been a daily reminder for me that even though you're not here, you're still with me, that it's our home I live in.  I untied it from the tree today, both to keep it from being ruined by the elements and to ward off uncomfortable questions.  On Saturday night, we ordered some subs to nosh on while we watched our movie. The lady who delivered them was very cheerful and asked if we'd had a baby.  I didn't know how to answer.  I felt dumb, like there was no answer...at least not one that I could give her that would make sense.  I mumbled back "no, not so much" even though it wasn't the truth, or at least the whole truth.  The pink ribbon is drying out today.  I'll keep it indoors...to remind me of you both.

Remember how I told you that the whole pregnancy thing was flying by for me?  It always seemed like there just wasn't enough time to get ready.  The days don't move so fast now.  Part of me wishes they would and part of me is thankful they don't.  Grief hurts, I don't know anyone that would want to feel this way; but, I don't want to get over you either.  Writing to you helps, mostly to sort out my own confusion, but it doesn't help fill the emptiness.

I love you.  I miss you.  Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Chad

Family movie night...

...just isn't the same without you sitting by my side.

Aaron, Sarah, mom and dad came over and we watched a movie tonight. You would have liked it.  I'd have liked it better if you'd been here.

They've all gone home now and I am listening to music and watching pictures from our photo library scroll across the TV.  You have such a beautiful smile...and I miss it so much.  The tears sting and my throat hurts.  No matter how much I beg I can't go back to that horrible day and change anything.  All I want to do is go back and listen to that little voice in my head that kept saying we shouldn't bother traveling in that unexpected snow storm.

You're not supposed to be in Heaven right now.  You're supposed to be right here, sitting on the couch next to me, holding our newborn daughter and marveling over how beautiful she is.  The flowers on the bookshelf are supposed to be congratulatory not consolatory.  This broken world, enslaved by death, stole you both from me.  The fallen nature of man stepped in and interrupted God's perfect plan for us.  The Hope of the Resurrection seems so far away right now.  What will be a blink in the scope of eternity feels like it will last a thousand lifetimes.

I can't change history, I can only watch it float across my TV screen and hope that someday all those memories will fill me with fond remembrance instead of sadness.

I love you, I miss you.  Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Chad

The things they don't tell you...

Dear Sara,

Fourteen and a half years ago we promised we'd love and cherish each other "until death do us part."  I'm finding that even though plenty has been written about grief, grieving, and the processes we go through, no one seems to have come up with a manual, or a set of rules, for the real day-to-day stuff that one has to deal with when the parting happens far too soon.  I'm working on my list of things that I'm sure I'll need to do at some point, but it doesn't feel right to think about doing them now.  It doesn't feel like it will ever feel right to do them.

Will it ever feel OK to delete your phone number out of my contact list?  I canceled your cell phone.  It didn't seem to make much sense to keep paying for it; but, I don't feel like I can delete your number out of my phone.  What if I dial it on accident some day and someone answers?

How long should I keep your FaceBook account active?  People are still sending you friend requests.  Should I accept them?  Should I ignore them?  Will I ever find a day when I don't want to post on your wall and tell you how much I miss you?  Will it be obvious to me when I should change my status from Married to Single?  Do they have an option for Widower?

What about your email?  I unsubscribed to most of the daily "junk mail" type emails you were getting.  What if something legitimate comes through?  I don't send you emails, but what if I want to?  Do they have email in heaven?

Is there a rule about how long I should wear my wedding ring?  At some point will it make other people feel uncomfortable when they see it on my finger?  It feels right and good right where it is. When they took it off at the hospital to clean my hand and bandage my injuries it felt so wrong, so final.  It's comfortable and comforting...does it stay that way?

What would you like me to do with the kitchen?  You worked so hard stripping the cabinets and painting them.  I know you ultimately wanted to do a whole kitchen remodel, even replacing the cabinets.  It hurts to think about taking them out now, ruining all your hard work.  What about the bathroom?  I know you wanted to completely remodel it, too (and it really needs it.)  But you're not here to repaint the walls back to the way they look now.  If I have it done will it feel like I'm losing the part of you that's still here?

I guess that's all I have for now.  I'm sure I'll think of more as time passes.

I know I don't need to say it, but I miss you.  I miss Miranda.

Hugs and kisses,
Chad

Due...

Dear Sara,

Today was our official due date.  I know how much you didn't want to focus on a specific day, which is why we always just told people "the last week of February."  Of course, if Miranda was anything like you, she probably wouldn't have arrived for another week :)

I went back to work yesterday, just for a few hours in the evening.  It feels a little strange, but comforting at the same time.  At the end of the day, I still have to come home though, to our home, the home which I wish you were still here to be with me in. I'll go back tonight, and tomorrow night, and the night after.  It will eventually feel normal...I hope.

Sometimes I feel bad that I don't cry all day long every day.  But when I do it hurts so bad I can understand why my mind and body won't let it happen more than it does.

The rational part of my mind says there must be some logical reason this happened.  Some reason that God allowed this to happen.  What was coming that would have been worse than this?  That's the only thing that makes sense to me, that somehow God allowed this to spare me, us, from an even greater tragedy farther down the road.  It doesn't provide any comfort for my heart though.

I love you.  I love Miranda.  I miss you both so much, especially today.

Kisses,
Chad

Miranda, my beautiful angel...

I wanted to share some pictures of my sweet angel, Miranda, with you.  Your prayers and kind words have meant so much to me.

The consensus is that she got her mama's hands and fingernails.  Pretty little girl didn't need daddy's sausage fingers and horrible nails.

This was a ring that Sara bought on our vacation up to northern Michigan in October.  Her wedding and engagement rings weren't fitting her and she wanted something sparkly to wear.

Miranda is on the quilt Sara made for her.  Sara and Grandma Ware did the quilt stitching in November.

Wishing I could hold you again, my sweet angel.

Dear Sara...

Dear Sara,

Today was a good, but hard, day.  I went grocery shopping.  It took me a while to actually get out of the car after I got to the store.  It just didn't feel right.  I know we very rarely shopped together, but shopping for one just seems wrong.

Your family came over and we spent a lot of time looking through all of your sewing materials.  So many projects unfinished.  So many more just ideas in your head.  The world is a less lovely place without you and your projects.

We finished the night watching a slideshow of all your pictures from my iPhoto library.  I cried.  Your smile is so beautiful.  Your eyes sparkle.  I just want to reach out and touch your cheek and kiss those beautiful lips again.

They say there are fives stages of grief.  I'm pretty sure I'm still in denial.  I can't stop using words like "we" and "us" when I'm speaking in the present tense.  There's a voice in the back of my head trying to convince me that you'll be home any minute.

By the way, I don't know if I've mentioned it before or not, but our daughter is beautiful.  Of course, I'm sure you know that.  You've been able to spend more time with her than I was allowed.  I'm more than a little jealous and heart broken over that.

It's been two weeks since you left.  I've been so busy it feels like it's been longer.  You know how quiet and dull our life was?  It's been a rush of appointments, meals, friends and family since then.  I haven't had a day go by that I didn't go somewhere, meet up with someone, or have dinner with someone.

My injuries from the accident are healing OK...my heart's not doing as well.  It really hurts most of the time.  I want to think about the positive side of you being in Heaven, but most of the time I just feel sad that you're gone.

I found a new home for Katu.  I feel bad about giving her away, but she and Stevie still hate each other; and, without you here to keep the peace, things were starting to get a little hairy.  Stevie's not sure what to think of the gate being down.  He's been making tentative forays into the other half of the house, but goes scurrying back to the basement door when he sees me over there.  I think the gate being down does help him understand that you're not just on the other side of it ignoring his cries.  He's been very quiet since I let him out of the basement this morning.  I bought him some wheat grass to nibble on, I figured you might like that.

None of this makes sense to me.  I don't understand why God let you get hurt so bad.  I still can't find it in my heart to be angry at Him, but that doesn't help me feel any better.

I love you, and I miss you.  I'd do anything to hold you in my arms again and it hurts knowing that I won't ever be able to do that on this Earth.  Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.  Tell her that I love her, too, and wish she was still here.

Love,
Chad

P.S. I hope you don't mind the way I jump from topic to topic.  My brain just feels really random right now, like there's not a whole lot of order to anything.