I just figured it out...

She’s gone, and I just figured it out.

 And I can feel the ache, deep in my soul, I’m bleeding.  Can’t anyone see I’m bleeding?  Disorganized thoughts and interrupted pain fill my days.  I long to sit quietly with her memory, and breathe her in deeply.  I want to drink her in. 

“Tell Mommy and Daddy I miss them, and that I love them… and that I pray for them every day.” That’s what she told the caseworker that checked in on them.  Oh, my sweet baby.  Don’t you know that there aren’t any days you wake that I haven’t already ached for you?  Do you know, are you certain that I miss you too?  Do you know that I pray?  Do you know?

I want to hold you in my arms.  They ache for you.  Do you know that you are mine?  My heart knows no difference between my own children and you.  You are mine.  I knew I would have to let you go, I knew it, but I refused to take it in.  Surely He would come. Surely we would not have to let go of one another.

Did I say goodbye to you like I should have?  Did I say it in a way that let you know that you are everything I wanted?  Do you know that I haven't forgotten?  Do you know that I’m bleeding on the inside?  I’m bleeding.  Did I make the most of every moment?  I’m sorry that I didn’t come rock you that one night when you couldn’t get to sleep.  I’m sorry now that I didn’t do it.  I hope you remember all the other nights I did come.  I hope you remember your song.

Remember at the end, it goes “do you love me too?”  And  remember how you would squeal “I do!” right then?  That was my favorite part.

Do you know that if you ever need me, if you ever need us… we’re gonna be right here?  I’m waiting for you to come home… we’re waiting for you.  Do you know that your Daddy cries?  He said he goes through his day and says to himself “something just isn’t right.”  And then he remembers, you’re gone, and it hurts.  We are hoping that you will come home.  Someday you will.  I know it.  Someday we’ll be together again as family, forever.  I’m going to stand before Him with your hand in mine and we’re gonna’ worship Him together!  And it will never have to end.  Someday we’re gonna go Home together.

“I know you’re gonna cry when I’m gone, Momma.”  Sweet darlin’, I’m not going to be able to breathe.  Some nights I just lay there feeling my heart break and I feel the tears flow and I feel the hotness in my chest, I’m bleeding in there… I’m not always crying, but I’m always trying hard to just keep breathing.

Are you OK?  Is there tenderness in your life?  Do you feel treasured?  Safe?  Do you know that I still love God, even though it doesn’t look like you and I are going to get to have it like we wanted it?  “Dear Lord, please let me stay in this house”.  I can still hear you praying it.  He didn’t choose that for us, and I don’t know why.  It’s OK.  He’s good and we can trust Him.  I promise.  Just hang on to Him, OK?  Please don’t let go.  He’s gonna show His glory in your life story.  It’s gonna make you shiny!

I told God today that I’m hoping you come home to us soon.  I’m hanging on to that right now, that you’ll be ours one day.  If I don’t believe it right now, I won’t be able to get up again.  Because honey, it’s not like you are in Heaven, safe in Jesus’ arms, where I would grieve and then slowly come to accept that you are being raised by my Savior, my Daddy… that you could look into the eyes of the Creator and know that kind of safety.  You have never known true safety.  I wanted SO much for you to know it. Even with us, we could never give you safety, true safety, they wouldn’t let us close your world down and let you heal.  I wish that one day you’ll truly know “it is finished”.  One day, I pray for you to know security.  The only place you'll truly know it is in Him.  Keep running back to Him baby.

And it’s not like you are missing, heaven forbid… but you’re not missing.  I know right where you are and every day I have to keep myself from going right over there and snatching you up in my arms and feeling the weight of you against me.

I wrote once that you are the daughter of my heart that never knew my breast.  And although I didn’t get to birth you and nuzzle you as a babe, somehow you grew in my heart before I ever met you and when I first put my eyes on you, the day the angel brought you, I knew you were mine.

I don’t understand why you aren’t here with us.  I never believed you would go back home.  Remember how many times we sang “God will make a way, where there seems to be no way”?  When I hear it, I can see you looking into my eyes, studying to see if I believed it too.  Now I sing it, and I focus on asking God to show me how to make a way to live without you.  There seems to be no way to live without you.

You are my beloved.  I know you inside and out.  I know your will, and your broken places, and your fears and your history and your anger and your fire and I would choose you all over again.  Because I’ve seen the twinkle, and I know the laugh, and I believe in His healing for your life and I know the joy I had being your Momma bear.

Pig knots. 

Monkeys and Gorillas—SNOW WHITE! 

Good job telling the truth!

Wagon rides.

Meat……of any kind.

Ninkle, Ninkle, Little Star.

A-may-naise!

Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego.  Over and over and over.

Are You My Mother?

Jesus Loves Me.

Pizza!  OK, Pizza… OKAY!!!

The way you loved your Poppy… and how you ran to him the first time he came to see you after you came home to us.

I knew What I Was Getting Into When I Called You.

God Will Make a Way.

Determination.  (You own that, girl!)

Standing on a chair and cooking beside me.

Kraute Brioche

Painting

“Pray Lord….”

Taking a million hours at the pumpkin patch to find the “princess pumpkin”.

 Pretty dresses.

Rocky time.

Winning the Awana Grand Prix.

Water.  All things water.  Like a fish.

Swimming in the lake with your eyes open.

WATCH ME DO THIS!!!

I want to be a hunter.  And kill the meat in the woods.

I love you, Mommy.

Your squishy body all covered in bubbles in the tub.

“We can save the little girl…”

Dear Lord, please let me stay in this house.

Sweet Daddy.

 

Carving Pumpkins.

Decorating Christmas Cookies.

Your pink Bible.

That snowy day when you got all bundled up and looked like a snowman.

Sledding.  Boating.  Hiking. Walking 5.2 miles.  Tubing.  You are my wild thing.

And oh, the mischief!  I’d do it all again.

I’d do it all again.  I’d do it all again.  Why can’t I do it again?  Are you ever going to come home?  I’m bleeding.  You’re gone.