An Unexpected Journey

I opened the red, leather bag to pack for the two nights away.  We were going to a conference at a church in the next state that we have attended twice a year since Makiah was born- well, until the accident.   I like to go because I can be anonymous and disappear into the crowd of worshipers.  This is a big step for me.  An act of reaching up to heaven… to God.  It was also another hurdle because of some very special nursery workers who kept her each time since she was a baby and always looked for her to come.  I knew they didn’t know. As I swept my hand across the bottom of the bag, my eye caught a glimmer of something glistening and my heart dropped.  I felt the rough edges and pulled it up to the light.  Was it?  Yes…  Broken glass.  From the accident.  Her window or mine?  I cringe again at the image of the sickening crunch.  I thought we had wiped all the traces away!  Did you know shards of glass...

Did you know that Amish women wear black for a whole year when a loved one dies?  There was a time in my life that I would have thought that was just terrible.  Now I think it is an amazing way for broken people to express on the outside what is happening on the inside.  Everywhere they go others are visibly reminded that they need extra…   extra love, patience, tears, prayers, hugs, “how are you’s?...”  Extra.   Our culture does not have many, healthy ways to express deep grief and pain (in my humble opinion).  We generally expect people to say they are fine when we ask and regret asking if they do say something else.  One of the difficulties in grieving is working out how to function in the world while your insides are screaming that the whole world should stop.  When she first died, I could scarcely look at Face Book because it seemed so obscene that other people were still going out on dates and posting funny antics. ...

Click on this link to see the sweetest video ever... by my husband for Makiah. We love you Baby! Pics below are fishing with Daddy and Pawpaw... Makiah's First Fish

 Dear Sweet Makiah, I suppose that God does not let children in heaven read letters from their parents on earth, but just in case I am wrong...  Today it has been exactly one year since your trip to heaven.   We have spent the whole day thinking about you (that is not too different than most days).  This morning we had waffles for breakfast because you had them for your last breakfast.  We remembered how you loved to have waffles after church on Wednesday nights and you asked for "waffle Wednesday."  Mommy let your cat, Buster, in for the first time since the girls were born, and they were delighted.  Abby gave his fur a good tug for you and Lena grabbed his tail.  It only took Buster a few minutes to go look in your room for you.  Even he has not forgotten! Our sweet neighbor brought a hot apple pie so we ate it for lunch in honor of you.  You would have liked that!  After the girls napped we drove to the resurrection si...

Glistening sun across waving fields of corn.  Picture perfect red barns.  Gardens of leafy greens hugging square, white houses.  Crisp dresses and black trousers billowing in the breeze on sturdy, long clotheslines.  Long beards and bonnets in black buggies behind trotting horses clip clop down the lanes.  It's another world.  A place where people value hard work, each other, the process... the togetherness of life.  I breathe in the peace. We have come to escape our world.  A brief reprieve from the place of our pain.  In still moments one or the other of us will let out a long sigh or notice a tear sneaking from the corner of an eye that dares to look back.  We eat shoo fly pie and cry and kiss babies as we make our way across this beautiful country- Amish country.   But people love to ask if the twins are our first so  we can't seem to leave our story behind. I can't believe in 3 days it will be one year.  How is it...