Three years ago today you left the earth,
or you at least exited your body.
It stopped breathing.
and I felt like I stopped too.
And when I was breathing, I thought I would dare die
from all the horrid tears that seem to bleed from my heart.
It never seemed to stop, for years.
Three years ago today, it all fell down.
Even though I was told that you were above.
It all fell down.
and after it fell down, it fell apart.
but I still bowed my head toward the Lord.
And you still loved me in my weakness to overcome or
even slightly bear the grief that would lay near me each crisp morning and each long late lonely
dark night.
The heavy winter presses itself against
all that I held dear.
And I did it alone, alone without you, yet I remained alive, and that little
seed of life I held dear, began to grow stronger.
I grew into a Rhythm, my own beat that began to attract
things that were never attractive before.
I was given new eyes, ears, but not a new heart, not yet.
Sunday came, each week, even when everything else all fell down.
My love for others exploded, it consumed me like a fire.
I needed to be near people.
I wanted to warm people.
I wanted to be near something warmer than winter.
So it’s been three years, and my heart has made its path into new love, new light.
I have been loved in ways I didn’t know existed, you did this while you were alive and
mercifully, I felt it in your death.
You became a better part of my life.
And your death became my life, in a fairly healthy way.
Yes, this note may sound not healthy, and unfair, but I’ve been watched over
and chastened to feel more love and grow in happiness.
No doctor could give me this gift.
No medication could transcend my life.
The happiness felt through opposition, a dynamic teacher.
I have tried to fall in love since you died.
Sometimes it didn’t work, sometimes I forced it, other times, I thought I would fake it until I made it.
All along this path, I did my true best to be loyal to the Lord and His Will for me.
it’s been tricky…even still.
Still……
You would think three years could mend the hemorrhage in my heart.
But I’ve learned, its not about mending, its about building.
It’s about binding myself to Him.
Building upon all the good, bad and ugly we endure in life and finding ways to smiles
through the adaptation that maybe life doesn’t turn out the way we imagined or even hoped it would.
I write you now… on your anniversary death to let you know, I’m doing well.
I feel so alive. I feel fairly fulfilled with all the endeavors I have pursued.
even with the ones I have yet to flesh out.
And the secrets out, Josh, my life gets better. every.single.day.
My life means more to me because I knew you and because I fell in love with you
and you taught me how to not judge and how to make a grilled cheese sandwich,
because you loved me back and spoke my secret language of silence.
I don’t wonder what the spirit world is like.
I don’t wonder anymore what it is like to function only as a spirit.
I don’t even question our reunion.
I am more stuck in this obsession we call life.
I’m trying to experience it all, in it’s reality of peaks and pits
and love and heart aches.
You’d be pleased with me, just as I am with you.
You are with one of my neighbors,
my grandparents,
my soccer coach,
one of my soccer friends,
and my childhood bishop that passed
away yesterday during his Sunday nap.
You are all still present in your presence, yet not mortally available.
You live on no matter how cold or lonely I get.
The beat of Eternity continues in one eternal round,
sweeping up all the grief the world has felt, even in this past week.
Particles of what could have been are engulfed into the
encircling arms of the One who gave us life.
We ache, but we have the option to ache in the loving arms of the One
who has gone before us and suffered all that we know, all that we strive to become and
all that we never make it out to be.
__________________
Hope is the abiding trust we place in something higher, we
know, WE KNOW WITH ALL OUR HEARTS
THAT HIS PROMISES ARE MADE SURE.
