Tag: grief

Familiar and Foreign

My grief has reached adulthood. 18 years old. I don’t know how we got here, but just like child-rearing, the days have been long and the years have been short. 18 years without my boy!

Watching videos of my Jud Bud today, I was struck by how familiar those moments feel while simultaneously experiencing them as incredibly foreign. I can recall my lived emotions in each documented moment, encountering them all over again, but now with the perspective of loss. Yet, my life with Jud also feels concurrently foreign—strange, unknown, distant—so alien to my life now. It’s remote. It’s a life never fully explored. It stunted. It’s not accessible. It’s obscure.

I feel the intimacy of the familiarity of my life with Jud along with the vastness of its foreignness all at once. It wrecks me.

Instead of raising my boy into adulthood, I’ve raised my grief into adulthood.

Yet as I watched his videos, I also kept imagining all of this brokenness fully redeemed, where hindsight will deem it light and momentary, where all that’s been lost is fully restored. I imagine myself bowed before the King of kings as Jud comes running to me. And whether he’s 18 years old, 36 years old, or still just about to turn 3, oh what joy it will be!

Tags grief, loss of a child

Heartache and Hope

Grief at Sixteen Years

We’ve reached sixteen years. Sixteen. Years. Sixteen years of grief over the loss of my Jud Bud. S-I-X-TEEN.

My grief is now old enough to get a driver’s license. It’s aged enough to have gone through puberty. And it’s mature enough to be exercising more independence. My grief is sixteen years old.

But my boy never got to be sixteen. Or 13. Or 10. Or even five. He never got his driver’s license. Never went through puberty. And never got to seek independence.

Interestingly, my grief is actually like a teenager in my life. I know it well. I’ve lived with it for many years; but it can throw me off guard too. It keeps growing and changing, but the general gist of it’s character has been revealed. It grips my heart in every way. But it has a mind of its own—I can’t control it, even though I unwittingly still try. It is, after all, sixteen years old.

Sixteen.

Sixteen is a lot of years to grieve. To miss. To long. To wonder. To ache. To yearn. To have a pain that still shapes most of my thoughts, my breaths, my life, but is unseen by others much of the time. The pain of losing my child is still very much alive at 16 years. And will be at 20 years. And 30 years. And even 40 years, should I survive that long.

But we all know pain. To miss. To long. To wonder. To ache. To yearn. These are experiences of the human condition that impact every heart. We all want something more. Something sure. That which is whole. Real. Pure. Beautiful. Good. Right. True. And free of pain.

Jud has that.

Jud has that and he’s had that for these sixteen years…a life with the One who came near to suffer with us and ultimately for us. The One who is sure. Whole. Real. Pure. Beautiful. Good. Right. True. …and Jud has that for eternity.

Someday, after these sixteen years have multiplied, I will have that too.

Will you?

Tags death of a child, grief, hope, human condition, longing, sixteen

Heartache and Hope

Twelve Years

Dear Jud Bud…

I find myself longing for a new photograph of the two of us together. Longing. And longing. And longing. But there are none. Nor will there be. I repeatedly gaze at the same handful of pictures of you and me…I’ve been staring at these same ones for twelve years now. It’s heartbreakingly impossible to create new memories with you, while the memories of the life we shared together are increasingly more distant.

We are moving tomorrow. We’ll have a new home and we’ll be one more home removed from the life we shared with you. It’s another big shift in our life…without you. Our world keeps markedly changing and you’re not part of it. As much as I carry you constantly in my heart, and as much as you are indelibly written on my mind, my memories with you are farther and farther away.

Yet, there are certain memories that overcome me like a flood, fully engulfing me, as if I was right back in the moment again.

The day we lost you is one such memory, Juddy. That sacred day, now twelve years ago, when you were torn from my arms by death, can wash over me like a tsunami with all the emotions as raw as the day itself. I remember your last smile for me; it brings me to my knees with it’s poignancy. Your suffering tears my heart into pieces anew. Your lifeless body leaves me longing for your warmth, the rhythmn of your breath, and the beat of your heart. The moment they carried your small frame away from me leaves me desperate for one last kiss, one last stroke of your hair, and one last chance to gaze upon your beauty. This has been my longing now for twelve years.

But there is another day that is indelibly etched in my heart. Yet it’s not a memory…it’s a yet-to-be realized but imminent picture of our reunion. I see you on a dirt path racing around the bend of a mountain, running as fast as you can toward me. You have an enormous grin on your beautifully sweet, innocent face as giggles of immeasurable joy uncontrollably spill out of you. You leap into my embrace because you’ve been longing for it as much as I have. And I shower you with the billions of kisses I’ve been saving for you.

The best part is that our Savior is lovingly looking on with great delight over our reunion. This is death conquered. This is victory. This is what He gave His life for…that we might live with Him in all the fullness of heaven… fully engaging real life with the ones we love—who love Him too.

And so it is that I am flooded by the memory of the day we lost you as if it were today, but I am also overcome by the picture of our reunion for when it will be tomorrow. I’m enveloped in all the seemingly contradictory emotions at once—immersed in joy and sorrow. These paradoxical emotions continue to learn to live ever more comfortably with each other in my soul.

All that to say, I’m always saving up kisses for you, my little man, and I’m warning you that I may have enough kisses to cover you for all of eternity.

You have my heart in every way,
Mommy

Tags death of a child, grief, loss of a child, loss of a loved one

Heartache and Hope

Teenager

Judson 13 Gravesite small

My dear birthday boy…

I’m blowing my mind that you’d be a teenager today, Juddy. How is it even possible that my little boy who loved singing nursery rhymes, playing with his train set, and driving his Matchbox cars all over the carpet would be turning thirteen today?

But it’s the “would be” that puts a lump in my throat. You would be turning 13. You would be going through puberty. You would be in junior high. But there are so many “would be’s” that are unknown, never to be revealed. I don’t know what you would be interested in. I don’t who would be your friends. I don’t know what would be your personality as a teenager. The unrevealed “would be’s” make the distance between us feel more pronounced over time, because the “would be’s” are constantly moving farther and farther from what was.

But “what was” remains beautiful. What was once my precious, little blonde boy who talked as if he had much to communicate in a short amount of time, is still my beloved child with whom I am incredibly proud. I love you so much, Jud Bud! What was is seared on my heart in such a way that you are part of the fabric of my every breath. What was impacts everything that still is for me.

You, my Mr. Man, aren’t doing the things that I fully expected you’d be doing 13 years after you were born, 13 years after that incredible Christmas Eve when I embraced you for the first time. It hurts. It chronically hurts. But the acute pain makes me continually conscious of the Kingdom where you now reside, of the life of wholeness you now live—the life for which I long. And I constantly dream of the day. I dream of the day I will embrace you again, when the many years that have separated us feel like a blip in light of eternity with our Savior.

But right now I’m living in that blip. I’m living in the blip of our separation and it feels like a really long, hard stretch of time. Yet, I want it to matter. I want it to be a blip of substance and purpose; I want it to be a blip that continues to communicate the message of your short life, a message filled with joy, hope, and peace in the midst of pain. I want the blip to reflect Jesus.

You would be turning thirteen today, Jud Bud, and what was your life here on earth still is a blessing. “I love you twelve!”

With all my heart,
Mommy

Tags grief, heaven, loss of a child, teenager, would be

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Tenley Thompson Memorial

Drake and Christina had the honor of attending Tenley Thompson’s memorial service in Spicer, Minnesota on November 4th, 2017. Tenley was a little girl diagnosed with later-onset Krabbe Leukodystrophy who lived to the age of seven and readily gave her smile ot anyone from whom she received love. She touched many hearts and lives in her life and is deeply missed by many.

Tags grief, loss of a child, memorial service

Heartache and Hope

Monumental

Dear Buddy Boo…

Is it really ten??!? Ten years? Ten whole years I’ve lived without you.

I find it hard to grasp, hard to comprehend. I get a lump in my throat when I consider the reality of what ten years means. It’s significant. Ten years is, in fact, monumental.

It’s monumentally painful and it’s monumentally hopeful.

It hurts to reflect on these last ten years and how I’ve had to experience every single moment without you. Nothing has been complete. Nothing has felt whole. Nothing.

And yet, I actually marvel that I’ve made it ten years.

Ten MINUTES after I lost you, I was cleaning your body and putting a fresh diaper and clothes on your lifeless form. It was unfathomable. I expected the fullness of life to return to your flesh and bones; it just had to.

Ten HOURS after I lost you, I was saying goodbye to your body. I didn’t actually realize it would be the last time (this side of heaven) I would lay eyes on your beautiful face or hold your frame—the one I had birthed, held, kissed, and nurtured. It felt impossible this was the end.

Ten DAYS after I lost you, I was in shock. I was in a daze, trying to make sense of what had transpired. How could you be gone? I had been gutted and I had this huge gaping wound. Raw. Exposed. Grave. This gash, the wound of losing you, was unbearable.

Ten MONTHS after I lost you, I thought I would suffocate from the pain. I couldn’t breathe. This heavy weight of loss threatened to strangle me. I was learning to live one moment at a time, but enduring the rest of my life without you felt unsurvivable.

Now it’s been ten years… TEN YEARS! What was unfathomable, is now known. What was impossible, is now doable. What was unbearable, is now my normal. What was unsurvivable, has become livable. I have actually endured ten whole years without you.

My longings for you remain unchanged, Juddy, but what has changed is my ability to live with those longings. I’ve learned, over time, to simultaneously carry joy and pain in a more holistic way. Yet, my varied emotions still seem to reside on the surface of each moment, wherein all my feelings are easily accessible; this can be both beautiful…and challenging (the tears still spill out of me without warning). But because of you, my sweet boy, I experience all of life with greater depth of feeling,

And I deeply feel your absence, Jud Bud. With every breath. Still. But I’ve been doing this for ten years now. I. Have. Been. Doing. This. For. Ten. Years. And I will keep doing this until we are reunited in the presence of the One who holds you now.

It’s monumental, my sweet boy. Ten years without you is monumental. But what’s even more monumental is YOU. You continue to be a monument of God’s love, faithfulness, joy, and hope. I love you so much, Buddy Boo!

With all my heart,
Mommy

Tags angelversary, grief, letters to loved ones, loss of a child

Heartache and Hope

You’d Be Twelve

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My dear little man (who wouldn’t be so little anymore)…

Tomorrow is your birthday.

…And it’s raining heavily outside. I can’t remember it ever raining here on your birthday, at least not since you entered this world. For the most part, we’ve had beautiful days with clear blue skies each Christmas Eve. We’ve been warmed by the sun as we’ve celebrated your birth, lingering near the site set aside specifically for remembering you.

But while the sun has shone brightly on your birthday, it’s rained in my heart ever since you left this world. And as I sit here now, listening to the rhythmic pitter-patter, it feels fitting, as if all the tears I hold in my heart are pouring out. The sky is weeping with me.

Most of the time I weep alone now. When I feel the depths of your absence, I’m by myself in the car, on a solitary walk, bathing, or laying in bed alone. It feels safest to grieve alone.

But I feel God weeping with me. Still.

He sees me. He sees my heartache. He knows. He understands. He cares. He doesn’t expect me to feel anything other than the real, vulnerable emotions that accompany my love for you, a love that supersedes time and space. My hurt makes sense to him. He is with me. He is truly with me, not only in presence but as a partner in my sorrow.

I knew you so well at age two, Juddy, but I have no idea what you’d be like at age twelve. How can that be?! I’m your mama! I should know my boy! I want to know my boy…

I’ve been hurting a lot over the redundancy of your birthdays. This is the tenth one without you. Other than potential rain tomorrow, it looks the same. There are moments I don’t want to do this anymore. It exhausts me. I’m tired of celebrating without you. However, most moments I can’t imagine anything else. It feels right. It’s what Christmas Eve has become…celebrating the boy you were, wondering about the boy you’d be, and longing for the boy you are.

Oh how I long for the boy you are…when I will fully know you and all the mysteries surrounding your life and death will be no more. And I long for my Savior who will fully unveil His glory, shedding light in all the dark, obscure places that brings this weeping.

But for now I weep. Still. And tonight the earth weeps with me.

I love you so much, my Jud Bud.

With all my heart,
Mommy

Tags grief, loss of a child

Heartache and Hope

Radiant Shades of Color

Color the Wolrd

My dear Buddy Boo…

I miss you so, so much.

Nine years. You’ve be home with Jesus for nine years now.

I got blind-sided by my grief yesterday at church. The second song began and the floodgates opened; I was a blubbering mess. It actually caught me a bit by surprise, as though I was a piñata—suddenly struck—and all that’s held inside came tumbling out. I couldn’t stop. Sorrow spilled from me.

And those emotions are always inside. The triggers vary. But the contents of grief are ever-present in my heart. I miss you. I yearn for you.

And my yearning led me to watch several of your videos today…it wrecked me. I vividly remember each of those moments like they were yesterday and I delight in the memories, but at the same time you feel so heartbreakingly distant. The life I am living is thousands of miles from the life I lived with you. And my path took another big turn this year which necessitated more surrender. This journey continues to require me to open my hand to God and release you; letting go remains part of my process.

But I will never let go of the essence of you, Judson. My world is colored by you, like a dull painting that was brought to life. You make the blues of the ocean brighter, the reds of the sunset deeper, and floral yellows, oranges, and greens more vibrant. My world is saturated with especially radiant shades because of you.

I breathe you in with every breath as I cling to the God who made you. He has used you to bring eternity near; it’s palpable in a way I could never have grasped without you. I want Jesus. I’ve gained more of Jesus because of you, Juddy. This is the good gift. This is the joy. This is the peace, the grace, the hope, the life…more of Jesus. And He used YOU, to reveal himself to me.

I am so proud to be your mama, my sweet man. Thank you for coloring my world until I am in the world of perfect color.

Just a few more weary days until I see you, Jud Bud.

All my love,
Mommy

Tags angelversary, grief, loss of a child