Six Months: Part I

 Sunday was exactly six months to the day since I last held my baby girl. Six months. 

There's a line from a book I recently read about grieving the death of a child and it has stuck with me.  "Depression will come; you don't have to give it a permanent address". * It feels odd to say this week has been really hard. They're all really hard, but the sorrow has settled especially heavy for me this week. It doesn't mean there isn't joy, laughter, or happiness. I've even written before on the intermingling of joy and sorrow. My three other children are currently laughing together while building the world's largest tower of plastic cups. My heart smiles to see them enjoying one another's company. 

Yet, my tears seem to be in endless supply. Again. My countenance is downcast. 

While driving last week an overwhelming wave of sorrow swept over me. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be swallowed by the ground adjoining my daughter's burial site. It's waiting for me. It's now got my name set in stone upon it. You see, I had not been back since the day we left her little body in the ground. She isn't there, only her shell. This I know for sure. I've never been one drawn to nor repulsed by cemeteries as I seem to have fallen on neutral ground, but I've also never had a child lowered into the ground before now. I've had the honor of meeting two fellow grieving parents who reference their child's grave as his resurrection site. How true. I love this designation, and all the hope encompassed within. I have started referring to Abigail's grave in my mind as her resurrection site. And up until Sunday I had not returned to that small patch of ground. 

It may sound odd, but I was waiting in part for the gravestone to be set. It seemed "tidier", as though that was the last thing to finalize: no "loose ends". I needed it to be "perfect": as if there is such a thing. (That sounds so ridiculous when I actually see it in print.) I needed unlimited time and pretty weather. There is a myriad of reasons; suffice to say when we were notified the stone was set in place I knew it was time for me to go. 

This place where an actual piece of my heart now lies should be considered the bleakest, the darkest of places; for if we grieve as the world grieves that is so. My prayer? "Lord, please meet me there. Confirm my hope that your light can penetrate even there, especially there. Tender Jesus, hold me in that place." A part of me sensed if I could acknowledge (dare I say "feel"?) his presence as I laid beside my child's grave my broken heart would be reminded that he is indeed Jehovah Shammah: Jehovah is there. 

As I drove towards the cemetery in the early hours before the sun rose, I listened to Brandon Lake's "Gratitude". I wept. I wept for what I was about to do. I wept for what had already happened. I wept because I asked myself, "If this song had played Sunday morning six months ago and I knew what the day would hold- would I still 'throw up my hands and praise you again and again'? Would I still choose to have my heart sing hallelujah?" I hope so, I truly do. But I don't know. The fact I was unsure caused me to yearn for my Savior even more. 

I arrived. After six months I was relieved to pull into the area surrounded by woods and lake, lie down beside her resurrection site, and settle into the quietness of dawn. My soul yearned for such a quietness as the guttural cries of this mommy's broken heart echoed across the stillness of the morning. 

Weeping. Then silence. The silence was wondrous. While I desperately wished I had no reason to be there and instead I had awakened to four noisy children that Sunday morning, that is no longer my reality. Hence, I laid on the dew-covered grass just after sunrise beside a small grave where new grass has yet to grow. I looked at the large stone. I remembered the day we went to pick it out- a day it felt that very stone sat upon my chest. One of Abigail's little friends was celebrating her fourth birthday while I was picking out a gravestone for my daughter. It was surreal. We had already thought through logistics and went ahead with one large enough for my husband and I so that when the time came it would be one less thing our children would need to concern themselves with. I sat there and looked at a stone that should have two dates under my name, but instead I'm still living in the space in between. Beside my name is hers followed by two dates: the dash complete, but seemingly too short from my perspective. 

There was a chill in the air as fall approaches. The air smelled clean, earthy- like trees. The golden sun peaked between the leaves, and I wanted to walk barefoot in the wet grass. I don't even know why. I looked up and saw the remnant of the moon lingering in the sky, just as I was lingering there. And like the sun peeking between the trees, the light of God's presence had the power to drive away the darkness of a cemetery holding my child: HIS child. 

I laid on my back, my left hand reaching over her spot imagining her small hand in mine. The picture of us one day rising from this spot, hand in hand, came to mind. I reached also to the right for a much larger hand that will one day lie there if things go "as assumed". (How do I even word this without sounding so morbid and strange?) Silence and stillness surrounded me then, but one day it will hold the loudest, most beautiful, most welcome music, a summons- a harmonious "blow of the trumpet" as sometimes referenced. 

While I would have preferred Christ to return that very moment, I have a feeling I'm called to wait. The wait seems so excruciatingly long. I don't profess to know exactly the specifics of the day Christ returns for his people, but I know it will be better than anything I imagine. One day we will rise from that spot, and that little cemetery will hold more joy, more awe, more peace, and more celebration than any piece of ground I currently tread. I imagined holding a precious little hand in mine, my face turned to her as she says, "Come on, Mommy!" "Yes, dear one, let's go!" Without any trace of sorrow these bodies will stand up having shed the grave with no effort of our own and will walk through this now wet grass eyes affixed on the Rising Son! 

I grieve as one who has hope. If you don't have that hope I imagine this entire blog sounds like foolishness and for that I also grieve. 

I walked barefoot through the grass which offered a swift return to my present reality. I sat there with dirty, cold, wet feet thankful my husband arranged for me to get away for this time. I sat there with my Bible in hand wondering, "what is appropriate to read six months after Abigail went to Heaven?" I flinched. My heart still ached to hold her. I decided to read the same Psalms I read the last morning I ever spent with all four of my children together, my last breakfast with Abigail, our last morning before the worst day of our life. 

"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night [...] these things I remember as I pour out my soul; [...] why are you downcast, O my soul? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore, I will remember you..." Psalm 42: 1-6

*Gone But Not Lost by David Wiersbe