Enough

A friend sent this little poem to me, and it is too sweet.

Reese,

I thought of you with love today

But that is nothing new

I thought about you yesterday and days

Before that too.

I think of you in silence, I often speak your name

All I have are memories and your picture in a frame.

Your memory is my keepsake

With which I'll never part

God has you in His keeping

I have you in my heart.

Several friends have told me they don't want to keep asking how I am doing because they don't want to bother me. Don't worry, it does not at all! I will be honest and tell you if you want to know. I'm as real now as I've ever been.

Some days tears are at the surface, other days they are not as close.

It's still difficult for me to grasp that a regular day means going to Reese's Garden, feeding the ducks with Zach, wondering when her gravestone will come in, thinking about the flowers I want to place in her vase.

I should be cleaning spit up off clothes, talking high pitched baby talk, putting endless bows in Reese's hair, reminding Zach to please quit throwing balls at his sister, and dazed for lack of sleep with a newborn.

Mixing in grief throughout the "normalness" of life. Shopping at the grocery store or the mall and facing a stranger who asks me if Z is my only child. As Zach naps each afternoon I wonder what Reese and I would be doing and can almost see her playing in her little bouncer.

I thank GOD for Z, and I love taking care of him. He needs us. We need him. He does not bring Reese back, but he does soften our pain. What joy he brings us. Countless times I have wondered how people go on after losing their first child when the pain of losing our second child seems unbearable. I know GOD has a different path for all of us, and He has chosen to show us His grace and mercy through Zach.

At the same time I wonder what all I have missed in my friends' lives since Reese was born. I know they don't want to "burden" me with their issues. Everyone has been unbelievably loving, supportive, and understanding. Just what I need as we heal.

I also miss the silly regular things of life, but at the same time what used to be important to me is not anymore. I long for the day when my heart is light and memories of Reese are much more sweet than heartbreaking.

I am so glad there is more than this life. Often I think, "Jason and I have had ENOUGH." At those times GOD always shows me He is Enough.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

2 Corinthians 4:8-10