thirty-one

sixteen years ago today, my heart was ripped open wide.
the news
that i would not see
my mama
again

ripped wide open
my heart...
my hurt.

the mom that shared
love
of

music
dessert
laughter
rollerblades
creativity
did-i-mention dessert
hugs
hope
rocking chair comfort
joy of living
honest conversation
being ok with being a little nutty
permission to yell my
frustration-filled head off
until communal laughter
took the edge off
i-think-i-may-have-mentioned dessert
voices lifted in song
harmony
love of life
God of hope

the mom that shared
love
of
me
just
being
me

was gone.

thirty-one. a number etched in ache on my twenty-year-old heart then, and on my thirty-four-year-old heart now, and etched, simply... forever.

hearts heal... time--i wouldn't say time does the healing. time is a warp, with grief. some days in the soon-aftermath pass like years, and some seem just nanoseconds: "but i JUST saw her--she. was. JUST here..." God does the healing. and for those who don't know God, i don't know...

then sometime in the sixteen-years-aftermath of foggy memories and forgotten voices,
a moment so crisply, clearly resonates with her love, her smile, her vibrance for life that it
takes
your
breath away
as you behold

the one who calls you
mama.

• • •

i am thankful for.... (#199-211)

twenty years (a whole-child-lifetime!) with one wonderful mama

sharing a birthday on the sixteenth day of the eighth month, with her

the year of the horrible heartbreak; the year of the incredible love story beginning: same year

fourteen years on the fourteenth day of the sixth month with soulmate-of-mine, celebrating soon

three treasures that call me mama

countless embraces, encouragements, shoulders-for-tears, hearts shared, love offered

invincible summer in the midst of winter

the kind of amazing hope that only God can grow, resurrect

privilege of sharing the sixteenth day-of-candles with my sweet six-year-old son
and almost sharing it with my (seventeenth day) sweet youngest dear one

the fact that sixty-five years ago today, on day thirty-one...

a baby boy was born, who would grow up and have a baby boy, who would grow up to be the man with whom i would have not one but two baby boys to cherish and delight in, along with their sister, in the glorious messy gift of family in all its honest forms, giving one of many million surprise

reasons to celebrate a birth, life day in the midst of a death day...

and



31 flavors



yes, it is....a good. night.