2 years

Two years and I'm okay. It's okay to be okay today and every day. It's okay to miss him and his love, sense of humor, strength and compassion but it's also okay to smile when I remember those things. The years we were together taught me so much and I'm grateful to God for that. I'm grateful for the time He gave us to be a couple, to be a husband and wife, to be parents, to be members of a church and community, to help the world and to make a difference. And those of us that he affected in love will always have that love no matter if it's been 2 years or 20 years. His memory and legacy will not go away even if there are days when we don't think about it or noticed the little things or his voice is not clear and his face cannot be pictured. 

I need to check in with others today. I need to let them know that I love them into thinking about how hard it must be for each of them to lose a dad, or a child or a sibling or a best friend. Everyone's loss and grief are so different and that's okay too.

what am I carrying?

I listen to a podcast yesterday and she talked about what are we carrying? And it can be from an hour ago or last week or 20 years ago. We can always put these things down. We can pick them back up and put them down again as many times as needed. 

Grieg can be put down and left for a long time and then picked up again at an anniversary or a holiday or an event. 

I think I did that. I think over the summer I put my grief down my anger my loneliness, but now that we're approaching an anniversary I seem to have picked it up again and I'm carrying it and it's heavy. I see the boys carrying it too and as a mom I want to take it from them and I really want to be able to put it down, for all of us, and to carry joy, peace, love, memories of the good times, instead of this heavy sad grief that weighs us down. 

Jesus said take my yoke for my burden is easy. I need to do that. I need to give my load to him. He has the ultimate strength to carry my burdens. I need to put down a lot of things I'm carrying and let Jesus pick them up and carry them for me. Some things I hope he carries away so that I'm not able to pick them back up they'll be over.

 Grief will always be there. It won't ever go away far enough that I can't pick it up, but it feels lighter when I do decide to carry it again and I don't feel I need to carry it for as long as each time.

I know I carry other things too. 

God, I give you my heavy loads. Thank you for giving me the strength to carry them for this long. Thank you for hope, for faith, and for love. Amen.