This time last year...

This time last year, Josiah was still here.  I was dancing victory dances in my living room for winning the evil bedbug debate.  I was packing his things trying to savor sweet moments through tears and taking pictures of him wrestling with his daddy, who was home with us because God gave us a special snow day so we could be all be together one last time.  

Forgive me for picking at scabs.  The calendar makes it impossible not to.

While his departure happened so quickly on January 28th, 2011, it has taken months and months for him to really be gone.  Little shoes found in closets, pictures on the wall, the stain on the carpet from his juice he spilt that I was so reluctant to clean, his little voice I could still hear after he left.  He lingered here for so long. It is the most difficult thing to balance grief and gratefulness.  The pendulum still continues to swing a year later.

I have Josiah one-year-old birthday picture on my refrigerator.  Just when I thought I was ready to take it down, Molly found it in a drawer and put it back up.  So every time I see it, this is the conversation that ensues:

"I miss him," the empty place in my heart groans though no words come out.

"I know," He speaks back to the empty place.

"You make all things beautiful in Your time."  I say it to remind Him, but as soon as I speak the words in my heart, I think it's Him reminding me.

"I do.  I will.  I AM." He says like light piercing darkness.

It used to hurt like a punch in the gut that would take my breath away.  Most of the time now though, it feels more like hitting my funny bone, like my body saying, "hey, remember you have an elbow?"  I can control when and where I let it happen.  Mostly, I let it happen here.  So thank you, patient, encouraging reader for letting me air my grief.  I know when to knock that place it so I can remember it, feel it, rub it, let God console me, and let Him tell me how He has created all things for His purpose and in His time.          

I was re-reading my friend Jen's post a year after her little girl went to Heaven, and so many things she said resonate with me.  

"A year is no time.  A year is so much time."

Oh it's so true!  How can a year both linger painfully long and still feel like warp speed ahead?!?!  It must be the pendulum effect.  Grief and gratefulness.  One slows time.  One propels it.  With one you are in the arms of the shepherd, the other, you're enjoying the grass.  This year I've learned how sweet both times can be!

The anniversary of Josiah leaving our home and finding another is sad because I remember all those difficult details about the box we packed, saying goodbye, crying, and crying, and crying....but I also feel like it's a stake in the ground.

Like Jen said in her post, "I just want the 28th to come and go so I can look and say, “I made it through a year. I can make it through another one.”


We made it through one year without him- every season, every birthday, every holiday-  we can make it through another and another and another.  


God was good that day Josiah left.  He has been good since.  He will be good still.