Reflections.

I had a feeling the emotions of today and especially tomorrow would lead to a blog post. No matter how much I say I won't, I keep finding my thoughts drifting back to one year ago. "Okay, at this time last year this was happening." Even though tomorrow is officially one year since we lost Dad, I really don't think the emotion changes between today and tomorrow. And there is emotion. There has to be. Yes it is just another day without him--just like Father's Day, his birthday, and Christmas. Those are special days too, but I miss him with my whole heart every day. It doesn't ever change. I miss our Monday thrift store shopping for wedding vases. I miss the excitement I felt as 11:30 rolled around and I knew I would be hearing the garage door open and "Hooty-who!" yelled up the stairs. I miss giving him a kiss after he had just gulped water and being grossed out by his wet mustache. Oh, that ugly mustache! I miss him covering his teeth when he was laughing big. I miss the support I felt from him and the reassurance that the right job was waiting for me. I so wish I could just let him know that, once again, he was right. I ended up right where I should be--at home in Waynesburg. He would be so happy and so proud. I got a sweet email from a student and my first thought was, "I know he would be so proud." He would say, "See all that worrying and everything worked out." I miss my sweet Poppa today. Yesterday. Tomorrow. The pain doesn't ever leave. You just have to hope that the joy you feel in life triumphs over the pain; and most days I think it does.
As I will undoubtedly continue to reflect over the next few days about one year ago, I hope I also can reflect on all of the good. My little bio on here says that I can't wait to marry the most amazing man--and I did! The overwhelming joy and love I felt on my wedding day is a feeling that no amount of grief can ever touch. The power of love continually beats the sting of sorrow any day. I wore the dress that I know my mom would have loved and I was walked down the aisle by the world's most most amazing big brother--a brother who makes our parent's memory shine through. That's love. Not sadness. We are taking on this life together. We are in this eyes and hearts opened to all that we can. I also wrote of "trying to break into the higher education world" and I did! I absolutely love my job. The feeling that you get working with college students, future college students and their parents is incredible. One year ago, my future in higher education looked bleak. I didn't know where I would be and what I would do. Now I have returned home and am continually reminded of the promise of our future. There is a lot of sadness in the world. There are troubles every single day. There are unthinkable acts of crime and tragedy. But among and above all of that, there is good. There is love.

I lost both of my parents within a year and a half of each other. As of tomorrow, my dad has been gone for a year. In that year there have been changes. There would have been changes even if he was still here. As someone who runs kicking and screaming away from change, I have begrudgingly come to accept that it will always happen. One year ago I was not as scarred as I am today. One year ago I was not as scared of the future as I am today. One year ago I thought my dad was shaking off a cold. One year ago tomorrow, my heart was ripped open. But one year ago today, I don't think I knew how to love quite like I do today. Unconditionally. Whole-heartedly. I don't know how to stop bad things from happening. I don't know how to make sure everyone is safe all the time. I can't know that. But I do know how to love. I have a lot of emotions. Sadness is the easiest emotion to welcome into our hearts, but joy is the most rewarding.

The has been the hardest year of my life. The year after we lost my mom was equally as hard, but navigating life without both parents is gut-wrenching. In that same thought, this has also been the most joyous year of my life. The most deep down, heart-filling, joyful year. We celebrated our wedding, my brother's PhD and subsequent graduation, and time spent growing and healing together. How can that be? How can your heart be broken and full at the same time? I don't have answers. I don't have a magical antecdote that allows me to mourn and smile all at the same time. It seems insane. What happened to us isn't fair. No children (no matter how old we get, we will always be their children) should lose both of their parents so young. But we did. We didn't get a say. No one does. I shouldn't want to get out of bed. I should be angry. I should be sick to my stomach from crying. I have every right to. But (most days) I do get out of bed and I'm not angry. Most days my head doesn't hurt from crying. We live in a dark and sinful world. We live in a world where anger, hate, and sadness trump joy and love. But I don't want to live in that world. I don't want to be afraid. I want the love of my parents to shine through me each day. Most importantly, I want to love of Christ to be my guide.

I struggle a lot when people say "This is all part of God's plan." I tend to think that people stick to that when things are going their way or as a cop out when they don't want to challenge themselves to be better. Really, it's God's plan that my mom would die of cancer and my dad would die of a heart attack? I can't buy into that. We live in a fallen world. We live in a world that needs Christ so badly. The world that we live in lets sadness win. The world that we are called to live in, however, lets love win. Love wins. Easy as that. Right? Hopefully. When people say things are all part of God's plan I know they mean well, but I wish that I could question it a bit more. I don't think that God's plan is to have us endure tragedy and suffering. Not directly. I think that, through grace, we are given the ability to forgive, to encourage, and to love. I should be jaded to the idea of love, but I'm not. I refuse to believe in the ineptitude of love. Christ loved us so purely that he gave His life for our sins. Who am I to not love my neighbor? Who am I to not listen to someone's story and be moved? Who am I to not embrace joy and love? I think that God's "plan" for me is to live in His love. If that means showing my scars and revealing my pain in hopes of prevailing love, then that is what I must do. The loss of my parents does not define me. The sting of their death does not consume me. The pride in their life and the awe of their love drives me. I want to be the type of person that makes you feel good after talking with me. If my gift is listening, talking, and advising then I want to treasure that gift. My prayer is that I can strive for genuine love for people. For genuine desire to be someone that makes you smile. I have a lot in my life that can make me cry, but I have way more that will make me smile. I try not to worry about the future (it's tough!) and think about where we might be one year from now. I never thought one year ago that this is where I would be, but here I am.

I want my parents to be proud of me. I know they are proud of me. They are proud of all of us. Our hearts are irrevocably broken, but broken or whole, they are filled with live. How can we survive without our parents? With love. With joy. We can choose to focus on the hole that has been left, or we can fill it with laughter and warm memories. We can create new memories with them in our hearts. We can make the people we love and the people we see feel the warmth and joy that he all share.

We can choose to be happy or we can choose to not be happy. Funny how things keep coming back to that.