A Light for My Path

I’ve had a really hard time this week with writer’s block. I’ve sat down at my computer several times to write my blog post, and the words just wouldn’t come. I prayed for God to guide me. I looked through my list of post ideas. Nothing felt right. I blamed my fuzzy-brainedness on the nasty respiratory virus I’ve had. But then it hit me. I’m coming up on a trigger date.

You might think that as time passes, trigger dates lessen in their intensity. And it’s true. For the first year, the 11^th of each month tore me apart. One more month farther away from having my younger daughter in my life. Her birthday and holidays were unbearable. The one-year anniversary of her death broke me in two all over again.

But, after almost eight years since she moved to Heaven, I don’t feel like I’m drowning anymore when a significant date comes around. Still, there is a visceral reaction that happens often even before my mind catches up to what’s wrong. If you haven’t lost a child, and I pray you don’t, all of this probably sounds melodramatic.

I looked at the calendar and it dawned on me. February 10^th is Rachel’s wedding day. She and her husband should be celebrating their 8^th anniversary. Instead, they only had two months together as a married couple.

Is a child’s wedding anniversary a significant date for a parent? Certainly, their wedding day is. But honestly the anniversaries are more celebratory for the couple than for the parents. I’ve been blessed to watch my older daughter and her husband mature in their marriage, raise four wonderful children, and marvel at how quickly twenty years have sped by. But my heart doesn’t skip a beat when I realize their anniversary is coming up.

Because they get to have one.

It’s the “should have beens” that tear me apart. The “what ifs.” Those hollow dates on the calendar that come around each year with significance, but without celebration. Without words.

Because how do you describe absence?

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Laura